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

I wrote about it before and I was/am afraid this effect too. I discovered it a few years back when suddenly my bass picked some odd harmonics. After a few days I realized that the harmonics came from an acoustic guitar that was sitting in my listening room at that time.

I have to note that since the MiniMe went up the Macondo went down (Macondo cannot run without Milq amps). So, sine I put the Macondo LF section in I was not too critical to impact it has too critical observing the Macondo’s bass. I was censers that main me do not screw up Macondo’s imagine but I do not look into bass yet. Thanks for reminding and the attention – I will look into it.

There is another “reason why I do not care too much about the Macondo’s sound now, until the new DH Milq’s is finished. It is “deeper” reason but you will understand it. With new Macondo’s MF channel that will be outputting more “transiential” sound the center of Macondo’s output in vertical plane will be shitting a bit lower. This is one of my objectives as the “vertical center” is too much offset now by my Injection Channel. This will lead to me to drive the Injection Channel differently and I would need to review how the Injection Channel’s bass in new configuration will be taking with my Macondo’s bass. So, it will be some revision in the end and whan I will be there THEN I will be looking at the constitution of the Mini bass.

I have to note that it would be no difficult to do – juts plug the MiniMe’s ports and to see how the sound will be changed.  BTW, it will be funny if I learn that I like the Macondo’s bass better with the “help” of the MiniMe’s ports. The 95Hz is VERY special region for Macondo as the Macondo’s upperbass horn and the Macondo’s bass sections both are dying in there….

Romy the Cat wrote:

BTW, it will be funny if I learn that I like the Macondo’s bass better with the “help” of the MiniMe’s ports. The 95Hz is VERY special region for Macondo as the Macondo’s upperbass horn and the Macondo’s bass sections both are dying in there…. The Cat

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

I will be laughing my ass off when I visit the GoodSoundClub website and read about a certain Cat who was finally motivated into tuning the ports on the Mini's specifically to "adjust" Macondo's sound!  I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller's chosen nickname "trimtab"...the tiny rudder on the rudder of the Queen Mary, for instance.  The trimtab creates a low presure that swings the huge rudder that steers the entire ship.  Could Mini's port be Macondo's trimtab?  I love the analogy even if it is BS. With all of the issues with intigrating an 8 foot array of 6 (and then 7) channels, it is no wonder that the many audiophiles indulge in delusions and confuse them with solutions...assuming they have the awareness (and the jump to 'understanding' is quite a journey from that point as well).  I can easily visualize (auralize?) how a midbass horn could solve some problems while creating plenty of their own.

Anyhow, the very major tool in the fine-tuning of my upperbass and bass channel is… the high-pass filter on my Injection Channel. It is completely not known and very much not logically quantifiable but this high-pass filter is absolutely wonderful toll in context of Macondo that allow doing a LOT. I have seen people online were bitching about my Injection Channel but I know those people and I know that that are idiots. In reality any single person who visited me if they asked me to demonstrate the benefits of the Injection Channel were immediately and very convincingly sold. The bottom of the Injection Channel is VERY tricky subject; it moderates the “barrel effect” of my upperbass. It is like taking into a large barrel and be able to modify how much the barrel is filled. So, I presume that since the use of my Injection Channel will be most likely modified after the DHT MF channel will be in full-time use and since the MiniMe’s bass is installed and will remand where it is, I think that my upcoming fine re-tuning of Injection Channel high-pass will already include the noise that  MiniMe’s bass section would introduce.

Romy the Cat wrote:

.... I was/am afraid this effect too. I discovered it a few years back when suddenly my bass picked some odd harmonics. After a few days I realized that the harmonics came from an acoustic guitar that was sitting in my listening room at that time.

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

Well, the only thing I can think of is to seal them and keep 'em that way.

Yes, is exactly what I did - I stocked socks into the ports, plaguing then up. That did ruin a lot the sound of the MiniMe. What I think is following: how about tine the posts of MiniMe in a way that it will not affect the Macondo but still give “some” extension to MiniMe. I less concern at this point about the quality of MiniMe bass.

Paul S wrote:

A while back I suggested (easy for me...!) using monitors that you could also use as the injection channels (or vice-versa)

Good idea but absolutely not implementable as MiniMe and Injection Channels are driver from two very different amps with totally different volume levels.

The MiniMe, as much as the rest of my playback have lost the “novelty”. I do not do or planning to do anything with audio. I have found the way to calm down my Focal tweeters and it… will die this way. For what MiniMe meant to be it does very good.

The only thing that I might change with MiniMe might be a power amp that I drive it with. I use 70W SS consumer Hitachi amp that I bought for $50. It is very bad, even for MiniMe and I do no mind to get anything better but not too demanding.

Something for let say $300, SS, cool running, 100W, something that can run all time, sound good and preferably soft sounding. I think I need to puck some high-end consumer amps from 70s-80s, probably build around the V-FET transistors, if they are all not burned yet.

I do not look the level of Lamm M1.1 performance but I look something better then the crap that I use now.

Hi Romy,

If you are willing to stretch your budget and DIY check out this site from Australia.

http://www.ska-audio.com/diy/index.html

regards,

Gordon

Thanks, Gordon

I have absolutely no desire to undertake any DIY efforts for MiniMe amp. The amp that I want will be boxed, with bells and whistles, binding posts and matters. There were plenty of top of the line Yamahas, Sonys and Sansuis were made in end of 70s and 80s and some of them were surprisingly good. Take a look at my Sansui SU-1X – a consumer mass-market unit but no “high-end” tuner with “objectives” can beat in term of Sound. At the period they did make some interesting amps, some of them were VERY expensive at that time; some of them had popularity mostly in Japanese market and they were not bad. Back in beginning of the 90s I had one “serious” Yamaha V-FET amp and I remember it was pretty good. Of cause I was much different that time and my demand were much different but it might be interesting to review the subject now with MiniMe.

Well, since I will not experiment with many of them I'm  kind of narrowing down the scope of the amps that I would like to get. In 70s-80s break there was a short period of time when Yamaha and Sony made top of the line amps around V-FET output transistors. The V-FET are very different little bitches as the run a very-very high bias, I think like 20V or 25V that make them very much operate like a triode in A1. They shall sound much different then what ordinary would be expected from transistors. If I get “better” SS amp for MiniMe then I would like to try a full-blown V-FET. They are usually big but still manageable… I do not think that V-FETs are used anymore. Spectral said that this 360 amp use V-FETs but I do not know if it is true.

Thanks, scooter.

I do not know Vince from Watertown. As long he does not work for Goodwins’ from Watertown I might be able to talk with him…. After some consideration I picked today Yamaha B-2 amp. It is V-FET from 1978, it might be interesting.  Post Vince’s site or his shop info I might need to have B-2 serviced or modified.  I think the 140W of B-2 might be good for my MiniMe, I just a bit afraid that it might run to hot…