According to my London contact the British miniatures Fane Acoustic is gone to dark. The remaining inventory was scraped by Eminence and the Fane is no more.

Over the years Fane made some interning things: guitar cone drivers, compression drivers, ribbon drivers, plasma drivers, some of their product even sounded good…

I discovered Fane what I was looking a better driver for Avantgarde Trios bass horns. The Fane Studio 8M was an absolutely direct replacement of the default Avantgarde driver but it had orders of magnitude more superior tone.

It is sad that Fane became a “vintage” company.

romy

what driver is avantgarde using in their trio mid-bass horn ?

On another note: Angeloitacare, why do you do it? This is a third time you create a alien account at this site and impersonate your as a different poster. It is not that I or anybody else particularly cares but in context of everything else I find it disturbing.  I have no idea WHY you keep doing it.  Pease do not do it again or you will loose any public access to this site. It is the last time I am taking to you.

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Back when Fane were still in business, I ordered a pair in 16Ω (I don't know if there is a theoretical best choice between the two for horn loading... Any thoughts ? However, the 8Ω model will require a smaller coil in the crossover, which in this case is good news).

It does not really matter what impedance would it be 16R or 8R. I went for 16R because a few reasons. The 16R Fane 8M in +6dB horn has the identical sound pressure level as the Vitavox S2 driver with plastic suspended cone. Do not forget that I discovered Fane 8M in 2000 when it replaced the AG Trios upper bass driver and at that time I used Lamm 2.0 to drive all my upper channels. Also, I had no control over the Lamm’s output transformer ratio and therefore I it generally feel that higher impedance for load is better for SET operation. Theoretically if I still use one SET without going multiamping then in order to drive different impedance channels and at the same time to moderate load and gain I would go for one large transformer with many-many section and I would take  different combination of sections for each channels…

jessie.dazzle wrote:

I am not at all set on using the Fane drivers in my upper bass horns... I've been experimenting with a bunch of AlNiCo drivers, and have found one that is more sensitive, goes lower, and has to my ear a less "dry" tone than the 8Ms... However, all testing so far has been done with the rear chambers open (been moving to another house, so have not yet had the time to make the sealing covers). Once the rear chamber volume is properly tuned, the 8Ms may come out on top.

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Do I understand correctly: AG used Fane 8Ms in the Trios upper bass horn?

mark wrote:

when i was having trouble sourcing fane 8m,i started searching for other alternatives.i figured well why not contact emminence.i questioned them if they could build fane 8m 16 ohm.they have a minimum 50 pc. order.anthony lucas suggested i check out their stock Delta Pro-8B 16 ohm.it retails for 85$ each.i did not compare all specs, sensitivity is rated at 99db,but he mentions that published specs of this type are sometimes inflated by others,i thought maybe romy if this is interesting to you that obviously you are far more qualified to make judgements in this subject.now if that stock driver is not worth trying or if trialed and fails,i think that emminence is capable of doing a custom driver that meets or exceeds what fane is capable of(especially if custom tailored for the application).if it looks promising i might be willing to organize the funding for a 50 pc. lot.i am quite sure there maybe 20 or so people willing to buy a pair if the price is reasonable.what do you think romy?anyone else out there interested.and jessie what about that driver you were talking about?

It keep going and going…

A few years back Fane closed down the done but it looks like they are back. The new website is constantly updated and the new product lines are introduced. I think when Fane went out of business last year then I think Eminence took them over. I do not know if the “new” Fane is the Eminence’s enterprise of juts a new revision of Fane. Anyhow, the Studio 8M driver is not there…

http://www.fane-acoustics.com/

decoud wrote:

Since the 8M is now no longer to be had anywhere, for love or money (delighted to be contradicted on this), would people care to suggest alternatives for precisely the use Romy puts it to: driving a round, 3-4 inch throat, upper bass horn? I know it is impossible to know what any driver will sound like until it is in situ, but we can at least narrow down the list. Any suggestions? For example, can we take it as agreed that a fixed back chamber (e.g. RCFs MR10N301, which otherwise looks interesting) would be a bad idea?

Asking about it you must mention what would be the rate of the horn. The 160Hz and 80Hz horns are both upper bass horn but they would require different drivers, wouldn’t they?  I have to note that for 4 inch throat the 8” Fane 8M (5.5” without the spider) is marginally suitable but for 3-4 inch throat is questionably suitable.  It has true 103dB sensitivity, very good tone, very low compression (in horn) and some other absurd characteristics that make it unique. Is anything better out there? I really do not know and I did not try anything else since I began to use 8M. I might consider trying other driver if I see properly-made 4” compression driver. The only one out there is Community M4 with its idiotic double suspension – a horrible driver. I do not know any other compression drivers. There are quite a few direct radiators that might do – you might want to try them. Do not discard the car and consumers drivers they might be good.

Generally you need to talk with the community of Romy’s haters. There is a group of horn enthusiasts whom I consider “idiots” and who read, print, memorized times and times each horn post at this site, who would love to use good upper bass drivers but whose Moronic attitude would not allow them to use the same driver as Romy The Cat does. They each month discover a new driver that reportedly “betters then Fane 8M”. It is might be the case but I would like to warn that there is a reason WHY I recognize them as Idiots long before they have intelligence and sense to recognize this fact about themselves.

I do not want the paragraph above to sound like my doubts there - they are good driver out there – they are there – I just did not look for them. BTW, I am surprised that you feel that “8M is now no longer to be had anywhere, for love or money…”. They are quite regularly pop up here and there for $50. So, to make up your mind about 8M you would not have problems….