Frugel Horn 3's

[JamieMcC]

M42. Give us an update on the Frugel Horn mk3's after break in. I'm building a pair now

Any progress pics?

[M42]

Hi, apologies for the late reply, I've been preoccupied with a job search as of late. I now have about 250 - 300 hours on the speakers. They are much improved from when I first heard them...to be quite frank, I was appalled when I first auditioned them! I have yet to install the acoustic baffling material in the lower section of the horn and as the photo shows the sides are temporarily clamped in place. From what I understand (which is little) the material is used to attenuate (reduce?) bass from the speakers. I have them set up in the corners of a very small room 91/2' x 10'. Even without the baffling material there is a "balanced...acceptable" amount of bass, but certainly nothing excessive. I think they hold promise, but at the moment my 40 year old JBL Decade 36's and NST Super Zero 2.1's more than give the Frugel Horns a run for the money! To be fair, the Frugel Horns are only some 87 db efficient, I run them form my Stereomour, Reduction and a Thorens TD 160 with a Grace F9E cart. The cart's output is only 3.5mv, but I refuse to part with it. More power would certainly help, but with a worthless Canadian dollar the Eros and Kaiju will just have to wait. I will post another update once I'm motivated to get back to the project!

[Karl5150]

I picked up an unopened FH3 flat pack with the Alpair drivers from someone who just never built them. I was originally considering the Fostex drivers to pair better with my Stereomour II, but couldn't resist the deal.
I am driving them with a 20WPC pentode amp and I like them so far. Placed near the corners of our relatively small living room the bass is surprising: Not overly abundant or super low, but what is there is well rendered.
As with all single drivers there are tradeoffs and limitations.
It is my understanding that a 300B amp is kind of the minimum to drive the Alpairs. My S II is wired for 4 Ohms, maybe someday I'll install the impedance switch and give 'em a try.

[Natural Sound]

That's an interesting wrap you have on there.

[M42]

I have completed my Frugelhorns. I installed the entire 40 grams of acoustic stuffing in the front of each horn and glued the side panels up. The sound is much improved of course with the sealed cabinets. The speakers are currently set up in a near-field listening configuration due to the small room size. I pulled the speakers out of the corners (the Alpairs don't seem to rely on corner loading as much as the Fostex drivers do). I am much happier with them now...I think they sound quite good. I will continue to experiment with their positioning for optimal performance. In time I'll try removing some of the acoustic stuffing in an effort to fine tune the bass.

[M42]

The more time I spend listening to these,the more I like them! Time to make some maple isolation plinths and add some spikes.

[Karl5150]

Glad you are enjoying the FH3s, I find with the Alpair's they can rock-out way better than my Fostex OBs.
I ended up putting 18" long stabilizers on the front and using 3 of PE's small diameter spikes on each speaker, someone would really have to want to tip one over now.
I also pulled them out from the back wall a little more and will try losing some of the stuffing to see what that does for filling in the speaker's bottom octaves that were lightened with the move. (Maybe a BH Fix is in order!)
I have to amend my earlier post about power requirements. My old Scott is in need of some TLC so I brought my SEX home from work and hooked it up to the FH3s. Granted our condo is small, but unless I planed on throwing a house party, I could live with the set-up.

[M42]

I'm very happy with the Alpairs and as relatively inefficient as they are I can drive them to quite satisfying levels with my Stereomour! I'm planning on making some hard maple plinths about 10" x 20" and then putting spikes either under the speakers, or under the plinths. I'll experiment with both to see if it makes any difference. I suspect the only real benefit will be raising the speakers a couple of inches or so. The drivers will be a little more in line with my listening chair.  Right now I have some small wedges at the front of the speakers...this seems to improve things somewhat.

I'm going to listen to the speakers a while longer before I remove any of the acoustic stuffing...I have given thought to the Fix as well....any excuse to build something! I have a couple of 100 watt plate amps I'd like to put to use, I've recently been reading about tapped horn design subwoofers. That might be another project, but at this point I'm not convinced I need one.

I will upgrade the tubes in the Stereomour to JJ 2A3-40's and install the Integration in my Reduction. The extra few db of gain can't hurt! From what I've read, those who have the JJ's like them.

[drewh1]

I have been using JJ's for a couple of years now, I drive 92 db speakers nearfield with plenty of volume. I think they sound great and have been problem free. If I was going to buy new tubes I would consider EML's now.

  I am getting ready to build a Kaiju though . . .