Description
Our DIY Frugel Horn Mk3 kit speakers have been CNC machined from 18 mm Baltic Birch Ply to provide an accurate and repeatable method for anyone to build this pair of DIY full range loudspeakers. The kit uses mitred joints to make assembly of the cabinets as easy as possible.
This easy to build kit comes with all the panels needed to build a pair of Frugel-Horn speakers, all you’ll have to do is add glue to the slots in the large side panels and push the panels together. Following the component selection steps here you can add all the extra’s that you will need to complete your build. The front baffles will be cut for the driver you have selected, we can also cut your baffles for one of the other drivers that are known to work well with the Frugel Horn that we don’t sell here for a small charge.
These full range speakers make use of a tapered hypex horn with internal choke, after Olson, with the judicious use of damping allows for tuning to the room (& placement in the room), as well as your taste in bass quantity and tuning.
Scott Lindgren gets credit for the design of the current horns, Ron Clarke deserves mention for coming up with the curved mouth which allows a rectangular mouth to act more like an ideal circle, David Dlugos for drawings & web-site, Chris Bobiak for producing the original prototypes. The home of the Frugel Horn is over at the Frugal-Horn website The plans for the Frugel Horn Mk 3 plans are available from that site if you decide to go it alone rather than use one of our FH Mk 3 flat pack speaker cabinet kits. It is in the spirit of the Frugal phile project for you to give donation to www.DIYaudio.com before you use the plans, and you can find details about that on the Frugal Horn website. The range of Frugel-Horns make use of a tapered hypex horn with internal choke, with the judicious use of damping allows for tuning to the room (& placement in the room), as well as your taste in bass quantity and tuning.
Take a look over at our instruction page for this design to see how simple it is to put it together, the instructions are specific to our Frugel horn XL kit but the method is the same for the Frugel horn Mk 3 DIY speaker kit.
Designed to work with 4 inch drivers it works well with any of the ‘7’ size Markaudio drivers like the Pluvia 7.2 HD, Pluvia 7 PHD and Alpair 7 MS and MAOP 7 drivers.
Please note that:
Wood glue is not included with this kit, but is available here. If your order is not going to be delivered to an address in the UK, you should not order wood glue from us as it may cause the package to be held by Customs in your country. Instead, you should purchase it locally.
Contact Spray adhesive is not included with this kit, but is available here. If your order is not going to be delivered to an address in the UK, you should not order contact spray adhesive from us as it may cause the package to be held by Customs in your country. Instead, you should purchase it locally.
Stuart Hall (verified owner) –
This review is a long time coming I guess as my Frugelhorn Mk3’s were ordered back in the tail end of 2018. The move to these full-range horns has been largely attributable to a 25 year or so journey through the world of hi-end audio. Long story short my ears/brain are very sensitive to phase and crossover distortion and this niggle has not been cured by throwing money at the problem…..it has needed a rethink of the engineering of the reproduction path. When I first engaged with Stefan he guided me through the choices and decision points regarding horns in general and this specific design – he is very engaging and knowledgeable, given my room size (W:5m x L:6m x H:4m) it was felt that the Frugelhorn Mk3 cabinets would be a good match and would work close to the room boundary. The chosen driver choice was a pair of MarkAudio Alpair 7 MS drivers which were very new at the time, however I was also able to purchase a pair of MarkAudio MOAP 7’s, these being in stock and very rare in the UK. All was delivered, Stefan having made up the cabinets to compensate for a delay in having the CNC woodwork available. The cabinets being subsequently finished with 2 coats of Osmo wax, this being easy to apply and has proved to be very durable. Internal wiring was from Duelund and red copper binding posts from CMC. Why the long time to post a review? Well to be honest I’ve been lost in the music. Initially the Alpair 7 MS drivers were installed and run in over 100 hours. I was very impressed by the immediacy of the soundfield….palpable and incredibly detailed, but not in an overtly “HiFi” way, familiar albums took on a new life…as close friends again. I guess you know when your music system is working well is when you can leave Fleetwood Mac: Rumours on repeat all day and still really enjoy it. This wasn’t the end of the journey with the Fruglehorns – I swapped out the drivers for the MOAP 7’s and dilligently did about 300hrs of running in……..wasn’t exactly a hardship as they sounded pretty good straight out the box. They have now been in place for over 12 months and have taken the Fruglehorns to another level – the sound is more refined and detailed , imaging is “bigger” yet more focused and somehow has made some difficult recordings become much more listenable. I don’t understand the tech but I do know good sound reproduction when I hear it and this current combination has shocked a number of experienced music enthusiasts who have visited (armed with silver discs…remember them??), some of whom are clasical musicians. In wrapping up this review I can commend Stefan for his advice and support, the apparent simplicity of the speaker design/construction (this simplicity belies the complexity of the horn calculations and compensations for room effects, etc) but center stage has to be the final outcome….an incredible set of speakers which continue to be a delight to own and keep my musical attention captivated for hours on end most days regardless of whether I’m listening to Bach in HiRez or 1930’s blues in glorious mono!!…and pretty much anything in between!