Feastrex

Redboy

a few good watts
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My new (to me) speakers are finally up and running.

These are Feastrex D5e Type I field coils, in the Feastrex-recommended F60 cabinets. I purchased the drivers a few months ago after a serious Trade Up effort, and in the past weeks have focused on building the power supply and the cabinets. They played their first notes in my home this past Sunday.

These things are incredibly well made, and beautiful. They're fine examples of old school concepts taken to modern day limits, handcrafted by true artisans using extraordinary materials.

My expectations of these are quite high. I certainly don't expect them to do everything, but I'll judge them on a set of specific criteria based on my own wants and needs. When I first considered Feastrex, there were only seven mentions of the brand here, so my arrival at this point has been largely a leap of faith. That said, I spent lots of time "researching" them online, reading people's comments and conclusions about them, and in equal parts reading between the lines to understand the context of their opinions. I consulted friends and audio mentors, and I am following in the footsteps of people who have similar systems and interests: I'm not going into this blind.

I'll comment on the sound later, after the drivers and power supplies have had time to settle in, and I've had time to listen and become familiar with them. For now, I'll say that the first couple of hours have been... exciting.

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A veritable Feast for the eyes, and ears, no doubt. Fit for a rex (king).

I hope there are no small prying fingers anywhere nearby... ;)
 
A veritable Feast for the eyes, and ears, no doubt. Fit for a rex (king).

I hope there are no small prying fingers anywhere nearby... ;)
Honestly, I am living in terror right now. My little guy is a bit impulsive at times. :sigh:
 
Nice speakers..

No nudies? Did the local woodsmith that does most of the fullrange stuff in Minnesota do the cabinets?
 
No nudies? Did the local woodsmith that does most of the fullrange stuff in Minnesota do the cabinets?
Sorry, winter in MN makes for terrible pictures, and all my work in the past few weeks has been done after dark. I'll try to grab some decent pictures of the cabinets later.

No, Gary didn't build these, though I believe he would have if I had asked him to. I "outsourced" the cabinets to a local cabinet maker, and these were his first speaker cabinets. He was genuinely interested in learning how to build these, and understood that they would be approached differently than a kitchen cabinet. I gave him some parameters and some dimensions, and he built what you see here, using 3/4" mapleply. I am very pleased with how they turned out.
 
Some of you may have already seen the power supply that I built for these. It's a very simple dual mono supply providing approximately 6.5VDC to the driver motors. The power transformers have multiple taps on the secondary winding as a way to "dial in" the voltage: varying the voltage will alter the drivers' parameters to an extent, so you can "tune" the sound a bit this way.

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Very interesting to say the least. I've often wondered if field coil had a place in modern sound reproduction, thanks for supplying a resounding YES! :thmbsp:

I look forward to your experiences. :yes:
 
Stunning. Well done and looking forward to more listening impressions. I dare not ask how much they cost. Hahaha!


Cheers,
Steven
 
Thanks, guys.

I was looking for a speaker that would play well with the single-ended tube amplifiers that I love so much. Based on how they're doing with my current amps, I suspect I can safely go into SE 2A3 territory, and perhaps (I hope) SE 45. That's probably the lower limit, but we'll test that theory later.

I also wanted a speaker that was physically smaller than what I've had lately. That's the first thing that my wife noticed about these, and she's happy. That makes me happy.

A single, full range driver has always been appealing to me. I'm a KISS guy, and this takes that many more wires, connectors and crossover components out of the equation. Granted, the power supply adds parts overall, but they're not in the signal chain proper.
 
Now I need to go to my AK glossary and lookup field coil. I've heard of them but have no idea what they are or why they need a seperate power supply.

Looks very interesting.. :smoke:
 
Now I need to go to my AK glossary and lookup field coil. I've heard of them but have no idea what they are or why they need a seperate power supply.

Looks very interesting.. :smoke:

Electromagnet on the speaker motor instead of the permanent magnets on most all speakers we are familiar with.

They were popular back when permanent magnets were still hard to mass produce, and the field of the electromagnet could be powered by, and become an integral part of, the tube amps that were the only amps in production at the time.
 
Those look super sweet, Nate. What's the scoop on the cabs? Simple ported or something more complex going on in there?
 
It's just a very basic, ported box, built according to their plans. No damping, and one small bit of bracing. There's room for experimentation here, for sure, but at this point I want to listen for a while to establish a baseline.
 
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