Lowering the crossover point.

[voice of the theater]

Took the backs off the cabinets today and made some brackets so I could retain the attenuators. I was right that the backs were 5/8ths They measured .625 with my calipers. I like how they sound now. Shot some videos will be posting them up through the night.
Here's the first one. Sorry about the crappy quality.
Altec 604C Avatar1.MOV - YouTube

I was giving this situation some thought last night and I have a theory. However, if you like the way they sound now maybe you don't need this theory after all!

I agree with this, if I eq my 604's like this, the midrange energy overwhelms the lows and some of the highs. Something seems off......

Ya think?!

GM

I was thinking that you've been doing a lot of crossover changes/customizations etc. (swapping out inductors, resistors, capacitors, etc.) and cabinet changes trying to find the crossover and cabinet design that sounds the best with your 604's. However, you've been doing these modifications and listening tests (to audibly evaluate which mods sound best) with very unconventional graphic equalizer settings. So your current crossover and cabinet design that you're using is customized to be the one that sounds best with your (very) unusual graphic equalizer settings.

IMHO, if you really want to get the most from your Altecs, I would recommend doing your crossover and cabinet mods/experimentation/ and listening evaluations (to assess your results) with the graphic equalizer and tone controls set flat or at least with much less graphic EQ/tone controls (if you just can't listen to them completely flat under any circumstances)--a very subtle smiley face graphic EQ setup (which is a much more conventional setting/probably much more appropriate for 604's) would still be a huge improvement as far as being appropriate for your listening evaluations during crossover and cabinet experimentation/modifications. With your graphic EQ and tone controls set flat (or at least close to flat), you're modifying your crossovers and cabinets (via listening tests/trial and error) to sound the best with your speakers, and not modifying your crossovers and cabinets to sound the best with your unusual graphic EQ settings. Once you find which crossover and cabinet design sounds best with your speakers, then you can add some EQ to sweeten/fine tune the sound further if needed.

I know you've done a lot of work on your crossovers and different cabinets and I'm basically asking you to revisit it (and maybe drive Parts Express crazy), but if you want the most out of your speakers I think it's worth it and IMHO you're likely to be very pleasantly surprised by the results. Does this suggestion make sense to anyone else here?

[bowtie427ss]

Does this suggestion make sense to anyone else here?

Yes, heaps of sense. I'm one of those geeks who mainly uses EQ in "when all else fails" situations. So, i'm buyin what yer sellin.

If i might make a suggestion to you VOT, break large bodies of text in your posts up into spaced paragraphs, it makes it much easier for us old farts with failing eyes to read, and more importantly makes it much faster to go back and parse certain parts of the text to be sure we fully understand what you mean.

[voice of the theater]

If i might make a suggestion to you VOT, break large bodies of text in your posts up into spaced paragraphs, it makes it much easier for us old farts with failing eyes to read, and more importantly makes it much faster to go back and parse certain parts of the text to be sure we fully understand what you mean.

Thanks, bowtie. I just went back and edited it/broke it into three paragraphs instead of one huge one and yes, it's a lot easier to read that way.

Yes, heaps of sense. I'm one of those geeks who mainly uses EQ in "when all else fails" situations. So, i'm buyin what yer sellin.

I think that even people who always use EQ and never listen flat would benefit from doing crossover and cabinet mods/experimentation (and subsequent listening evaluations) with a flat (or almost flat if they find flat unbearable!) EQ setting and after finding what sounds the best with their speakers, then use an equalizer/season to taste.....

[VolvoHeretic]

Here's the first one. Sorry about the crappy quality.
Altec 604C Avatar1.MOV - YouTube

It still appears that your main use of these speakers is for video playback and I would have to EQ for that scene in a similar fashion as your EQ picture. Video sucks and you will probably never get it right, and when you are done, will have ruined the sound of your speakers for audio listening. With out true 5.1 surround sound, your are just chasing demons. Set your speakers for what they are designed for, stereo audio listening, and suffer through the sound affects and poor engineering of video.

