Back Loaded Horn Project for Fostex FE163EN-S
Back Loaded Horn Project for Fostex FE163EN-S
Recently my brother has been busy building back loaded horns for his Fostex FE163EN-S full range drivers. He recently bought them on sale from Solen. They are also on sale at Madisound.
Fostex claims that this driver is 'based on all the skills that Fostex cultivated in the past'. These drivers are hand made in Japan, always nice to see.
I've ordered many speakers from Fostex and I just love the quality of the fit and finish. The are always impeccably engineered and manufactured with such high tolerance. It's refreshing to see products like this still on the market.
My brother did a lot of research and after filtering out a lot of what is suggested on the forums he decided to trust what Fostex recommends for the driver and build to plan exactly what is suggested from Fostex.
Recently my brother has been busy building back loaded horns for his Fostex FE163EN-S full range drivers. He recently bought them on sale from Solen. They are also on sale at Madisound.
Fostex claims that this driver is 'based on all the skills that Fostex cultivated in the past'. These drivers are hand made in Japan, always nice to see.
 |
| pictured here just finished, glue not quite dry! |
My brother did a lot of research and after filtering out a lot of what is suggested on the forums he decided to trust what Fostex recommends for the driver and build to plan exactly what is suggested from Fostex.
Sound
Well, I have to say this is the first foray into proper back loaded horns for both my brother and I. We were both very surprised by the the sound coming from these speakers. The amount of bass impact was something more reserved for a 12", not a 6.5".
The bass was clean, tight, with excellent pitch definition. The bass was also low, achieving what I estimate to be strong down to 40hz.
The other remarkable thing about these BHL enclosures was that how the midrange and treble frequency response seemed to smooth right out as compared to a 1.8 cu. ft. bass reflex box that was used before.
The horn loading on the driver really does help to tame the entire bandwidth of this driver.
Basically these drivers are transformed into an entirely different speaker when used in this BLH plan.
Construction
Included below are pictures from the project.
Special thanks to Kyle Lane from South Stream Manufacturing for helping with this project.
Originally published at Crowe Audio.