"MooseStyle BVR" with Feastrex D5nf driver

[jrebman]

Rich,

Any updates?

Looks like I've settled on another Scottmmoose BVR enclosure -- Harvey -- for my F120As  I also managed to get one of my cabinetmaker/audiophile buddies interested in wanting to build these with me.  Probably going to do at least the main parts of the box with 3/4" Apple plywood, which I also just found out I can get at a local hardwood place.

-- Jim

[richidoo]

Your project sounds like a lot of fun. That apple ply sounds gorgeous, can't wait to see it. I was surprised at the bass response of mine in the BVR cabinet. He is a talented designer. The inside plumbing is wild on some of his stuff, but the outside looks pretty cool.  Here is a picture of Harvey:

Info

I listened a lot to mine when they were first finished. Then I switched back to Legacys, enjoying the Altmann amp on them. Then a couple days ago I switched back to the BVRs and fell in love. I don't know if something changed, or my mind was ready for it, but somehow it just hit me. Listening to this record on the radio was a hifi peak experience. If you ever thought you liked violin, this might be the best technical recording I have ever heard of violin. I got the CD on the way to hear it with no compression. Anyway, I think the drivers are really breaking in well now, and the music is really coming alive. The Altmann is broken in now too, maybe the combination of new stiff parts was offputting, despite the fun detail (Miklorsmith you listening? - haha). It is spine chilling now, hard to walk away. I would like to tame the wood box resonance, and a ton of bpape's cotton insulation arrived today, so I will try some 1" thick cotton in there, plus some cross dowels to brace the sides. I am still using cheap speaker wire, so that's another tweek waiting. But I love them. Lotsa fun.

[jrebman]

Yup, just put a hold on the last two pieces of 3/4" apple ply, and hope to pick it up sometime this week.  I'll probably use a wedged dowel crossbrace too, and a brace against the magnet structure that can have it's pressure against the driver adjusted from the back with a socket head bolt.

So, you know that amplifier that there was only one of left?  You have to know I bought it, right?

I think the combination of these cabinets and the drivers are going to make for some great listening in my office, especially when Ms. Carina arrives.

I'm supposed to be getting some nice wire to make small gauge speaker wires with, so if and when that happens, and the results are good, I'll be happy to make you a pair.

-- Jim

[richidoo]

Speaker wires! Now you're talkin! Thanks I wish my JPS could fit up through the vent to reach the drivers, but I don't want to bend them all to hell, so Home depot wire is working fine.

Theres a Feastrex owner in Boulder (?). He is contemplating building the same cabinet that I did, at least until he can build an OB for them. Let me know if you wanna get in touch. He's an angel like you.

[rollo]

Richadoo,
               Great CD. Sarah Chang takes me away. Must sound wonderfull through that single driver. Looking good man. For me the only single driver speaker Iv'e heard that did not beam at me was the Cain &Cain Wall of Sound. Love to hear the MooseStyle some day.

rollo

[miklorsmith]

Cool stuff guys, what neat projects.  I REALLY need to finalize my teleporter design.  

[richidoo]

Thanks for the support guys. I forgot to mention that I did a half ass mesaurement of the bass response last week. At 90dB Pink noise, it rolls down -6dB at 70Hz, and -15dB at 60Hz. Not too bad, bass is enough to support mids and sound full and musical most of the time. Sometimes I switch to Legacys for full satisfaction, but I always come back, it is addictive.

Yeah, Mike I hope you have your teleporter done before I pop in on you next summer. You have too much great stuff going on for me to not come listen sometime. Don't worry I'll leave the kids at the hotel. hehe

rollo, I have not heard a lot of Chang yet, but you know I recently turned into a violin nut. Started with Julia Fischer, the German dictator of technique and power, probably the greatest that ever lived, but will not warm your heart except by nuclear explosion. I like Rachel Barton, American smoothie, and of course Hillary Hahn but neither really light my fire, standard issue great violinists (what a world of abundance!) Then I heard Kyoka Takezawa live last year, wow. That forced me to crack open my mind to seek out more than Fischer. Chang is right up there for her incredible sensitivity while avoiding fake classical mellodrama that I am strongly allergic to. Anyway I hope to get some more of her stuff, and I hope it is all recorded as well. EMI classics is the label.

