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		25-august-2008 Pre-EnABL driver upgrades. FF85KeN beta program has been completed. We love this driver. Planet10-hifi FE126eN/FE127eN Planet10-hifi presents the 1st commercially available EnABLed drivers. These drivers are not only EnABLed but have some Planet10 exclusive modifications which include cone pre-treatment to reduce high frequency roughness of the driver's response, basket damping & stiffening, and pair matching of Thiel-Small parameters. We are finally catching up with initial orders, but colour selection can be limited. These bear passing resemblance to the Fostex drivers they are based on, but their performance is leagues ahead. We feel that at almost 2 1/2 times the price they are easily better value. There are dozens of enclosure designs available in the box plan library and on the frugal-horn site for these drivers. And more coming all the time. Fonkens (5 kinds), Frugel-Horn, Metronome, Spawns (lots of them), RonHorn, diyAudio ref ML-TLs, ML-Voigt, PAWO, Mileva, classics like Buschhorn, ZigmaHornet, ... Or upgrade your existing Fostex FE126e or FE127e based diy or commercial loudspeaker,     The FE126eN & FE127eN are the same except for the motor. The FE126 motor is larger which gives it more efficiency & lower Q than the FE127. This also means that the FE126 really wants to be in a horn enclosure. These are of necessity trickier to build (not necessarily harder but many more pieces -- both Mikasa or Saburo can be made with nothing but 90 degree cuts) The FE127 is the shieded driver that fits into almost any other kind of box. A wider range of box plans are available for these, and some of the simple BR or ML-TL boxes are quite simple to build. A step up in tricky to build would be Mileva, and Metronome isn't really any harder. And if you want something that looks like a horn, the Chang's (Olivia, Brynn, Gabriel) for the FE127 are pretty simple builds too. The FE126 will fit and work in some of the FE127 boxes but really require a series resistor to raise the Q -- this typically removes any advantage it has in efficiency & snap (the FE127 is a bit smoother on the top) The FF85keN should be considered as a very good mid-tweeter. Response down below 100 Hz is possible with limited SPL for near-field use, and the top end is good to beyond 20 KHz (Fostex specifies 32kHz). When we 1st heard this we realized we had a device that would hold its own against some very expensive tweeters. Used with a good midbass or 2 with a crossover of 250-1000 Hz, a full range 2-way can be had. We are currently playing with these & a planet10-hifi modified version of the CSS SDX7 in a very cute 2-way. Natural cone with brown EnABLis standard for FE126eN/127eN -- other colors are available. There is a bewildering number of combinations of EnABL colours and coloured cones. If there is something you'd like just contact me -- i'm going to try to accomodate most requests. Early FF85k will be available in Natural with Black, We will try to keep stock of more popular colours on-hand for immediate shipping. Custom takes longer. Price for FE126eN/127eN is $225 CAD/matched pair (with USD ~CAD, US funds are fine). *Shipping Semi-modified & matched pairs for those who would like to EnABL the drivers themselves are $125 CAD/pair. Price for FF85eN will be $170 CAD/matched pair. Availability in near end September. Other Fostex-based drivers are under development. beta testers have FE167eN, FE206eN, FE207eN. Currently available on a special order basis at special pricing -- please inquire. Here are some comments. Eddie Vaughn FE127eN in his Fonkens (good stuff starts 5 posts down) Clark Blumstein FE126eN Peter C FE126eN in Hornshoppe Horns Modifications include: reduce resonances & reflection back thru the cone including basket damping, stiffening, and shaping. A wool felt disk is supplied that can be attached to the magnet to reduce reflections off the magnet reduce cone resonances*. The FE126 & FE127 have a couple fairly serious resonance peaks. The effect of these peaks are reduced considereably with the trifoil pattern and surface pre-treatment smoothing the response. the cones are EnABLed**. This dramatically reduces the "hall-of-mirrors" haze, increasing downward dynamic range and revealing subtle information in the music that fills out detail that gives the brain more data to recreate the event. the precoat and the post-coat considerably reduces the cone noise (imagine paper fibres rubbing together as the cone vibrates) thus further lowering the noise floor *(described in this thread on the Full Range Forum with some additional updates on this diyAudio thread) **(H. O. Purvine, U.S. patent # 5,304,746 publication date April 1994) Read more about EnABL The process the drivers go thru: Each batch of 20 drivers is run-in for 100+ hours (check for duds -- none so far). The drivers are then modified basket, cone matched into pairs T/S parameters are measured thru-out for data collection purposes and to stream drivers into pairs One of a set of blue in the UK (before EnABL) | ~70g of ductseal is added to every FE126 to damp & shape the rear airflow | a batch of FE126 just after the anti-resonance rings have been added Post to Europe is typically Air -- (5-8 business days) or Surface -- (5-8 weeks), to the US surface is typically 2-3 weeks, email for a shipping quote if you aren't covered. Or just for more info.   FE126e/pr Air/Surface FE127e/pr Air/Surface Canada   eMail with your Postal Code for a quote USA   Max $37/25 /Min $29/22 Max $34/24 /Min $28/21 Europe, South America, Asia*   $82/$45 $75/$42 Australia/New Zealand/India*   $87/$49 $79/$44 *(depending on the country there may be some restrictions on maximum insurable amount) I didn't try all countries, so if you are out of the way geographically or politically these rates may not apply