Firewood Horns Feedback (long)
 

If you are sick of hearing about Firewood Horns read no further.

One or two (or four?) here have heard my Firewood Horns (sadly, with the
*crunchy* Fostex drivers in the Jerichos - now cured with 200 quid's worth
of Visatons) and, so far, everyone has been (at least) very polite about
them!!

:-)

Here are a couple of 'testimonials' (cut & pasted):

This one is from 'one here' (posted with permission and 'depersonalised')
received this morning:

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Hi Keith,

I gave the blackies their first session last night and it went very
well. I played acouple of tracks through the Missions first and then
played the same through the blackies. At first it felt like there was no
bass oomph at all but I could hear the notes. Seeing as less bass means
less chance of annoying the neighbours I turned the volume up to get the
air moving and was much better. I kept with them for 45 minutes and
either my ear tuned in to them or the drivers started to loosen up
because suddenly the bass was there, I could even feel some thump from
the kick drums and it was still there when I turned the volume down too.

The best bit was the clarity though. On DSOTM it used to sound like
there was a monotone heartbeat type wuwumph wuwwumph sound at the very
start but through the blackies it was a definite two note dum-dum
dum-dum. On some noisy Iron Maiden stuff I could always hear two guitar
players but now one of them has a much more individual tone. Simple rock
like AC/DC was cracking aome modern pop type stuff was good too,
although Graham Coxon can't sing as well through these as he can through
the missions :-)

I also thought that I'd lost some treble but now I think that the treble
on the missions is too loud to compensate for the overblown bass.

They are actually about 3" taller than the missions, about 1" narrower
and about 5-6" deeper so they are a good size replacement too. Actually
the extra height puts the drivers at exactly the same height as my ears
when sat upright on the sofa. I still can't hear the speakers now they
are in my house, the music is just there. Sometimes on the missions you
could hear some treble and know exactly where the tweeter was that made
it.

It all makes the Dynavox sound even better so I'm glad I decided to
stick with it for a while. Tonight I'll be trying some more vinyl and
then some CDs.

We have one cat that is too nosey and I knew would want to go in the
hole in the front. She came in the room and the first time she saw them
she went straight into the hole and before I could get up from the sofa
all I could see were a pair of back legs as she tried to get up inside!
When they aren't in use ther will be one of XXXXX's toy boxes in front
of each one.

Bye for now,

XXXX
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And this one from someone who doesn't subscribe here, but has built himself
a pair of Needles (received yesterday)

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/needles/needles.htm

And is going on to build a pair of the Buschhorns (Pinkies):

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/busc.../buschorns.htm

(The 'disc' referred to is a ****e little 'test CD' that has got a lot of
music with banging about and extreme tinkly bits on it!)

------------------------------------------------------
Keith,

Your disc arrived by this morning's post. Sorry for the confusion, I began
your email yesterday evening but I didn't complete it until this morning
(14th).

Naturally, I put it straight on the cd and listened to your recommended
tracks.

Track 1. Bach's toc. & fug. is a little overwhelming for the Needles on
those very deep bass notes. Played at what I would term as normal volume
level and the amp had no tone controls in operation - straight through
reproduction.

The poor little FR8 cone's were vibrating like *buggery* on some passages
and I thought "what an excellent way to break them in"!! (or perhaps break
them entirely!)

Track 8. Stunning piano reproduction -could almost be in the room with you.
Excellent imaging tests.

Track 9. Resonant bells and drums. Another quite amazing track and
reproduced to great effect.

Track 15. A really super test for the trebles.

My impressions are that these little Needles deliver quite extraordinary
sound, both in the lower to mid range but especially in the trebles. It's
would be unfair to expect them to also deliver the heavy bass notes. I
reckon that's reserved for pure Jericho territory. I wish I could hear a
pair.

I await the same tests on the Buschhorns with eagerness and can hardly wait
to compare the one to the other.

That pleasure is very likely to occur tomorrow - albeit with the remaining
side just cramped into place for the first tests.

Many thanks for sending that copy. It was (and will be) a great pleasure to
listen to many times.

Best regards

XXXXX

PS Naturally, I will let you know re the Buschhorns after initial testing.
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I post these for information only, in case anyone is interested/tempted (it
is *supposed* to be a hobbyist group....) and, as I have said before, my
doors are open to anyone here who is curious. And I still say they won't
suit everybody, but once you get used to them there's no going back!!
Actually, that's not completely true - I've got a pair of Tannoy 609s here
that are giving the Pinkies a good run for their money!! (But not, I think,
beating them - more comparing to do yet....?? :-)

IMO these speakers used with Chinese SETS (both lambasted on a regular basis
by our Colonial Cousins here, strangely....) offer a superb sound that
easily betters that you'll get on 'normal' speakers with SS amplification at
anything like a reasonable price - as my friend Pat said (knee jerk
reaction) said: 'Ooh! You'd hafta pay a lot of money to get a sound like
that!!'

(He's threatening to build a pair of speakers himself and get a SET now, but
we'll see.... ;-)

EOT, E&OE