One day while browsing my local surplus shop I stumbled across these crazy old Radio Shack drivers. I love the packaging! Nothing says Hi Fi like lightening bolts that proudly proclaim "4 inch, 10 watt, 8 ohm!". The drivers themselves use the white paper cone and red surround of vintage Fostexes so I thought I might have stumbled on something with these. The magnets are very unusual as well. The actual magnet is sandwiched between steel plates with bolts holding the sandwich together.

At VSAC I heard a pair of Omega Super 3 speakers. Cute little boxes using the puny little Fostex FE-103. They sounded great. Lots of music for such tiny drivers. I though immediately of my little Radio Shack drivers and had to build them into some cabinets.

I don't think these have the same effect as the Super 3s. They sound very puny and bass-shy even compared to my 5.25" 40-1354 speakers. The midrange is nice and they don;t need a tweeter, but there just isn't enough of the frequency spectrum to make them very listenable. They might be really killer as part of an unothodox 2 way system though. That would be fun.

The cabinets are comically overkill. The front and rear panels are double-thick 3/4" veneer core birch ply. They pass the knuckle test better than any speaker I have ever built. When you rap on them with your knuckles they feel and sound like concrete.