My 7yo son took home a 1/2 sized violin last Saturday, will start lessons after Christmas. He is excited to learn it and picked it on his own, but I hope he is not doing it to please Daddy, what a tough instrument. People that can play it like these ladies really have my respect.
Rich

[miklorsmith]

I have warm smiles and cold beer for any crazies that wander my way.

Seattle's a gas in the summer too.

I put that Chang on my buy list, I'm no violin nut but I can learn.

[KCI-JohnP]

Wow, nice wood work! I wish I didn't suck at it but I usually end up with crooked pieces, misalignment as well as blood all over the wood which, by the way, is actually a pretty cool looking "stain"!:duh

John

[rollo]

Wow, nice wood work! I wish I didn't suck at it but I usually end up with crooked pieces, misalignment as well as blood all over the wood which, by the way, is actually a pretty cool looking "stain"!:duh

John

Its called Passion Red. He He he.

rollo

[richidoo]

Had a fun nite of listening to the Feastrex "Beavers" last night. Since last G2G I have removed ALL of the bracing and internal absorption which made it sound like crap. Even my wife said it shrieked. I didn't listen to it for a few weeks. Without that stuff in there they sound much better again. I took them apart again this weekend to test the drivers using Woofer Tester 2. It is a little annoying like all small company software, but it gets the job done with a little persuasion.  Anyway, when I put them back together again, I was able to make some adjustments. I moved the rubber gasket in a little to a smaller radius which covered up the screw holes I originally used for driver mounting to the baffle. I rear mounted the driver but the baffle mount screw holes were still there, leaking air. I like to imagine that gained me another 10dB at 50Hz... haha I wish! Then I replaced a shortish speaker wire with a long one, allowing me to place the speakers out 10+ feet from the front wall where the amps are. Magically, all my room acoustic problems vanished! (Atleast what I could notice in one days' listening - it is much improved with reflections now being 3-4x longer distance than the direct distance of only 6 feet) With single drivers you can sit very close and it stays perfect.

I was once again overwhelmed by the beautiful tone, lightning fast detail and pure crossover less smoothness and openness. I can hear more than ever now all the colorations comeing from the box itself. While my wife sat in the sweety spot (renamed in her honor) I moved to behind and off to the side. I could still hear plenty of treble detail and the magic of the music, but I could also hear all that bass leaking out of the loosy goose cabinets made of un-braced solid pine board. I am giving the cabinets to a friend in CO and might rebuild them again in birch ply which should cut the resonance down a lot.

There is also another Big Vent Reflex (Beaver) design, by same designers Scott and Dave over at Planet 10, called Maiko - similar to their popular Harvey design. It will be two horns top&bottom instead of instead of just one on the bottom like mine. The driver height will be higher and bass should be faster and lower. I am hoping for the best with it. I will build that one before I build another of these shorty versions.

I have guests coming over tonight so I won't be able to listen until they leave at 9. Can't wait!! haha It is fun to switch back and forth between a straight laced hifi, full range design like 5 way Legacy Focus and the single driver horn Feastrex. They are both great in their own way, but each has special magic of its own. My goal is to get the Feastrex to carry as much water as the Legacys which will require bolting on some serious air pumps on the bottom, and tweaking out a little of the midrange "personality" that is inevitable with a 4" paper driver. Not sure it can be done, but I think it is worth a little effort to try. I'm sticking them into an open baffle this week, just by themselves to see how much that box is really coloring, see how pure the drivers sound with no excuses before I start buying love presents for them like woofers and amps for the lows.
Thanks
Rich

[richidoo]

I have been asked by a fellow ANer to post the latest news from the Feastrex NC research lab.

