My A7-500s. A journey

[Leland]

Panomaniac, Thanks.

Yes, I have done nothing to work on the sound or modify the Altec. Mine has a 515-16G and an old 288B Driver with an 805 horn. N-500-C Crossover. It is old school, perhaps late 1940's except for the Woofer. Don't get me wrong...I love it....but just not as refined as the La Scala for my uses.

I know so little about the Altec....it could be an A5 and not an A7.....

I've played around with the antenuator on the crossover...that is about it.

THe Altec is a true Professional Audio unit....for pro audio applications. At "Volume" it is stunning.

By the way,,,Yours look GREAT...congrats on the new speakers. Do you have a pic of the 803 horns?

[gearfreak]

Beware (my) good-intentioned rambling to follow. Sorry to stray OT.
Caveat to all suggestions being 'of course you may have already tried it' :-)

...a 515-16G and an old 288B Driver with an 805 horn. N-500-C Crossover.
...but just not as refined as the La Scala for my uses.

I found the Plywood 828/825 (whichever they were) cabs with the 416-8A to have a better/wider FR than the La Scalas.
You might wish to make sure that you are comparing them @ the same location in the room (swapping). Corner placement certainly came into play with mine.

Interesting that 'more bass' was attributed to the la scala, not generally known for it's (quantity of) bass reproduction. (unless perhaps turned around to face the corner... which was also kind of neat!) Mine however were industrial, so had a slightly different (iirc) K43 model woofer. Some have said the K33 has more bass in the LS, but that was/is highly contested.

IMO, the LS's folded horn seemed more accurate for (some) lower frequencies compared to the smoother BW of the 416/BR Altec. Whether the altec is horn on floor or port on floor may also come into play, given the size differences involved.

You might investigate whether the 16g is suitable for the N-500-C, or whether it should be an 8ohm woofer. That might be affecting things.

Mine were 416-8A's w/N-500-C's, though rather than recapping, I bi/tri/amped and found this combo most pleasing:

416-8A -> ~500hz (828/825 port = ~80 in2)
808-8A (old, symbiotik afaik) -> ~6000hz (511b)
902-16A (gpa, aluminum) -> the rest (511b)

I liked the 808-8a for MR.
Sounded more natural/compliant to me than the 902's there.
Maybe it was the alnico though.

Alas, did not get to the point of setting up a passive between the 808 and 902... which I think would've been the best scenario for me at the time (using one amp for MF and HF).


*Since you like it - your LS bass section with the Altec multicell on top might be the best of both worlds.

IIRC the K-55/K-400 MR combo crosses to the LS's FH @ 400hz.

If 'daring', you could try to keep them 3-way and just insert the Altec horn into in the klipsch network in lieu of the K55, but impedance differences (K-55=16ohm) may make that less than ideal (?). You'll want to run it at lower levels and/or read up on opinions about danger to running the Altec below 500hz.

[Panomaniac]

Gear freak, thanks for the good info. Looks like you tried a lot of stuff.

As Ron said earlier in the thread, I'll get there. =)

Also rereading Leland's post. What you have are A5, because of the multicell horns. I would love to compare your 805 horns to my 803s. I suspect the 805 will be better. The length of the 300Hz horn rolls off the highs a good bit. With my 291s they roll off second order at about 5K. Not what you would call "extended." All aluminum 'frams (288) should help, but I doubt they'll go very high on that horn.

If I could recover on the low end and really cross at 300Hz, I'd be happy. But the 291 just does not play that low. Neither do my Radian drivers. 500 is about it. So maybe the 500Hz horns are popular for a reason.

Getting the bass cabinet right will help the bass, for sure. Just tuning the port makes a big difference. Damping and bracing will be a big help, too.

----

At the moment, things are sounding rather nice. Here is the system as it stands today.

• Source: HP laptop. CD, Flac or MP3 files. ASIO drivers (no resample, no K-mixer) -> USB
• M-Audio Duo USB: -> SPDIF
• SPDIF to AES transformer - 75:100 -> CAT5 cable
• Behringer DEQ2496 Digital room EQ and touch up. -> AES out
• Behringer DCX2496 Digital crossover. AES in. 3rd order at 500Hz. Delay for woofer, mid dip for horn. Analog out via custom transformers.
• Highs & mids: Virtue Audio TWO class-D amp. 24V battery supply. 291/803B combo 500Hz-5Khz. Selenium 1" horn 5K up. (passive off same amp)
• Lows: IcePower 65W class-D amp. Altec 416-8A in 825/828 cab.

Getting there.

[Altec Best]

If I could recover on the low end and really cross at 300Hz, I'd be happy. But the 291 just does not play that low.

Hi Mike, From research I did the only Altec driver of the large format capable of going that low is the 288C maybe something to keep in mind when using the 803's I'll try and find that info for you.

[Old Guy]

Hi Mike, From research I did the only Altec driver of the large format capable of going that low is the 288C maybe something to keep in mind when using the 803's I'll try and find that info for you.

HMM..curious where that's from.

All of the big Altecs should go to 300 at realistic living room levels.

Especially the 290.

They won't handle full rated power at 300.


But lots of 290's were run in public address with only capacitors to protect them.

[Altec Best]

HMM..curious where that's from.

.

Hi OG, I was looking for that,can't find now . That is a good question.I think it was one of those sheets from Altec on their 803 Multicellur horns where they say recommended drivers. 288C,290,etc.... Mike if you have a spare 288 maybe you can try it to see if it helps. Regards ~ JOHN

[Old Guy]

Hi OG, I was looking for that,can't find now . That is a good question.I think it was one of those sheets from Altec on their 803 Multicellur horns where they say recommended drivers. 288C,290,etc.... Mike if you have a spare 288 maybe you can try it to see if it helps. Regards ~ JOHN

I can see where that is confusing.

Altec likely just recommended the driver that was current at the time of the sheet. Why recommend old drivers if you are in the business of selling new ones? And of course you can't recommend 288D's if they don't exist yet.

[GM]

If I could recover on the low end and really cross at 300Hz, I'd be happy. But the 291 just does not play that low.

This is primarily what dual driver adapters are for.

GM