Frugal Horn speakers. Not so Frugal sounds ...

[JAW]

I'm intrigued as well, the winter's coming and they might keep me away from the tv for a few evenings. The dimensions look as if herself would find them acceptable, although I think that I would have a convex curve on the top plate to stop them being used as a flower pot stand.

[Fran]

Eleanor McEvoy: no, no big sibilance, only what I would say is normal. Sound is pretty good on the album throughout.

*****************************

Drivers are the mark audio alpair 7, cabinet can be made from MDF or birch ply. If you want to make them, you will need some space to work in, plus clamps for the glue up, plus a few other bits too like the terminal plates, wire, acoustic stuffing, felt lining. Nothing huge, but you still need it.


Fran

[giant haystacks]

most of this type of full range without crossover can be really cruel -they are very revealing on the amplification .if you were lucky enough to try out first and see if all is ok
I was speaking to Guy Seargent of audio innovations-audio note -pure sound. he is trying to master a large 3 way with treble and midrange two of the jbl compression drivers firing down a kind of swiss horn mouth and the bass unit in a small sealed box he mentioned an eminence driver firing into a larger type swiss horn this was tryed at a diy type show in england last year called salford hall but it was not a sucess yet still working on it.
on the subject of the voigt domestic corner horn my friend in Burr sent a lot of european hifi to the klipsch museum in the usa and you can see a 3 part on you tube a tour of the klipsch museum and you can see a really early voigt and another beside it that he sent over on clip 2 of the 3 part maybe some of you cleaver people could put the link up as it shows many other interesting things for the forum members
Guy holdsworth has 17 of these origional voigt domestic corner horns and he said that he got one on the isle of wight was used to store brushes in and another one had been wall papered around due to the large size .2 imaculate perfect working he sold to a dealer in japan in 1985 for £5000

[cybot]

Eleanor McEvoy: no, no big sibilance, only what I would say is normal. Sound is pretty good on the album throughout.

Fran

Lol ;) Not when you wear a sota hearing aid!!! And DIGITAL at that too!! Thankfully that can be easily minimised with my trusty little fine tuning gadget. But don't bother explaining that to an audiologist, they just don't get it.......at all :-)

[Gerry D]

Thanks for the positive reactions to the Frugal Horns.

I was talking with Fran and it seems that between us we have all the necessary resources to put a scheme together to offer good value solution to any body interested in these Frugal Horns, or any other DIY speaker projects.
Where as, typically, most people don't have 8 clamps, drill, space, CNC machining, etc., etc. ...
Silver solder, internal wiring, tuning ?

We like all of this.

So we are putting together a shopping list to offer members DIY speaker elements and complete pairs.
From flat pack cabinets to fully assembled and finished pairs.

We've looked at what some international suppliers of this kind of stuff are pricing at.
We can do a good bit better. Specially when you consider shipping cost, packing, and so on.

It will take a few days to put this together.
Meanwhile it would be great to get any feed back and gauge a level of interest.
So come on. Interested ? Comments ? Ideas ?
All gratefully received.

Thanks Guys.

[Fran]

I should add that if anyone would like to hear these, I have a set put together in my place and feel free to come and have a listen. Also, feel free to bring your amp/source whatever with you, or you can listen to any of mine if you prefer.

I'm driving them at the moment with a valve pre + a little EL84 PP amp run in triode mode. This only puts out somewhere around 6-8WPC, and it drives it vey well. So likelihood is that anything in excess of that should do the job very well. And lets face it, nobody has anything with less power than that!!!

I have been fairly stunned by the sound quality of these speakers. They go low, they do the highs, they soundstage well (once properly positioned), they are OK near a back wall, they can be tuned a bit to suit the room, they are small enough to not upset the missus. However, they won't go VERY loud, but will go plenty loud for nearly everyone I imagine, but they aren't party speakers. They go loud enough to piss off everyone else in the house though (heh heh!).

So as Gerry says, we are in a position to be able to offer sets of these, plus offer the advice for anyone who wants to build the kit, or offer completed sets if you just don't want the hassle. We are working on pricing at the moment, but it will be affordable and we won't be ripping anyone off.

Fran

[cybot]

Great stuff lads and the very, very best if luck with it! Can't wait to see projected prices....hopefully they will be very reasonable.

[Fran]

Thanks Cybot - workin' on it.....



Fran

[Fran]

NEWS: see viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1043 for the new thread on our kits/built frugal horn offerings

[Rocker]

Listening to Frans setup at his house and using his recently restored Gamma Rhythm 211 valve amp was a pleasure and considering the small size of the drivers, a bit of a surprise. The sound was full, clear and had a good stereo image. The bass was surprisingly deep from such small boxes, Fran played the Eleanor McEvoy disk Alone which has an unusual track when Eleanor sings and plays electric bass. Nothing else. The quality of the bass sounds was very good - makes you wonder why some speaker manufacturers make such a song and dance [no pun intended] about bass reproduction when a pair of drivers that are little wider than your hand can be coaxed to perform like these. Eleanor McEvoy type music might be fairly easy to reproduce accurately but we played some Eagles and Thin Lizzy by way of contrast and to hear how the system dealt with rock music. The Lizzy tracks were studio recordings and the overdubs and backing vocals were very audible and positioned within the artifically studio created stereo sound stage. Subtle details like the accents of Eleanor McEvoy and Phil Lynott were clearly apparent as was the overdriven guitar amp distortion that was a major part of the Lizzy sound. Fran made up a pair of baffle extensions which sit around the drivers. I had meant to ask him to remove them for a few tracks but in the end I was enjoying the listening experience so much that I forgot about this. As you can gather I am not the worlds greatest hi-fi kit reviewer!!!

Fran makes very good coffee, I have been wondering how to justify a return visit and here in front of me is it! I use an old Musical Fidelity Elektra E100 integrated amp to play sounds and music from my computer. I would like to try it out with the Frugal Horns - the MF is not the greatest amp around but it would be interesting to hear how the Frugal Horns work with a solid state amp. Thinking about it I have a Croft valve amp which I could bring along too. By my reckoning the time involved for the auditioning might warrant a second coffee............