Anyone familier with Fuselier speakers?


I had the good fortune of finding a pair of 8-3D Fuselier
speakers at an estate sale. After breaking them in, I found
them to be the most natural sounding speakers I have had the pleasure of listening to. They are large three way monitors with Dynaudio drivers.If anyone has owned or has any additional information about these speakers, I would appreciate your comments.
tan43

Showing 1 response by jgruesen

John Fuselier was an airline pilot by profession, a speaker builder by passion. His speaker boxes were made by a cabinet manufacturer friend of his in Dothan Al. An electronics repair company, Audio Lab, installed the drivers and cross-overs in Atlanta. Fat Julian was probably one of his largest, in more than one sense, dealer of his products. I know there was a dealer in Washington D.C. at one time and few others around the country. I came to know Julian in the late 70s, when I bought some Magneplanars from him. I meet John in the mid 80s. The 2.5s, 2.6s 3.8s and 3.8Ds were the lineup at that time. The 2.5s used a dual voice coil focal mid/bass with the individual voice coils crossed over at different frequencies to an Audax tweeter. The 2.6 used a Dynaudio tweeter and Seas woofer. The 3.8, used an Audax tweeter, Dynaudio dome mid range and a 8" Vifa woofer. The 3.8d used the same tweeter and mid range, but replaced the Vifa with a 8-1/2" Dynaudio woofer. The 3.8s were reviewed by an audio magazine perhaps TAS or Stereophile and garnered an very positive review. I helped Julian and John put together and packet to try and drum some more dealers on the strength of that review, but not much came of that effort. John was just too small of a manufacturer and was running on a small budget. Julian commented on more than one occasion that John enjoyed the designing and experimenting more than the business side of making loud speakers.

I eventually bought a pair of his speakers, a prototype called the 4.3i. Three pairs were built, at least one pair had a Vifa aluminum dome (which I have) and the other variation was using a Dynaudio tweeter. They all had a 5" Focal mid range and twin Vifa 8" woofer in a clam shell isobaric configuration. The tweeter, mid range and woofer were all in separate enclosures that plugged into each other. I found this very unstable and bolted all three boxes together, with a cork thin pad between the cabinets. Being a "prototype", they had a major problem in the upper woofer response below the cross-over point, which was cured with the purchase of an equalizer. Back to the drawing board John went. The second generation of this design, with the isobaric woofer, used 10" woofers in one box with 3" mid range and tweeter in second box. They looked similar to the Wilson Watt Puppy box design. I know at least 8-10 pairs were sold by Julian in the 1990-91 time frame and possibly more of these were produced.