I have been digging them, of course. They have mellowed out and are very exciting and musical to listen to. A few more people around the world have bought the drivers and built this same cabinet per plans that I posted on diyaudio, designed by scottmoose and Martin King. It allows the speaker to speak clearly while giving a decent bass extension, considering it is a 4" driver.

I built mine in solid pine, which turned out to be very lovely sounding when it wasn't resonating with the music. But when it did resonate (most of the time), the coloration was severe. Still listenable because it is pine wood box and paper cone with all tubes, so what's not to like... But to a perfectionist like me, eventually it started to get on my nerves everytime the cellist played my jaw would rattle. So I gave away those boxes to a friend in CO, Mike who worked the Feastrex room as translator for Mr Teramoto when he visited for the RMAF show.

I'm waiting for a new design to emerge from planet-10 audio, designed by scottmoose and Dave Dlugos, which will be more highly optimized for the driver than the original "Freddie Chang" that I built. It is larger coupling chamber, and two horns instead of one, looks like the Harvey pictured above. But until that is born, I am gonna rebuld the smaller Freddie cabinets again, this time using a different approach, and hopefully kill off most of the cabinet resonance. Read TAS interview with Magico's Alon Wolf this issue to get an idea what I'm thinking about.

I have also used Martin King's mathCAD sheet to design an open baffle for these drivers. I have them playing now, and they sound incredible. All crap from the box is gone. But alas, no bass. But there is a lot of that box sound that I like, and miss, or at least for the first 10 minutes. OB is very natural and uncolored, but we like our distortions and get very used to them.  Strip it all off and it seems less exciting, more plain. But the ease of listening is so much better. It just wafts through you with no pressure at all. The simulator says it rolls off about 12-18dB starting at 200Hz, but dead flat above that. I bought a pair of Peerless XXLS 12" drivers to mount in the baffles and hope to do that this week. They are ultra low distortion bass drivers with gigantic excursion. I think they will be fast enough to keep up with the 2g moving mass of the Feastrex, I hope so. Modelled in mathCAD with the woofers and no boost, the OB speakers are flat down to 100Hz with no woofer frame and no boost, woofer only moving 3mm out of its possible 13! and rolling gently down to -12dB at 30Hz.The Peerless will need a lot of power, but I can crank in some boost to flatten them out as necessary using...

I also got a Behringer DCX2496 xover. I ordered the upgrade kit from Pilgham Audio. It will be a while before that is running, but mgalusha says it is a great mod. They are bringing out more kits for DCX coming soon.

So far I can only say about the Feastrex drivers that they sound effortless, smooth, rich, ultra detailed without any edge or annoying factor. The bad thing is that I can hear everything that is wrong with my electronics. Hum, tube tinks, hiss, whatever, it is an electron microscope. It is hauntingly real with music that compliments its one limitation of little bass. In the BVR cabinet, bass is flat down to 70Hz, so you can easily enjoy any music, and even feel it in the chest now and then. The treble response is just like a separate tweeter, but richer, more natural, cymbals sound real, instead of metallic. Extension on things like chimes, bells, tinkly things is much stronger sensatioin than my ribbons on my Legacys, which I recently learned are just cheap $20 planars, well implemented... Voices like Alison Kraus or Tallis Scholars just melt me. String quartets are awesome. Symphony is also good, and plenty enjoyable, but I miss the vibration of low notes on bass violins. My wife's Chris Daughtry is not as exciting as on the big speakers - duh. So I keep experimenting. I'm hoping the new design from planet 10, to be called Maiko, will give the extra bit of bass that is needed to make a truly high end speaker. If not, the 2 way OB will work good.

The drivers have a lot of inner detail especially in the midrange. This makes them very magical, and special sounding from the very first note. It is a funny tradition starting now to to observe people the first time they are deflowered hearing Feastrex for the first time. Audible moans and groans, explitives of disbelief, wanting to talk about it and listen at the same time, and excitement, like a crack head wanting to score a fix. haha It is an easy sell, except for the price. But compared to many $4000 speakers (like mine) this kicks ass for pure enjoyment. You also have to factor in improving the electronics. No point in having all that resolution with a suitable signal to play, or too noisy.

