To complement my recent amplifier build I needed a pair of speakers and settled on this design, Frugal Horn Mk III’s. I settled on them because there was a lot or reviews and build support over at the diyAudio forums and there was a good quality flat pack available from Custom Cans. To complement them I choose a pair of MarkAudio Alpair 7P drivers. Being full range drivers there are no crossovers in these speakers, about as simple as it gets. Also, don’t be put off by their 4″ cone they are very capable speakers.

The kit was from high quality 18mm birch ply which I happened to like the look of. So, I opted to stain the speakers in a White Ash varnish so that the grain was still visible but the speakers had a lighter finish.

So how do they sound? Hmm well you need to take your time. The speakers need a 100hr run-in with gentle back ground music first and then take another 100hrs to complete the process. At the moment, the speakers have just completed the first 100hrs and have been introduced into the cabinets. First auditions reveal a surprising amount of bass given their size. It is fast, tight and very well controlled. This can also be altered by adjusting the amount of internal dampening that is installed (Sheep’s wool). The mids, at the moment, I’m finding a bit shrill and hoping that this will mellow as the speaker’s run-in some more.

What is for sure is that it is revealing the deficiencies with my source material which over the years has migrated to an MP3 collection for convenience. So, this is in the process of being re-ripped to lossless FLAC format.