Altec 803B Multicell Horn in home use??

[Panomaniac]

The 300Hz horns do not have as much treble as the 500Hz horns. Mostly because they are longer hrons. So you need to use a lower crossover point with your tweeter to get enough treble. On the 500Hz horns you can almost get away with no tweeter. I often did for live gigs.

The 300Hz horns sound great, no problem. But as you have found, they are BIG. (Imagine the 1803) So they are not as popular for home use. I think that the 1005 is very sought after because it is a "good size" for home use. Not too giant, but big enough to sound great.

The 803B is a great place to start - I love mine. But you WILL need a tweeter, that's all.
You should measure your 288/803 to see at what frequency you need to bring in the tweeter. It should be somewhere in the region of 5K-8K.

So I say start with the 803. Keep your eyes open for a good deal on a 1005, or even the 1505, if you have room for it. Who knows, you may be so happy with the 803 that you will forget any other horn.

[aeyb701]

Once I get a pair of throats from ePay last week I may try 803B horns suspended pointing downward at an angle a foot or so from the ceiling. The 825/515's will be directly below them on the floor. My reason for this is the 803's are deeper than the cabs and if voice coils are to be aligned the horn would stick out over the front of the bass horn. I could also use the real estate atop the 825's for other things.
Anyone else tried horns hung rather than the usual way?
Jon A.

[Jonas@Psychedelic]

I think I need your help for the crossover.

I Have 16 Ohms 288 driver and 8 Ohms woofer.
I could buy a JBL 2405 with 16 Ohms.

But which crossover layout sounds nice?
Does anybody have experience on that issue?

[Panomaniac]

I may try 803B horns suspended pointing downward at an angle a foot or so from the ceiling. .

Funny - I've been thinking of the same thing. Would sure be nice. And I want to do them on pulleys (12' ceiling) so that I can hoist them out of the way.
Only trouble is - where to put them? I have not found the ideal spot for the bass cabs yet.


Jonas. Use the 16 ohm section of the published crossover for your 288s, and the 8 ohm section for your woofers.
You can buy any of the JBL tweeters you want. 16 ohm might me a littler easier, that's all. But the tweeter crossover can be calculated for 8 or 16. It could be as simple as 1 cap and 1 resistor.

Just know that as Jon notes above, the 803 horns are long, so to get them lined up right with your woofers the front of the horn will stick out beyond the front of the cab. There are crossover tricks to get around this, more on that later.

[Jonas@Psychedelic]

There are crossover tricks to get around this, more on that later.

Ok, I will wait for that..

[bfish]

Using active XO with the appropriate LF delay would be preferrable to separating the components further than they already are. Even with a stock A7 you have to be ~30 feet away before you can no longer tell the two sources are at different locations. Add several feet to that separation by hanging the HF, and you'd need to be... well... a long ways away for it to sound like a single source.

While many active XOs offer adjustable delay, not that many offer it on the LF band, which is needed when the HF driver is "behind" the LF.

[GM]

While many active XOs offer adjustable delay, not that many offer it on the LF band, which is needed when the HF driver is "behind" the LF.

Depends on how far back it is since the XO's phase delay (which moves the HF's acoustic center behind the LF's, increasing with increasing slope order) may require it be set back even further in the case of an 825 or similar horn cab.

GM

[Panomaniac]

Well the Behringer DCX2496 let's you do all that and more, but is not the greatest sounding piece of gear. At least not in stock form. But that's for a whole other forum!

A nice passive can be done. But it does need to take all these things into account.