Paul S wrote:

First, I just have to ask: What are the odds that the same AA guy I just referred to obliquely in my previous post turns up immediately thereafter?

Paul S wrote:

Unlike Romy, I have no problem with "yellow drivers", per se, rather it is the fact that people insist on calling them "full-range" that sticks in my craw.  And here is this pip-squeak 4" driver touted as God's gift to music, and here are grown men vying to enter a lottery for the chance to buy one at great expense. And, oh yes, the hyperbole; as though exotic construction will somehow suspend the laws of Nature.

Paul S wrote:

But now I am wondering if any of the drivers in question - forget the enclosures and "FR" business - might actually do some part of the sound spectrum well.  Of course this question derives from personal experience at taming Lowthers, and to elaborate, my question is whether targeted listening might indeed reveal something these powerful and carefully-constructed midgets could excell at - say, 1k - 10k Hz.  Not that I would want a crossover at 1k, but some of you hornys out there don't blink at this. In my mind, this situation loops back through and mirrors "the idea of the idea", where someone sticks with a formula because the formula itself seems so attractive, unto an end in itself.  In this case I'm curious about the "opposite", if the current made object could be commandeered and put to better use elsehow. Curiously wondering,

Paul S wrote:

"Vitriolic" is certainly the wrong word to apply to my "attitude"/post(s), Dominic.  "Amused" is more like it.  I am amused by claims that ANY 4" driver makes a stand-alone "Full-Range" speaker able to  "present the orchestra in all it's living glory", etc, etc.  And that sort of drivel is what I refer to as "hyperbole", because it perfectly fits the definition of the word. While I think I understand why you compare 4" drivers to SETs, I am not sure that the potential for each of those topologies is equal in terms of frequency response range in a hi-fi system.

Paul S wrote:

HOWEVER:  No reason to believe one of those little drivers can't do anything right ...........and dealt with, it can be a pretty nice wide range driver.  Basically, I found it much easier to figure out and adapt for my purposes than horns. But the key words here are "limitations" and "adapt".  Hence, my previous post. Best regards, Paul S

Paul S wrote:

claims that ANY 4" driver makes a stand-alone "Full-Range" speaker able to  "present the orchestra in all it's living glory"

Christopher Witmer with his upcoming US show initiated a new wave of Feastrex propaganda.  I have mention Christopher in context of his Maxonic drivers before:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=4601

Christopher suggests that that the new reiteration of his Feastrex drivers is better than ever and so on …and so on …and so on…. I very much do not accuse him, as some other idiots do, in his desire to administer a marketing hype for one or another Japanese manufacturer – why not let him to do it? I truly care less who buy or see those drivers and the only interesting ingredient in that whole saga – what Sound those products are capable off.

I have to admit that I can’t talk about Feastrex Sound objectify as I did not heard them recently. The only evidences about their sound that are available to me are circumstantial. Looking at those circumstantial evidences I do not feel comfortable nether about the Feastrex offering not about the Christopher’s comments about the, let look at them specifically.

A disappointment that that I get from Christopher Witmer’s attitude is that he is going ecstatic over his toys, attributing the source of ecstasy to drivers. I am sure that is the Feastrex do not sell driver but for instance cable elevators then Christopher would appoint the cable elevators as the “responsible for party” for an “excellent sound”. I also question Chris’ sense of ecstatic satisfaction with Feastrex’s results. He demonstrated the identically ecstatic mood before SEC 2006 and then, after being exposed to the results at the show, he admitted that Feastrex demonstrated not very interesting sound. I do not know if the result at that CES was indicative for general Feastrex level, but if Chris say so then I prelim he does not lie. Anyhow, nowadays, the story invented that “the drivers sound this time different” but we are adults, are we?

Anyhow, Mr. Witmer’s attribution of entire sound results ONLY to the drivers is something that makes me very uncomfortable. It is like the Morons who buy expensive ALE or GOTO drivers, pile them up in a random order, with no good electronics, shitty horns, with no crossovers and then sit in front of them, crying about the “glorious sound”… Sorry, it does not work with me, as I know too much buy means of what efforts Sound might be created. None of the installations with Feastrex driver that I have seen (pictures) impressed me as interesting (enclosure, electronics, positioning and etc)…. Last day Mr. Witmer got specifically exuberant about the sound that he got during the reticent Mid West show but if it is true then: was that sound of the Feastrex driver or it was just  Christopher’s FIRST exposure to a more or less capable amplification (Lamm M2.1)? BTW, how dull those drivers are if they need 200W of PP to drive them?

