Over at Enjoy the Music, Dick Olsher has come up with a very interesting OB using the Feastrex D5nf fullrange and the Hawthorne Silver Iris augmentation woofer.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0107/diy_loudspeaker_project.htm

For its small cone size, the D5nf (made by my friends Yukihiko Akiyama and Haruhiko "Hal" Teramoto in Yamanashi, Japan) is capable of very good bass when used in the right bass reflex cabinet, but I fully understand Mr. Olsher when he says "It would be a crime in my book to imprison a driver with the musical integrity of the D5nf in a box!" One does not even need to hear the system to accept that the D5nf could be mounted in a much larger open baffle than the one Mr. Olsher used without getting anywhere near the amount of bass produced by Hawthorne Silver Iris Augie woofer. So then the big question becomes one of how well the two drivers integrate, and since I have not heard this implementation I can only take Mr. Olsher's word for it, but he seems to be thrilled with the results.

If anyone goes to the Feastrex website, they should note that the driver images (among other things) are in need of updating, and they will probably do that in the next few weeks about the time their Hong Kong distributor's website is ready to go online. The main visible difference is that all the images currently show drivers without phase plugs, whereas the actual production drivers use only phase plugs. The frames for the actual production units have been improved as well. The image shown here, however, is accurate for the current version.

Just in case it is not clear, neither Dick Olsher nor I have any commercial connection with Feastrex. I don't have any connection with Hawthorne Audio either, and I presume (but have not confirmed) that's true for Mr. Olsher as well.

Chris Witmer
Tokyo

• DIY Loudspeaker Project: Feasting on the Feastrex full range driver and Augie Woofer