Hm, this is interesting.

I have my 2 shitty temporary monitors in Hamster position sublimated with a par of LF sections from MiniMe. They are not perfectly set up but quite listenable in it’s ad-hoc configuration driver by consumer PP SS amp. Here is what I found interesting. During the last 2 weeks I turned the big Macondo just 4.5 times.

First time it was 2 weeks back during broadcasting Bernard Haitink conducting LIVE Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. I turned Macondo an hour early and warmed it up. After the concert I shut the Melquiades down.

Second time it was during the same week during Osmo Vänskä conducting LIVE San Francisco Symphony with Emanuel Ax played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22. I started to listen it with my MiniMeed Hamster, like what I heard from San Francisco and turned the Macondo’s help

The half time was during the MET LIVE broadcast of Dvorak’s Rusalka. I was driving, liked the performance in car radio, got home, turned the Macondo/Milqs up but the MET’s sound was so disgusting that I shut down the Milqs and went back to the Hamster listening

The third time was this week during the LIVE broadcast of Hans Vonk lead Rotterdam Philharmonic with Mikhail Pletnev crashing through the Grieg’s Piano Concerto. I was listing it on the Hamsters but in the middle of the concerto I realized that after the Grieg Rotterdam will play Holsts’ The Planets. I turned the Milq on and tune the cooling fans off – speeding the Milq got hotter. I was shooting to listen the Neptune movement with it corals decay to darkness with full-bloomed Macondo and the fully-heated Milqs. It was a perfect timing and it sounded spectacular.

The last time it was yesterday when I was trying to prove to myself one more time my feelings that Stravinsky was not good conductors. A friend of my argued that Stravinsky was and proposed me to listed his “…Du Soldat” from 1961 with Israel Baker. I was playing the Colombia 6272 LP and of come for that evaluation I need the full Macondo’s authority.

That was it. All the rest time I was listening my “bad” speakers and I did not have a temptation to change anything – it was enough for me.  I played a lot of music those days and there were some other very good programs, including some LIVE programs but the Hamsters were enough. This brings an interesting forecast how much Macondo I might be using after I finch the MiniMe project with F120A driver. If the MiniMe will be fully balanced and calibrated then will it leave me with one or two deserving sessions per week what I will be encouraged to turn my playback at it full force? Well, whatever it will be but it certainly permit me to use those “hard to get” DHT tubes in less spearing way.

Anyhow, I am trying to evaluate what would be my listening pattern with main system and MiniMe after they will be fully running. I never had a sufficiently good “pilot system” and if you have an experience of prolong living with second playback then can you share what your listening hobbit are from the perspective of main vs. pilot playback?

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….

I was running the F120A for a whole day and now I can’t stress more than I did it in the subject of this post this - driver is ultimate nightmare. In full range it was just too brutal to list it and it sounded sometimes like mechanically distorted. So, was crossing it at 100Hz, at 200Hz and at 400Hz. At 650Hz it looks like the auditable paper colorations got substantially subdued. I was trying to listen it – better but still it is possible to listen it only if to remember how much I paid for this crap. The driver, regardless of the price has truly bad sound due to not even a compression but some kind of effect of “Dynamics black whole”. The damn F120A plays all sound at the same dynamics level and I would say that in the same tonal color as I see absolute impotency in color contrasts. How the hell they do it? How the hell the people who use this driver claim that it is an acceptable driver? Is anybody would like to take this piece of shit from my hands? I will got o garbage can and to find the F120A boxes if not too late and to get rid of it. I afraid to keep it in my room as more listening of it and I will take a blowtorch and will vandalize this piece of the “audiophile glory”.

floobydust wrote:

In any case, you bought an expensive pair of Fostex (F120A) drivers, never listened to them, had them modified with, what could be considered a controversial technique. You then put them in a simple box without a back, drove them a (bad sounding) SS amp and spent a day with them. And you hate them.

floobydust wrote:

In any case, I can't agree with your assessment (compared to my drivers in 10 liter ported enclosures), but I can't really defend any of it as I've no idea what your pair sounds like. I would at least swap to better amplifier before binning them. I've only driven mine with SET amps.

It was yesterday around 4 PM – I viciously took it off and decided never use it again.  I was listening Brahms German Requiem with James Levine and BSO – a phenomenal performances in my view and one moment after being offended by each note the F120A played I sais the it was enough and I should not endure that horrible audio masochism anymore. I took the F120A out of the system and I know that it will not be neat to it anymore.

