Greenie512

FE126E Rebuild

Just to try the little FE126E’s I originally knocked up the recommended BR box as the “Back Loaded Horn + Bass Reflex Hybrid Enclosure” (Fostex’s name - not mine?) looked a bit fiddly/time consuming.

Well, it time to get down to the correct enclosure Fostex 126E cabinets, so here are a few pics of the build. I thought I’d get a bit tricky and sit the internal baffles in shallow trenches. This will aid with glue-up but means I need to get 4 sides cut exactly (that word always frightens me!) the same. So I decided to cut a template for the trenching.

The slot cutter is just a bit of 6mm MDF with a couple of small aluminum angles set parallel for my small router. As I went further into the template board I couldn’t clamp my stops so tape is a simple visual where to stop.

The above picture is actually two templates, the bottom and original was cut from 6 mm MDF, seemed a good idea at the time. What I hadn’t thought about was what was the pattern bearing going to “ride” on and 6 mm wasn’t deep enough. So a few days later I used it to cut an new template, this time out of 12 mm MDF and I might leave them both screwed together - to form the final template as above. You can see the bit sits nicely in the template, now it’s depth is correct.

I’ll use 18 mm MDF instead of the recommended 15 mm so have some minor adjustments to dimensions to account for this.

Routing all the trenches was done outside, to try and mitigate some of the dust problems. The pattern bit I ended up using was a 1/2” shank so I ended pulling the Porter Cable 3 hp out of the router table. Weighing 20 lb + the was a “heavy” few hours work.

The above pic is a “dry fit” so panels my not look aligned. Both sides trenched so everything snaps in?

I used polyurethane glue for the first time, to give myself 30 minutes assembly time - final clamped cabinet above.

Humm, on initial listing these TL’s do not sound too much different than the BR’s - there is a little further extension and if you place your ear close to the horn outlet there is some! lower end there but pretty low volume so from a distance this doesn’t seem much. I’ll do more listening before making final comments.

And finally - I tried swapping back to the BR boxes but in comparison I thought they sound thinner? so back to the BLH’s.

As soon as I raised the speakers the lower end improved quite a bit. Small plinths + sub are in the pipeline!

I also tried stuffing ports with sock! that reduced lower output - no. current configuration has the compression chamber about half full of acoustic fibre - this doesn’t seen to do to much but softens the sound ever so slightly.

Conclusions: well I’d say this combo is definately a small room system and will benifit greatly with a small sub-woofer (to come)

Sept 2006 - I’ve really mellowed to these speakers recently. Hugo opened my eyes to their real potential when he demo’d them at higher volumes than I normally listen too. And I’ve been working in the Shed a lot recently where they now live driven with a MP3 (yuk) player and a T1 amp. I often stop work, sit on the workbench and boogie along to these excellent speakers - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.