617-8A Ceiling Speakers

[Tozco]

Hello,
Do you think the 617-8A's have any chance as a basis for a HiFi home built speaker? Additionally, has anyone out there ever attempted to Back Horn Load an Altec Duplex?
Any thoughts would be appreciated. I currently listen with K-horns and C-J tubes, but am looking to put together a smaller more mobile system or 2nd system.
Thank You, Tozco

[Rex Mills]

I recently bought a pair of the 617-8a's but, as yet, have had no time to build cabinets for them. The supplied spec sheet gives a responce to 15k so I would expect the high end to sound good. If wide dispersion above 10k is very important to you you may be dissapointed because the conical horn will limit off axis responce above that. WinISD box designer gives a F3 of 73 hz in a 1.15 cu. ft. vented enclosure, but with an fs of 29 hz I'm sure the 617 can go lower in a larger box, of course at the cost of higher distortion. If you get a pair and build boxes for them, keep us updated. I would be interested to hear how they tun out...Rex

[rolandr]

Close to ideal vocal PA monitor with good efficient response 60-15K. Nice HiFi sound with subwoof X over at 80-100Hz and additional supertweeter X over with cap only (6dB/oct-OK) at 9-10K. Hard to match quality for the money used this way.

[Steve Burger]

The woofer sound is excellent but I personally don't care for the sound of the University horn/driver set-up used in the 617. We can do a wonderful modification to that set-up for you. You end up with a sort of smaller version of the 604. Of course not quite the efficeincy of a 604 in the bottom end but great for small areas. Contact me for details.

[Steve Burger]

Wanted to take this opportunity to back out a little on that offer to modify the 617's. It is just a little too much work but can be done. We did it with few sets and they sound pretty good. Jim has been in the middle of modifying a set of them with 806's but ran into some difficulties and is stuck until he can produce a part. It was a lot easier to do with 902/909.

[GM]

I have a pdf of the data sheets, try downloading it from here: http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/altec210

GM

[GM]

Hmm, when I click on the link, it's there and can be downloaded. I guess that's what they mean by private viewing only. Anyway, send me an email and I'll attach it.

GM

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