A few hours prior, I played with Fostex F120A, trying different operations. I have absolutely no idea why the F120A has such a good reputation as it has among the Fostex users. I sincerely feel that Fostex F120A is the absolutely the worst driver I even had in my room and it is not a poetic glorification of my hate to the F120A’s sound but just a fact.

I tried a few amps on F120A, the 100W SS, 2A3 and full-range Milq – I have identical sound in all 3 cases. In full range application the driver is just operating faulty. It has huge amount of distortion and alien sounds at bottom region that make it virtually unlistenable. Crossing it at $600-700 makes the alien sounds and crappy paper-cone inflection to go away. Still if I play it a bit louder then it comes back. That “newspaper sound” looks like completely goes way at ~85dB it I cross the driver at 1700-2000Hz. The driver does not look it might play louder than 85dB. From top end the F120A is kind of extended with the quality of HF being very poor. I took one of my “slow” silk dome tweeters (North Creek Music tweeters) and tried to add it to the F120A. Sliding the crossover up and doe I concluded that approximately at 5.500Hz I stopped to hear the F120A’s HF misery. So, 2000Hz to 5.500Hz – too much for a “full range driver”?

However – it was not the worst part. The worst part was that whatever even left in MF was absolutely not usable and it sounds at very much sub-acceptable level. Dynamically it is emblematic how a driver must not sound. The 75dB sensitive SL6000 of chippers Martin Logans sound like a thunder compare to F120A. The transient characteristics are not even present in F120A as it feels like sounds do not change in this driver. Whatever the driver reads sound like colors during a midnight in fox 0 it little have no dynamic or tonal discrimination. I do believe that the drivers are defective in some way as the crap like this shell not exist.

I can give you the very exact feeling how the F120A sounds. Pretend that you have a normal 8R driver properly loaded to your SET and you have OK sound. Now you take .2R resistor (it is zero point 2 Ohms) and sun the driver, making your SET to drive sub .2R. Did you note the dymick, tonal and expressive changes in the sound of your amp? Here it is – this is now the F120A sounds…

Anyhow, it was in the middle of the German Requiem when I took the dreaded F120A out of my room and switched sound back to my Hamster system. It was like a breast if fresh air after running a marathon in gasmask. OK, the Fostex, never again….

Since my Fostex saga went deep South I was scratching my head wondering what  else I would like to do considering the I would like to do as less as possible. Well, talking about to do as less as possible – I like the sound of my shitty Hamster Speaker, in fact I like it so much that would be very glad if the MiniMe would sound like this.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=9920

The shitty Hamster Speaker are incredibly peaceful and I looked at them more carefully. As the result, playing with Hamster more I absolutely accidently come up with surprisingly cool result it sound very-very nice in all configurations and it is kind of insulting and shameful as it have none of the original intentions of the MiniMe’s Montour. Of cause the MineMe bass section is here but the MF section is very different and very and very absurd.

It is approximately .7 cub feet box – I can’t measure it as it is odd shape. It is two ways. The MF channel is second order low pass, with open bottom. The driver is.. I have no idea what it is. It is 4R, 5” with plastic-fabric cone and a very odd suspension. From all my judgment it this it is some kind of syntactic leather. It has resonance around 90Hz I presume. The tweeter is the driver from Grand Utopia from 90s. I used 3th order filter on it and tweeter and woofer are in phase. The enclosure has port and 5” hole where I loaded the woofer from my bass channels. The woofer is not electicly connected and acts as passive radiator. The enclosure is light and has a lot of breathing. I measured nothing in it but it sounds very-very nice. It does not go low – I presume to 70-80Hz but it goes down very]-very clean with very interesting despairing bass effect. It is very dynamic with excellent transient and ability to play truly loud and very high discrimination to what it plays.  I still would like to make some changes with calming down the tweeter and improve the tweeter mounting but I like a LOT what it turning into.

I am running the Hamster-derived Monitor with MiniMe bass channel, not even properly integrated as Hamsters do to ~90Hz and the MiniMe’s bass comes at 500Hz but even as is the sound is very respectable in direct radiation configuration.

