EnABL

[IslandPink]

First impressions are not good. It seems to have sharpened-up the sharp bits of the 103e's behaviour, and taken tone out of the mids. I was wincing on bits I wasn't wincing on before
Test LP's were 'I want to see the bright lights tonight' ( Richard/Linda Thompson ) and Beethoven Cello Sonatas, Antonio Janigro/Joerg Demus ( Vanguard ) .
Will do more comparisons tomorrow & Sunday .

[Ali Tait]

Lot of work there Mark, hope it works out for you.

[Cressy Snr]

Yep ....can be a bit of a downer when this sort of thing happens.
Hope it works out.

[IslandPink]

Yeh, must admit this is disappointing. The vocal sounds I remember from Chris's Enabl-ed 126e's were glorious . I expected better . I can't see the 103e is much different than the 126e in terms of cone characteritsics and where the treatment should be applied.
I didn't spend huge amounts of time on it, at the end of the day .

Test again tomorrow and see if my first impressions were wrong.

[Greg]

They are Fostex drivers which I understand need a good thrashing over a while to become bedded in and functioning smoothly. How much use have yours had, Mark before you EnABL'd them? Might just be a question of being patient and giving them some time to settle down.

[Dave the bass]

I live with FE126's and 127''s in Saburo, FH3 and Fonkens here Mark, they're all EnABL'd. Thrash 'em, trust me. If they're not used for a while, trash 'em again. I put the speakers face to face and wire them one in antiphase so there's lots of cancellation, that way you can turn up the volume on mega heavy bass CD's (on repeat for hours) and really give them a good thrashin'.

They love it and reward later on, IMO.

[simon]

My 208s must be over 10 years old and even now if I haven't listened to them for a few days they need a good hour before they really come on song. I've tried telling myself that I'm just imagining it but it's repeated every time. Why I don't know. Good luck with yours Mark, definitely worth one of Dave's thrashing if they haven't already.

[IslandPink]

Thanks for your concern chaps. Unfortunately these speakers/drivers have been used a fair bit ( at least in spells of a week or more ) . I was actually using them during this week to compare Passlabs F4 to TDA7297 chip-amp, using Nick's DAC as source ( guess which amp came out on top ) .
The other key thing from yesterday, which is in my rather long posting , was that I only did ONE driver. So I was comparing an untreated driver against a treated driver, swapping them within a space of a few minutes, back and forth . The other driver sounds fine - or at least as I remember it - within the limitations of the F.R. of the FE103e, which has a few peaks above 3kHz .

I'll give them more use, but you can't really thrash a 103e, as they only take about 5w at best - they are pretty delicate units. Also I won't sit too near the ENabl-ed driver, because I'm got mild tinnitus in my right ear this morning !

I'm starting to think if you guys have had good results from the Planet 10 drivers ( which I assume was what Chris had ) then it may be more to do with the additional cone treatments Dave does which is somewhat more sophisticated and proprietary than Bud's method.

[Dave the bass]

Yups, all 3 pairs here at home are DaveD's P10's. I have a pair of FE167's in bigger ceiling hung Fonken Cabs that are also P10 tweaked. They used every work day for at least 8 hours, they never get the chance to get lazy!

[chris661]

Yep, mine are P10's with phase plugs, and some basket shaping stuff (like plumber's putty) around the basket to smooth out near reflections.
I noticed huge changes with mine after being run hard for hours at a time. We're talking 5mm p/p travel on kick drums. I'd set it going, go out for the day, and come back to see what had changed. I think I used 15 Step by Radiohead, though I can recommend other tracks if you like.

The first day was the biggest change, as you'd probably expect. The day after wasn't such a big change, but still an improvement. You get the idea.

I occasionally think about selling my FE126eN drivers, Mark. Drop me a line if you're interested - I'd be much happier knowing they were going to a good home.

