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30-april-2012


Note: with further experience this seems to apply only to older FE127e/FE126e, in the FE127 the older usits have a more squared off magnet cover

Extreme care must be taken when removing dust caps on the FE126/127. Early experiments with FE126/127 phase plugs led to killing the drivers.DIYers being what they are, some intreped souls have figured out how to successfully remove the dustcap. Check out this diyAudio thread for more detail.

We have successfully executed phase plug install into FE127 using the procedures outlined in the above thread. Compared to a fully treated FE127eN the phase plugs add little or nothing and significantly increase the likelihood of bottoming the driver. Recommended only if your dustcaps have been pushed in or you want to create a true midrange.

Why: The way that the lead-in wire is connected to the voice coil is such that it is far to easy to kill your driver during clean-up after the removal of the dustcap. (See diagram). This is unfortunate because there was a definite improvement with the few drivers that survived surgery (we have 4 of 6 drivers dead).

The void between the dustcap & the voicecoil former is filled with a black glue -- in all 4 cases some of this gets on the inside of the voice coil former as well. This overspill rubs against the phase plug so it's removal is necessary. We successfully had 4 FE127 playing with phaseplugs, but more aggressive work to clean up the black gunk near the top edge of the voicecoil where the lea-in wires are resulted in the connection from the outside world to the voice coil to be severed.

I would like to thank Bill Perkins of PEARL for dong the surgery that revealed this failure mode (he is also going to attempt to repair the ones we didn't dissect)