Ok, I think it is it. I close the experimental phase of the MiniMe projects as I have selected and feel comfortable with MiniMe results. The MiniMe Bass section is the very original MiniMe enclosure with the very same drivers as I plane from start. The MiniMe Monitor section is completely different monitor: it is 2-way bass-reflexed with additional passive radiator, with Focal tweeter and no-name 5” leather-suspended MF/bass driver. The Monitor goes down to ~100Hz after which the bass section kick-in. at this point the design is fixed and even I need to make minor adjustments with bass section crossover point but it is about it. The image below indicates how the MiniMe is positioned in relation to Macondo. The phonograph is taken from my full height standing in from on Macondo. The MiniMe monitor  baffles are ~ 6-7” behind the Macondo MF mouthed and so far I did not detect that MiniMe screws up Macondo sound.

Some concussions: Project

Very impressed with Focal tweeter – very impressed. The tweeter sits at ~2500 kHz with third order. It is the same tweeter that Focal used in Grand Utopias in 90s and Wilson used in Grand Slamm MKII in 90s. It is textured titanium in foam suspension. I was truly take how dynamic and how neutral it is. I come to it accidently searching some crap in my storage – god I need more frequently to look there – perhaps I can find it there Lindbergh baby and Jimmy Hoffa… The project itself was a typical for me triumph of money throwing to the problem as a substitute for ignorance and disability to heir a proper help to render my tasks. The JBL MF driver did not work as it needed a LOT of work – I was too lazy to go there and along with good MF driver the perspective of use the RAAL tweeter is evaporated. Then I “trusted others” and went for Fostex – the $600 thrown to garbage can – I hope I found a moron what would take this crap out of my hands – those driver are not qualified even to rust in my storage. Well, perhaps if I keep my mouth shut about the Fostex then I will be able to sell it but the people with brains understand that if I sell anything then I hate it…

Some concussions: Sound

The greatest objective of the MiniMe was accomplished: the MiniMe has a similar to Macondo presentation in my room and has absolutely non-annoying sound. It is even surprising how non-annoying it is. Is sound of MiniMe something that I might consider good? Absolutely not! I would need to write a thousand words to criticize what in MiniMe sound might be improved but doing nothing good MiniMe does not do bad things. In a grand scale the MiniMe has NOT too impressive tone, has proper and surprisingly clean HF, unexpectedly dynamic and transiently very much not challenged. It has the typical for all of those monitors “small” sound and sound good only with crappie material. Any attempts to make the MiniMe able to play something more serious made the MiniMe to suffer from something that I named the “Joe Roberts Effect”. The “Joe Roberts Effect” is a situation when a piece of audio does shit, does not know about it and if asked to do something more objections-loaded then it does not know what even being asked. All my attempts to make MiniMe to play sound more seriously made the MiniMe do not even know what the hell I want from it – well it what it is and I let it be as is. Still, the MiniMe, while does what it does it does own duty not annoying… The greatest thing about MiniMe as far as I concern is that MiniMe clearly indicates when I need to shut down the little SS amp that drivers simplistic MiniMe and to turn up Melquiades, letting the full bloom of Macondo to take over.  The experience I get with the transformation of Sound while it happening is something that makes the MiniMe project well-justified.

Final concussion:

The MiniMe bass section, the thin, accurate G10 enclosure was a good idea.  It sits in Macondo upperbass bay and it feels like it was born there. The MiniMe monitor I should not build but  had to buy from someone. There is an army of small mini-monitors out there and considering the time and money I paid until I end up with my currant Monitor I could pick and afford anything I wish.  Now, when I have a cheap alternative to Milq/Macondo to listen non-live FM musical programs and the Prairie Home Companion- type programs in my room, the MiniMe paved the way to convert Melquiades MF channel to exotic DHT tube with restricted life span. I think with MiniMe I will be running Macondo 3-4 times less, so the DHT project is moving to the front burner…

Well all right then...

I've been wondering if the Mini LF sections had been having effects on Macondo's LF channels by introducing some sympatheic resonances.  If you left the ports at just the 2" diameter by .5" in length, then the tuning would be roughly 95 Hz so Macondo LF would be 6 dB or so down by that point.  Perhaps it's nothing, but it seems unavoidable to me that they are not "ringing."

I have that "problem" with a piano in my place.  When I stop the music, I always hear a soft little harmonic reply from a damper-less Knabe.  Despite what most (all?) would guess, it's really not a problem and something that I am quite comfortable with.  I suspect that I would be unlikely to tolerate any of this kind of resonance at LF though....far to reminiscent of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge.

LBJ