800 pound speakers - Community Leviathan II

Hey sorry if I took it the wrong way.

I think I actually have spec sheets for those...we used to be a Community dealer. Actually I don't deal anything anymore, but I still have some access.

Guys I've known for 20-30 years, at least a dozen are now execs somewhere. And there were a few guys, like the EV sales guy back in the 80's- that I made a lot of money.

I don't mean to imply the Community is a bad speaker. Please, please- forgive if I implied that.

It is totally different world.. in Altec's heyday, being "about the numbers" meant performance...Altec never made the transition to today's economy, where "about the numbers" means units moved and profit margin...

Community makes $150 speakers with Eminence 12's and piezos.

On the other extreme, stuff like that unit. Their better stuff is in competition with most better stuff.

But nothing like TAD...or Goto...and so on and so on.

These days, it tends to be bang for the buck...in the old days people would scrimp and do without to buy quality..very few do that anymore, consumerism is rampant.

Lemme look for specs-

Okay- I hope this makes my point.

The HF driver in that thing is $799.

Here's the response chart.

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/hbmc.../2008/04/9.jpg

You can get a classic 288G or H which makes that driver look like a POS for less- or for that matter what's Bill getting for his drivers..they should blow that thing away.

Again. optimized for volume, durability and profit...not sound quality. Not saying they sound terrible- but that quality was second or third on the engineering goals...almost everything these days is- it's built to a price point mot a quality point...

<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ April 13, 2008 03:23 PM: Message edited by: O G ]</font>

That's the difference between an ENGINEERING DRIVEN company and a MARKET DRIVEN company...

EAW is another of the latter-type...

Quote:

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Originally posted by Todd W. White:
That's the difference between an ENGINEERING DRIVEN company and a MARKET DRIVEN company...

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Spot on Todd. Sadly, the latter is more viable in today's economy.

Engineering driven companies are stuck with smaller "niche" markets.

Hi,

I am the one that got the Leviathan II's. It is interesting to follow this thread.

I bought these because they were TOO COOL. I have been building Pro Audio based "hi-fi" for quite a while and have been starting to look into bass horns. When I saw these at this cost I felt if nothing else I would learn what they sounded like and how good you could make them sound with high quality electronics (crossover, EQ, Power)

As far as the quality goes, they are actually quite impressive. Are they the ultimate "sounding" components probably not. I must say that quite a bit of engineering went into the design and build of these speakers for their intended use "provide concert quality sound over LONG distances".

The horn fabrication is very nice. The M4 driver is an amazing piece of hardware. It produces 100 acoustic watts with a 200 watt input. This is unheard of. They have carbon composite diaphragms that are actual quite nicely done (in my opinion).

In all pretty cool. Will they sound better than any of the systems you or I put together in hours of thought and hard work, probably not.

I must say that I cant wait to put a couple of my techrons on the bass horns,tweek in the top and add a handfull of bullets stand back about 50 feet and CRANK THEM UP!

I will let you know how they end up.

Keep Rockin!

Beg to differ on calling that a "bass horn"

It's severely truncated..."mid bass" horn would be a much better description.

It may or may not go a little lower than the big Altec cabs- which are also "mid bas"'

A "small" bass horn would have maybe a 7 foot path length. Which would make that box about ten feet deep to be a "small" bass horn.

The community M4 I go back and forth on, the design has possibilities. Not sure I agree with that output rating that's claimed...

Bear in mind- your Crowns and stuff like that the specs are regulated. There is absolutely no regulation on Community's published specs.

All speaker specs must be taken with a grain of salt- including Altec.

Anyway- I must state again- they aren't BAD speakers by any stretch. And very little new technology, virtually everything done before. They are made to play loud and live. They meet that spec quite adequately.

Fidelity is another matter...but some decent sounding speakers don't have great fidelity. It's a matter of compromise...successful companies make successful compromises.

Built to Altec specs that speaker would have cost three times as much- one of the reasons why community is still around.

