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serenechaos wrote:

A great match for Asian culture/music? Makoto Tanaka (Builder of the Nessie cabinet) was at the controls, playing bamboo flutes, bells & such.

And I am not kidding. Each time someone invite me and try to impress me with their new Lowthers speaker they unavoidably play the CDs by MA Records.

serenechaos wrote:

My wife requested a CD she was familiar with, and he played it, then a Nora Jones someone else had, and as the first track was ending, he turned to me, pointed to my bag and shrugged.  I gave him a Rachmaninoff CD which I was sure would push the little single driver over its limits, but I wanted to see how it handled it.  As the speakers started having trouble, he became very interested, ask to see the CD case, and wrote the name down.

Very funny.

serenechaos wrote:

He said that the 5" was the most expensive field coil driver, and the 9" was the least expensive.  AND, that pretty much everything in them was different...  The frames, the wire, the paper that the cones and whizzers are made from for example are processed ~200 times in the lower grade model, and ~400 times in the higher grade model.  --So, I wasn't just listening to "more permendur", and a larger driver, in a larger box, with a different amp, but a totaly different pair of speakers...

Well, it makes more sense.  I do like the Feastrex’s leaser suspension. Many movie companies did it in 30s and had some of those drivers – they were quite pleasant. With a good selection of paper and the most important the size of paper the result might be extremely good. I remember I used 8” and 10” Telefunken 1939 driver and was surprised: the 8” was OK but the very same 10” was garbage. The paper driver bend and a driver that it too large for the shoulder of the cone (+ angle and a few other things) does not sound good.

There is an interning subject with Feastrex – if they use their beloved Permendur to balance the field-coil problems. I still do not buy that Permendur narrative. The people who know Permendur cores advised me that Permendur core might be too fast for subjective listening, making transients ultra-fast, hard to possess by brain. Feastrex seems like pile up Permendur in the driver and Chris report “higher resolution”.  The higher resolution is in the same world as the faster transients but why Feastrex need faster transients of no one complained about transient’s deficiency before. Well, I think what happed is following. The perm magnets Feastrex drivers most likely are OK transients-wise. The electromagnet version of the same driver is mostly (like any other electromagnet version) is transient-softer. So, Feastrex found a way to get some speed of the transients by loading the driver with more Permendur.  (Let presume that more Permendur works). The top of the line AudioTechnica headphones are a wonderful example of sound that the Permendur has raped.

Anyhow, I personally do not feel that Permendurisation is the right way to go. Cost, difficulty to manufacture, a need of extra power supply, faster loose of bass on higher permeability (this is why it is not boomy anymore) are the penalties.  If the ‘as is’ field-coil Feastrex does need any help in transient department then why do not use this driver with higher transformer ratio and by more idling of output tube to get the transients back? 

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