Chris

[IslandPink]

Thanks, but let me have a think about that, Chris. I need to be sure I have a use for them first, as I have a room full of spare drivers waiting for s/h sale. I have toyed with the idea of re-trying the mid/bass horn at some stage with a smaller driver like one of the Fostex so I'll need to do a sim of the 126's and see if they would be of use there . On the MLTL's they are bigger than the current 103e's . My plan has been to buy a pair of FF105WK's if the 103e mods didn't work out. In the back of my mind I remember had a pair of FE167e's years ago and did the phase plug mod and I didn't like it - took a big chunk out of the 2k-5k region and reduced tonal colour.

So anyway the tests I was doing the first night were using vinyl and the right channel on the 'Frankenstein stereo' system - ie. a 300B amp modded for 700Hz high-pass ( 1st-order ) . Since then I've brought in the TDA7297 again and run both speakers from the CD player and Nick's DAC .
The differences here are more subtle . I still prefer the untreated driver, but there are some pros/cons. I did a couple of hours extra run-in ( just to appease people who think they aren't run-in ) but didn't hear any significant change . Then I put in about 4 hours of listening on various CDs over the afternoon/evening to try & pin down the differences. I was subbing one of the speakers with a 10R load on one channel and just playing each speaker ( untreated, treated ) alone, alternating on the other channel .

So, what I'm getting from the treated driver is an improvement in treble detail and a little bit of extra tone high-up . It sounds as if the treatment has improved the phase relationship between the peaks & dips of response higher-up, above say 3kHz . I don't think it's flattened the FR much if at all. It does sound better in that area most of the time, but when you hit a 'nasty' as you do from time to time with these full-range drivers, it's sharper and more unpleasant.
At the same time there seems to be some loss of tone from the mids . Whether this is real or just a 'contrast' effect from improving the treble, I'm not sure. In any case the overall effect is that the FR is more tipped-up and a bit 'drier' . This is not helpful in the context of this driver. It was interesting though to hear the same tracks on each driver - although the effects are subtle, it did significantly affect the presentation of each track, to the extent you feel you're hearing a different mix and concentrating on different instruments. I used Van Morrison's 'Tupelo Honey' a lot at the end, and it did at times sound like two different records. Weird ....

[Cressy Snr]

One thing you could try is a 1-2mm wide rolled out length of Blu-Tack placed around the circumference of the dust cap at the junction between it and the main cone. It may help to tame the vocal nastiness. Get shot of that and you will be happier. Then think about restoring the sparkle at the very top with a supertweeter.

I would go for the 1mm wide length first and see what happens.

[IslandPink]

Good point Steve, I had forgotten about that tweak . I'll try it , maybe later today.
I'm treating these drivers as a testbed now. I might try something radical like doing the 'cut cone' thing as per the Scan Speak drivers ( spiral cuts almost through the cone ) to see how it sounds .
At the end of the day the 103E's are not that great so I've had it in mind to buy a pair of the FF105WK to replace them, as they look substantially smoother on the spec sheets and Scott comfirmed they sound a lot better. I know how the 225's sound on yours and I like the tone.

I don't know if I'll ever put tweeters on these speaks . They were conceived as mininalist for TV or portable use so I'm not expecting them to be top-notch .

[IslandPink]

I'm wondering if I should do another coat of micro-scale gloss coat after the Enabl. I must read more in some of these long threads & try & work out what the procedure was.
In the meantime I think I will go ahead and do the 'sliced-cone' treatment on the other FE103 - could be very educational .. or a disaster ...

[IslandPink]

Didn't go the whole hog with the cut-cones in the end.
Decided to Enabl the second speaker, plus put some of the 'Zig 2-way glue' on the back of the cones near the edge, as developed by Dave D on the FF..WK range. I did the outer dots easier than last time - the No. 2 pen was working well ; however the No.5 nib misbehaved worse than last time and blobbed twice on the inside of the cone, so it bit the dust big time ( now in the bin ) . So anyway they sound alright, but I'm not sure they are definitely better than they were originally Time will tell.