New Altec lover

[Petro]

You should definitely try the D130s in the A7 cabinets. I have run a set in heavily braced 825 cabinets with the horn section closed off, crossed at about 900hz, and think they are excellent. I think what stands out is their ability to reproduce percussion with such clarity. My guess this is due to the rolled paper surround, which makes the lightweight cone pretty stiff. I run mine with subs crossed at about 80hz. I also have a set of 604es that I am currently running in my 825 cabinets utilizing only the woofer as a test to see how I might like the sound of the 515b. Im also running these with the subs. I am trying to determine what I prefer between the two. Not sure if the 604e horn is acting as a phase plug, but have to assume they sound similar to the 515b. At this point I'm leaning towards the D130s. Clearly the 604e woofers are better balanced, but I seem to prefer the D130s with the subs. I would love to get my hands on a set of Altec 803a with the similar rolled paper surround design as the D130. Good luck, keep us posted, interested in you opinion on how they compare.

I was thinking of selling the d130 to fund the cabinet build, but I will try them first. Your not the first person who told me I may like them.
Thanks

[GM]

You should definitely try the D130s in the A7 cabinets.

Not sure if the 604e horn is acting as a phase plug, but have to assume they sound similar to the 515b.

I would love to get my hands on a set of Altec 803a with the similar rolled paper surround design as the D130. Good luck, keep us posted, interested in you opinion on how they compare.

Agreed, it apparently was Lansing's attempt to replicate his original Altec Lansing field coil horn driver's performance with a permanent magnet variant. If you can find any decent original, or at least re-coned within a few years of its date code, the 418-8LF is as close a clone as you're going to find other than JBL's E130 AFAIK.

FWIW, I did a bunch of empirical testing of a single 604E in one of my ex DIY 825 cabs [3/4" no void marine ply, mucho bracing/damping] and among other tests, used a 500 Hz/2nd order [autoformer] XO to blend the 511 perched on top to it and with just the XO and both horns disconnected we [me and its owner] couldn't tell anything useful compared to the 416 in his other cab or even my dual 515Bs in 210 cabs, i.e., they all sounded like 'mud' sloshing around inside, with no definition/tone/whatever you want to call it 'cause we sure couldn't hear anything like music.

That said, the 515B's are a little bass shy with more 'detail'/'sweetness' on the top end compared to the 416, so one can either use EQ and/or raise cab tuning to deal with the low end and is a better choice if using either higher XO points or lower slope orders.

FWIW, me and others [according to the local Altec dist. at the time] have used 515Bs WFO [no XO] and 802 drivers with just a baffle thickness horn 'end correction' flare [some not even this, though don't recommend it], 5 kHz high pass with surprising success, though obviously they have a narrow 'sweet spot'.

There's also been experimentation and at least one boutique manufacturer that's used the 802 as a dome radiator with the throat inlet stuffed to 'taste' to increase its 'sweet spot' a bit.

In short, anybody wants mine will probably have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.

GM

[Petro]

Agreed, it apparently was Lansing's attempt to replicate his original Altec Lansing field coil horn driver's performance with a permanent magnet variant. If you can find any decent original, or at least re-coned within a few years of its date code, the 418-8LF is as close a clone as you're going to find other than JBL's E130 AFAIK.

FWIW, I did a bunch of empirical testing of a single 604E in one of my ex DIY 825 cabs [3/4" no void marine ply, mucho bracing/damping] and among other tests, used a 500 Hz/2nd order [autoformer] XO to blend the 511 perched on top to it and with just the XO and both horns disconnected we [me and its owner] couldn't tell anything useful compared to the 416 in his other cab or even my dual 515Bs in 210 cabs, i.e., they all sounded like 'mud' sloshing around inside, with no definition/tone/whatever you want to call it 'cause we sure couldn't hear anything like music.

That said, the 515B's are a little bass shy with more 'detail'/'sweetness' on the top end compared to the 416, so one can either use EQ and/or raise cab tuning to deal with the low end and is a better choice if using either higher XO points or lower slope orders.

FWIW, me and others [according to the local Altec dist. at the time] have used 515Bs WFO [no XO] and 802 drivers with just a baffle thickness horn 'end correction' flare [some not even this, though don't recommend it], 5 kHz high pass with surprising success, though obviously they have a narrow 'sweet spot'.

There's also been experimentation and at least one boutique manufacturer that's used the 802 as a dome radiator with the throat inlet stuffed to 'taste' to increase its 'sweet spot' a bit.

In short, anybody wants mine will probably have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.

GM

Thank you, very helpful. I'm stuck in the dilemma, I've got 3 full really heavy sheets of 3/4" MDF sitting here with a couple sheets of 1/4" ply with really nice grain. Was going to start cutting it up today but I'm stuck in between my little smaller a7 cabinets I drew up or going bass reflex way.
So I gave up and wired the 511/808 into my model15 just for fun. Wow sounds great too!!!

[Elitopus1]

FWIW, I did a bunch of empirical testing of a single 604E in one of my ex DIY 825 cabs [3/4" no void marine ply, mucho bracing/damping] and among other tests, used a 500 Hz/2nd order [autoformer] XO to blend the 511 perched on top to it and with just the XO and both horns disconnected we [me and its owner] couldn't tell anything useful compared to the 416 in his other cab or even my dual 515Bs in 210 cabs, i.e., they all sounded like 'mud' sloshing around inside, with no definition/tone/whatever you want to call it 'cause we sure couldn't hear anything like music.