[voice of the theater]

It still appears that your main use of these speakers is for video playback and I would have to EQ for that scene in a similar fashion as your EQ picture. Video sucks and you will probably never get it right, and when you are done, will have ruined the sound of your speakers for audio listening. With out true 5.1 surround sound, your are just chasing demons. Set your speakers for what they are designed for, stereo audio listening, and suffer through the sound affects and poor engineering of video.

I agree that video sound quality often times isn't up to snuff with a well recorded and mastered musical studio recording (vinyl/CD's), but I've found that many movies from this century actually have relatively good sound quality. So, VH, we may have to agree to disagree on this point. I do, however, agree with your main point "Set your speakers for what they are designed for, stereo audio listening...."

I have my Model 19's and Model 14's optimized for listening to music (CD's and Vinyl). I've got the dual crossover pots on the speakers etc. ( and I do (sparingly) use a graphic equalizer) dialed in to where (well recorded and mastered) music sounds phenomenal on them. With them setup this way, many "modern" Blue Ray movies/DVD's and even many stereo Satellite TV broadcasts (and digital cable broadcasts before I dumped Time Warner) sound great on them with no changes made to the dual crossover pots or equalizer settings. In fact, that's how I judge how good I consider the sound quality of a DVD or cable/satellite broadcast to be. If it sounds great on my stereo system in my customary/default EQ settings that I use to listen to music, then I consider that movie/tv broadcast to have "good" sound......

My wife and I watched the movie "Avatar" (the movie Cradeldorf uses in his clip in this thread) on satellite TV though the Model 19's with my customary/default (for music) EQ settings and it sounded very good--no mods to my EQ settings or dual crossover pots on the speakers were needed. I think they did a good job regarding the sound quality for that movie, even if they should have been sued by Roger Dean for mimicking his artwork/landscapes!


A FEW EXAMPLES OF ROGER DEAN'S ART

[Alien_Shore]

CD, here's what I'd do if it were me:

1) Get a measurement rig (either have someone come over who has one, or you can put one together - a "turnkey" option is the Omnimic, but you can put together your own rig for less than half the price of that).

2) As VOTT suggests, take everything in the signal path, write it all down, and build a test plan that allows for understanding what each component is doing to the measurements. For example,
* start with raw drivers (free air impedance sweeps),
* then add in the cabinets (cabinet loaded impedance sweeps),
* then add in the amp with no EQ or crossover (raw driver FR measurements)
* then add in the crossover
and so on. Time consuming, yes. But fun, and only with that methodical approach can you get down to the nitty gritty of how all the pieces are changing the sound.

3) If you can't get hold of a FR measurement rig, you can still go through the steps in #2 with listening tests and get some value from it, and at a minimum you'd probably want to keep a "listening journal" of sort to be able to keep track of everything as more of the system components get layered in.

just my 2?

[aditya]

I visited his video link, and barring that tad bit of echoey-ness (which was due to the room while doing the recording), to be frank, the sound was almost normal, and this confirms that the speakers are alright. Also around 10 months back, he had started a thread about how to reduce the "shouty-ness" of his 604s which is again a normal thing in the case of the 604s.

So it seems that the speakers are okay, and the problem is somewhere else in the audio chain, most probably with the 5.1 splitter.

[Altec Best]

If i might make a suggestion to you VOT, break large bodies of text in your posts up into spaced paragraphs, it makes it much easier for us old farts with failing eyes to read, and more importantly makes it much faster to go back and parse certain parts of the text to be sure we fully understand what you mean.

Yup Dave (VOTT),this is good advice.......

[Panomaniac]

Yes, I've had one for years and it works great. Let us know if you have any problems.

[Alien_Shore]

I decided to order one of these,

Dayton Audio DATS Dayton Audio Test System 390-806

Hopefully I can get the actual T/S parameters and VAS so I can Do it right the first time..
Looks right up my simple minds alley.

Good stuff, right there, I don't care who you are...