Let now to talk about the Feastrex drivers as Christopher insist. There are a few very “open” issues in there.

Christopher Witmer wrote:

The most important difference is the paper. The paper used in Feastrex's drivers is totally unique. If you have two musical instruments that look the same, and one is made of lauan plywood while the other is made of the finest grade of Picea abies, that one difference alone will cause them to have a hugely different sound. Lowther uses the same paper in their whizzer cones and in their main cones; Feastrex uses two distinctly different handmade Japanese papers for the two cones. I encourage you to look at the link to learn about the amazing paper used in the Feastrex main cones.

Yes, it might be the case and Christopher provides a link to the page that poetically describes the manufacturing processes of Feastrex paper.

http://www.washiya.com/shop/iwanohousho/kodawarienglish.html

However, if people were familiar with technological stages of cellulose manufacturing at any today chemical plant then they would witness that it is 10 times more evolved and more complicated processes than what Feastrex does. Sure, no one adds to commercial paper the “ejaculate of blue tuna” or to spay the driver paper with “shark fins soup” but no one say that it is necessary for sound. Perhbas the paper that Feastrex's drivers use is totally unique but “uniqueness” does not automatically presume any contributive values. Is that paper good (better) for Sound or not? The answer to this question can’t be explained by the argument of uniqueness but it would need some other arguments that Feastrex so far failed to present.

Christopher Witmer wrote:

The range of motion of the diaphragms is much different. Lowther moves within a range of +/- 1mm; Feastrex drivers are totally happy moving in a range twice that large.

Hm.. perhaps.. I am from different religion and from where I stay a larger motion of the diaphragms is not better but worse as it subjects diaphragms to more mechanical distortions…

Christopher Witmer wrote:

Feastrex makes Lowther (and AER) drivers look inexpensive by comparison. Whether that difference is justifiable is something only each user can decide, but it is certainly an inevitable difference. For example, the manufacturer's cost of the Permendur used in one of the all-Permendur motors (i.e., a cost of thousands of Euros) is higher than the end user's purchase price for a pair of another company's "high end" fullrange drivers.

It is incorrect. Permendur is not an exotic or overly expensive material. It is a magnetic alloy that is very wildly used in radio transformers. It is still, possible that Feastrex has some advancement in their motors but I never hear anyone, including Christopher to say anything about those advancements.

Christopher Witmer wrote:

… for some people who want extreme levels of performance from a fullrange driver and are willing to pay a significant premium to achieve it, Feastrex represents a possible solution.

Why an “extreme levels of performance” should be necessarily associated with a “fullrange driver”? If a person is willing to get a full range string sound from of orchestra then he use many different size of string instruments without trying coming up with one super-fiddle that would cover 20 octaves. If the Feastrex driver are good and the Feastrex managed to “get” a good combination between magnet, paper and suspension then it is fine. Still, this combination is frequency-dependent, as much as the anti-scatting adjustment is “perfect” only for a single point on the disk. If the Feastrex has OK drivers then it is necessary to find out where they do OK and where they are presumably more interesting then some competing options.

Unfortunately no one talks about the sound of those drivers or about a way to use them in context of “serious” objectives. People like Christopher mostly blab about marketing hype of “extreme levels of performance” and the AA-level Morons juts suck up and repeat everything what they told. Feastrex still produces drivers, Christopher Witmer still is trying to expose them to public. Now Christopher is attacking the Mountain's Audio Bottomesters with stories about the Emperor Jimmu’s adventures and the sounds of Lamm-powered Feastrex. Since it will be first time when the Midwest White Trashes (after their PA amplifiers) will be hearing Lamms I presume that … the new revision of the Feastrex should be sounding “better”….

I don´t wonder at all that they achieved the best results with traditional Washi and not with modern paper. The only material that comes close is Nepali Lokta paper. And labour cost are near to nothing there. Would be funny to fight against the audio establishment from the roof of the world.

Said news indeed.

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=1724.0

Last few months quite a lot of audio folks have gone to the “better world” by none-natural means, stating from being lost and frozen during hiking and ending by such a radical  way as the accident with Chris Witmer.

Despite I never shared Chris enthusiasm with neither Feastrex nor with his desire to serve industry interests but I liked him and we had a number of stimulating conversations.  The 7 daughters and the truck incident? Well, what can we do? It is what it is. Those events just highlight for us, who still alive, the fragility of out lies, the fragility that we probably shell celebrate more than we do.