I hadn't thought about using a 604 as a 515. It makes sense since its the same woofer besides the horn in place of the dust cap.

So you are saying that at the 500hz xover point there was no noticable difference between the different drivers? I bet if they were run up to 1.2khz there might be more differences.

[BillWojo]

GM, your saying that those woofers all sounded like "mud sloshing" up to 500hz with music playing through them? It would seem to me that they would not be very popular at all. I've never tried an experiment like that, is it typical for woofers to sound like that?
Thanks

BillWojo

[GM]

It makes sense since its the same woofer besides the horn in place of the dust cap.

So you are saying that at the 500hz xover point there was no noticable difference between the different drivers? I bet if they were run up to 1.2khz there might be more differences.

Not exactly, but once the felt is removed........then again I've never bothered to check to see if the re-cone kit is the same or not.

Not that I recall, but then it was back in '70.............It was quite an eye opener and very instructive long term.

I assume so, there just wasn't enough harmonics for any 'definition' with the XO in place. It really highlighted just how poor our hearing acuity is below ~1 kHz, giving me a keen interest in learning more about how we hear, etc., which in turn led me to learning room acoustics in my search for improving speaker cabs [miniature rooms] beyond Olson's tower reflex [MLTL], end loaded TLs, etc. and on to driver design, woofer 'speed', etc., etc..

Interesting how something we did out of idle curiosity would have such an impact on my life and ultimately a lot others here and around the world.

GM

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GM, your saying that those woofers all sounded like "mud sloshing" up to 500hz with music playing through them?

is it typical for woofers to sound like that?

Relatively speaking, yes, though not so much with music, but using a Heathkit signal generator. Guess I wasn't clear enough, though music was worse in a way and pretty much unrecognizable as such; really you would just have to try it and come to your own subjective opinion.

Absolutely! Listen to a HT sub XO'd at the standard 80 Hz for an extreme example since not only is there only an octave or three, but the drivers are designed with very limited HF BW, so not even much on the roll off slope compared to these wide BW woofers. Without ~tonally balanced harmonics reaching up into our acute hearing BW we have little to work with.

Actually, we tend to want a rising response ['fast'] bass, otherwise it sounds 'slow'/'bloated'/'loose' even if it measures flat in room to may folks, with only < 30 movie LFE for more pronounced [sub] bass to offset our rapidly rising hear loss.

GM

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you, very helpful. I'm stuck in the dilemma, I've got 3 full really heavy sheets of 3/4" MDF sitting here with a couple sheets of 1/4" ply with really nice grain. Was going to start cutting it up today but I'm stuck in between my little smaller a7 cabinets I drew up or going bass reflex way.
So I gave up and wired the 511/808 into my model15 just for fun. Wow sounds great too!!!

You're welcome!

Scaled down A7s or any other horn system pushes the its gain bandwidth [BW] higher, so is misaligned relative to the driver's unless you designed them based on an existing driver, ditto the cab tuning, so now you've got to either use mass quantities of digital EQ or find a driver that will work; good luck with that.

Better to compromise with a tower alignment [MLTL in today's parlance], the 416-8A was 'made' for this style reflex.

Yeah, adding a mid horn to cover the 'meaty' portion of the human voice really makes a two way sound more 'real'.

GM

[jocelys1]

Yeah, adding a mid horn to cover the 'meaty' portion of the human voice really makes a two way sound more 'real'.

GM

Greg, could you please elaborate the 'meaty' bit. What Hz'sss are you referring to here ?

[GM]

Ideally the 250-2500 Hz analog phone BW, though of course the 511 being limited to 500 Hz can't do it, only the large format driver/horn combos can.

GM

[jocelys1]

Woah ! nearly over 3 octaves...from 250Hz. What driver /horn combo can do that ?

[GM]

IIRC there's a 4" Peavy? that will and W.E., Lansing and others built them early on for PA, cinema and studio monitor apps, but historically two to four horns were stacked in arrays to do it. IME, one hasn't truly experienced horns until you've auditioned some of the early stuff and/or a stacked pair of 1803s doing 'girl and a guitar' type music. That said, some folks [me too] find huge waveguides [WG] superior overall.

FWIW, I ran stacked dual 511s for 350 Hz-up for awhile to replace/improve on the 805's, though long term I wound up leaving them at 500 to get the extra power handling for cranking it up to do various music at near open concert live levels and highly recommend it for an inexpensive way to get the fuller mids the multi-cells are famous for while retaining the 1" driver's HF extension, then later building a dual 1" driver WG using the basic dims of a tar filled 1803 with an even better 500 Hz-up performance.

If I were to build another horn system it would be a Unity/Synergy concept to cover 80 Hz-up coupled to some form of sub system. I'd done some 'focussed' arrays with a 'FR' driver or mids/HF horn in the center to mimic a super large 'full-range' driver, but wasn't inventive enough to finish folding it up into a WG like Tom Danley did.

GM