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I got today the Fostex F120A with all latest and greatest modifications on it. I put is in a temp .7 cu feet box with pretty much open back to see what the Fostex will be all about. I drive it from a bad consumer SS, composite-chip Hitachi amp from 80s – bad sound but great huge analog meters.

OK, I admit that the amplification is crap but the sound that I got from Fostex F120A not good even with this amp. The initial connecting of the driver actually made me laugh – it was beyond all expectations bad. Surprisingly the driver was changing it sound right in front my eyes – I never see it like this and in ~60 minutes it was more or less stable in sound (It was burned-in by Planet10). However the sound is not what I necessary too toiled off. It has a strong effect of “paper cone sound” – something that I really hate in all of those drivers. The commentator of WGHB sound like he had his lips covered with thick motor oil – very unpleasant.  In the upper range it has sound like it talks inside of  2 gallon plastic contender with it’s walls covered with aluminum foil – very unpleasantly freaky feeling. The effect is greatly depends from how far I am from the driver axis. The effect is gone is I am 7 feet away and the drivers are turned in other side. Then the dynamics - it is a nightmare. I wonder what the people who comment positively about F120A ever heard that they commented positively about this driver. I do feel that only because the dynamic characteristics that the driver demonstrated so far it shall be absolutely disqualified from used. It is 87dB sensitive but it feels like it is 72dB sensitive… Usually to drive the speakers in this case with very powerful class A SS amp might help a bit (where is my Lamm M1.1) but with 10W of power handling and with my objective to have all time all playback it will not be a chance.

I do not know. These drivers need a lot of ignorance or a lot of imagination to call it “acceptable”.  It kind of even and smooth in a way, it has no good “absolute tone” even up to level of JBL5, but it looks like it  has no specific tonal preferences. I think that this Fi-Hi fairness was something that attracted people to Fostex F120A but it is too small in my coordinate system of judgment. Well, I would not say that the F120A annoys me – it does not and probably any other driver right off the box and in a random box would annoy me more.  Probably I need to give to F120A more time and see where it will be in a week, I need add to it bass channels, to high-pass F120A and see where it will lend.  My only hope that if I high-pass F120A high enough then it might pick up some dynamics. So, far I am not impressed, in fact disappointed.  The way I am playing it now it is the way in which all Fostex users use their drivers – a full-range only they also add a back loaded bass garbage disposal. Probably I need to learn from them now what kind of “single-driver institutionalized sound” they consider as a reasonable Sound….

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