Questions about the 3156

[Cal Weldon]

There's a fellow in Florida with a few and has them at 195 USD or make an offer. Looking at the Vas and the Q, I am wondering if it might be a little bass light in the 825 cabinet. Anyone work with these before and what did you do with them?

link to specs, it's the first one. I can't up;oad anything more right now.

altec 3156 enclosure - Google Search

[Old Guy]

whitebroncoii is pretty knowledgeable on this newer stuff...these are high efficiency units, which generally means less LF.

Louder than stink though.

Talk to Gearfreak he has 4 for sale check the for sale section here

195 IMHO is high. I would pay no more than 125. Just my 2 cents. They are fairly common.

[Cal Weldon]

Thanks OG, I have asked gearfreak to email me. Since posting, I decided to get busy and do a little research. I agree with what you say about them. They seem to be rather common and perhaps more into the PA realm than for home use. They don't look like a good match for the 825 cabinet but perhaps I can find another use for them.

Ta.

[Old Guy]

Don't let me sell them short they are nice....but to put an already middy speaker into a short mid bass horn...

they would probably pleasantly surprise you in a properly tuned box...

[GM]

Looking at the Vas and the Q, I am wondering if it might be a little bass light in the 825 cabinet.

Very Limited experience, but enough to know that between its specs and low distortion excursion I agree with Altec's 3 ft^3 'optimum' if SS driven and no more than Vb = Vas if high output impedance driven, so while you can fill up an 825 to a 32 Hz Fb where it ~flattens out with enough series resistance (8-10 ohms) to 95-96 dB/2.83 V/m sens., excursion wise it will only handle ~50 W continuous cleanly, so not much of a party speaker. Of more importance, based solely on GPA's published response plot, it appears to be a relatively poor match to the 825's horn, but how it actually performs...........

GM

[Cal Weldon]

Thanks GM. Kinda what I was expecting to hear but that doesn't mean I can't use them somewhere. Hopefully gearfreak will get back to me.

[GM]

You're welcome! Its relatively high Fs/Vas (and particularly inductance) combined with its so-so Xmax really limits its usefulness though, so only seems worthwhile to me 'on the cheap' if you don't have a current use for them or plan to clone one of the alignments it was used in. Again though, I'm assuming here that GPA's is a drop-in replacement.

GM

[gearfreak]

Thanks for the interest Cal, email sent.

I've not used them outside of the 8256's, so have no particular input on them in an 825/828.