I also plan to do another anechoic experiment with them, which is the reason I bought them actually. That is starting to come together now. Shitty weather slows down wood cutting.

As for where to get them, Joe Cohen of Lotus Group is the importer. They list for $4000 pair for D5nf the drivers only. Other models available, but these are the cheapest - oops, sorry Bill, I mean least expensive... Delivery is about a month, fresh from Japan. Contact Joe by email on his website, or call him. Any Lotus Group dealer should also be able to order them for you. I got mine from Dennis Jeffers in Charlotte, NC, helluva nice guy.

There are a lot of posts about the drivers and these cabinets on the web now. Google will get you there, or check out diyaudio, asylum (search chris witmer, or just feastrex), and now some action on AC with floobydust just finishing his pair, and loving it. puremusicgroup.com has  forum with Feastrex section.
I think the excitement abot them is building up steadily. They just had a good show at CES, with mention on stereophile blog and 6 moons but there is a long way to go yet.

I will play mine again at the next meet we have here in NC, hopefully they will sound a lot better than last time when I screwed them up badly with incorrect bracing and absorbtion inside. Live and learn. I will never forget the look on Shane's face like he fell on an icepick.  These NC audiophiles are tough please.

It is expensive, but on first listen, you will understand why. Hopefully by next year's trade shows, the cabinets will be sorted out to allow their incredible sound to be obvious to more show goers. Feastrex's own bass reflex and passive radiator deisgns were not optimized at RMAF, so the $50 diy Freddie sounds much better IMO, maybe a little less bss, but much more a whole cloth.

Sorry if I repeated myself or rambled. Hard to avoid with me..
Rich

[miklorsmith]

WOW, great w/u!  Stupid nonworking teleporter. . .

[richidoo]

I built a new cabinet for the Feastrex drivers. Finished them yesterday. It is a prototype design by planet10.com called Maiko. The final version will look fancier. This is rough and tumble to work out the tweaks.

It plays very big, and has great frequency response. The baltic birch has a "unique" sonic signature that I am trying to reign in with bracing. Pine is much more pleasant sounding, but it can be too warm in large unsupported areas. The smaller speaker I built last time was ruined by adding bracing, so the concept of bracing is still a black art to me. It seems to make the resonance worse by raising the frequency, until it gets so high that it becomes inaudible. That's the theory anyway. I am prepared to laminate on some pressure treated 2x12s if the tensioning rods and bracing don't cut it. 

I will be playing them at the G2G this weekend. Hopefully earmuffs will not be required this time. Last time we played the drivers with the Cary integrated which is a little fussy about the load impedance. The drivers are 14.5 ohms connected to Cary's 8ohm tap making upper mids stand out so much that people went running away covering their ears! It was the perfect storm of too much dowel bracing, combined with the wrong amp that I had never tried before. Pulling out all the treatments and using the SNappers on that small cabinet was very impressive, but lite in the bass.

These bigger ones have great bass. What does great bass mean in single driver parlance? Designed to be flat to 50Hz, I can feel satisfaction listening to low piano notes down to 36Hz. Playing Bob Marley overblown electric bass guitar I can hear all the notes, but only above 50Hz reflex knee do they really boom as intended. Below that they are just notes. Music is entirely digestible. No feeling of missing anything, unless you are golden ear audiophile snob.   

Treble is always awesome with feastrex. 4" driver beams highs, so if you sit on the beam your brain will fry. A little toe out is just right. So single driver, <50Hz - >15kHz with no crossover, paper driver, 95dB efficient, 5mm excursion. Dyn-o-mite!!

[Carlman]

I wonder how those would sound in your upstairs room?
Nice construction... I wish I had half the woodworking skills you do.

Looking forward to hearing these!

-C