Beg to differ on calling that a "bass horn"
It's severely truncated..."mid bass" horn would be a much better description.

I guess I did not have an understanding of what is considered "Bass" Some quick testing with an RTA showed that they did not start to roll off hard until below 40 Hz. This correlated pretty close to their spec sheet.

Is there an accepted frequency that is considered "bass" vs "mid bass"?

It may or may not go a little lower than the big Altec cabs- which are also "mid bas"'

A "small" bass horn would have maybe a 7 foot path length. Which would make that box about ten feet deep to be a "small" bass horn.

The community M4 I go back and forth on, the design has possibilities. Not sure I agree with that output rating that's claimed...

Have you heard one? After some research they are used in a number of critical listening areas. The main selling point is it s ability to cover a large amount of the vocal range without a crossover. They actually sound pretty good. (Again I understand this is subjective, but I have many compression driver horn combos and I like the sound) as far as the claims go I plan to do some testing to see how the fair. Not sure if you saw the white paper on the M4

http://www.loudspeakers.net/files/te...te%20Paper.pdf

Bear in mind- your Crowns and stuff like that the specs are regulated. There is absolutely no regulation on Community's published specs.

All speaker specs must be taken with a grain of salt- including Altec.

Anyway- I must state again- they aren't BAD speakers by any stretch. And very little new technology, virtually everything done before. They are made to play loud and live. They meet that spec quite adequately.

Fidelity is another matter...but some decent sounding speakers don't have great fidelity. It's a matter of compromise...successful companies make successful compromises.

Built to Altec specs that speaker would have cost three times as much- one of the reasons why community is still around.

They list for $27000 each and are selling for around $20000 each. Just FYI

Anyway I must say they look great in the garage. I am picking out my trailers for them now. Only time will tell what they will sound like after tweeking. I am sure we will be enjoying the heck out of them for a long time to come. That is the beauty of America It is up to YOU what you like and enjoy.

Can't wait to hear them. Let me know when you get them situated and dialed-in. I would have bought them just to see the look on my wife's face when I pulled into the driveway with them on a trailer.

Quote:

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Originally posted by bigblock1970:
Some quick testing with an RTA showed that they did not start to roll off hard until below 40 Hz. This correlated pretty close to their spec sheet.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Enjoy em by all means. The M4 is used by a few dabblers and an occasional critical app- not widespread at all however.

as far as the RTA tests- if you didn't take them out in free space- they simply don't count. You give no info how you took them...

Again I don't want to argue, but please don't present them as great speakers- that they aren't.

The original Leviathan BTW is no relation, totally different design, from the days when community WAS engineering driven instead of market driven...

There is nothing personal in this- lots of people love their Klipsch- Atlas midrange drivers and all- but no sales job is going to make me buy them.

It would be a boring world if we all like the same thing. I just want opinion and tech stuff kept straight.

look- in attemt to head off another argument starting- if you read my posts here- I investigated using these on a job. I have spec sheets on them. THAT was posted days ago.

To expand- at Community's expense I visited 3 installs, listened to them and got to visit sporst evenys free and listen to them in use.

So quoting specs at me is a bit of a lost cause.

Anyway, we bought EAW. Actually, we bought and sold EAW to be precise.

I never said they are bad, quite the opposite.

But as far as them being flat to 40 hz, Community spec sheets say "Usable to 40 Hz'

A heckuva lot different. Usable is often 10-15 db down.

With an RTA- unless you took them out and hung them in a free field, your RTA is reading 10 db or more at 40 Hz than the speakers are producing- so the tests just plain are not accurate.

I read most of the net forums, a few people play with M4's, true- with a lot of EQ- they are not very flat.

I am not reacting any way I would not if somebody was posting about ( insert 50 brand names here).

I have no problem saying they are Cadillac speakers. Just not Ferrari speakers.

I don't wanna fight, I will make no more posts on the issue.