Anybody need 411's?

[valhallax]

on second thought..even though i need to rotate the woofers on my 500lb cabs..i still wiil stick with the 515b's. i have subs, and tho the thought of a horn loaded double 411 sub does appeal to me, there is still only so much room.unless..

[GM]

I might be completely out to lunch with the notion, but i'm well rested nonetheless.

Recently i've been toying around using them as subwoofers in the 9846 boxes, actively crossed at 80hz.

There are times i'd probably buy a turd if somebody put the right polish on it.

Spot on, ideally, a surround should be seen and not heard and in the very best designs such as the late, great 2000B, no surround is the best 'surround'.

Yeah, one quick listen to a Barcelona still attached to its shipping pallet told me that the 411 was a SOTA 'sub' woofer as there was nothing even close to compare it to and why I placed an order for two that day.

Altec was adamant that it shouldn't be vented, but just for giggles I dropped one into an empty ~30 ft^3 net 10 ga steel/angle iron braced electrical starter controller cab I had access to anyway and after fiddling with the (now MLTL configuration) vent tuning a bit concluded that if the cab was acoustically large enough and tuned low enough referenced to driver Fs, a very high perceived (as opposed to technical) SQ alignment could be realized, i.e. basically a ~IB except with more upper bass gain without the 'color' of typical Altec, JBL or even the reference AR 3 AS loading Altec recommends.

WRT my personal speaker design philosophy, it forever changed how I view what constitutes a high SQ vented alignment and only fairly recently has it finally been embraced by the DIY community.

You're not alone, a majority of the consumer audio crowd's buying habits prove they increasingly do just this which in turn forces the majority of the recording industry to market junk that AFAIK, no amount of digital EQ can completely overcome it enough to make it 'near live' for a 'you are there' presentation.

Speaking of which, anyone know how these new vinyl albums of old Beatles, et al are 'voiced'? Same as original or......? Digitally noise reduced, BW and/or dynamic headroom increased or.......?

GM

[Altec Best]

[quote]

WRT my personal speaker design philosophy, it forever changed how I view what constitutes a high SQ vented alignment and only fairly recently has it finally been embraced by the DIY community.

:2thumbsup:

Speaking of which, anyone know how these new vinyl albums of old Beatles, et al are 'voiced'? Same as original or......? Digitally noise reduced, BW and/or dynamic headroom increased or.......?

I don't know about the New Beatles stuff that just came out.But I have been collecting MFSL = Mobile fidelity sound labs recordings for a long time.I can tell you that the new ones don't sound as good IMHO. Example I just bought a few months back Roy Orbison's Greatest Hits,Rush Permanent Waves,Cars The Cars, LP's on their vinyl.And personally didn't think they sounded as good as the older first ones they did (MFSL) Like the Beatles Abbey Road,Rubber Soul,or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon !!! They still sound great but you can notice a bit of difference.

I haven't heard the just released stuff to be fair.

[GM]

Well I was hoping the GM would drop back in to tell me what he didn't like about the 411-811 combo. The 416 and 515 are so well behaved at the top end that they blend well with the horns. Maybe not so for the 411?

I believe that the 411 in about 5 cubic feet sealed could be a winner. That's no small speaker, but not a mammoth.

What can I say beyond what I've already said? I learned early on that WRT a speaker's ability to reproduce music, my 'knee-jerk' opinion typically was an 'honest' enough one to my ears based on having had an above average exposure to live un-amplified music in my youth, so already being disposed to not caring much for most of Altec's (or any others) consumer offerings combined with the 411 loaded speakers sounding quite a bit different yet to my ears, the Barcelona's bass line was pretty much its only redeeming quality performance wise. The cabs sure looked nice though and would have fit right in with our then living room's Mediterranean decor. The only thing missing would have been the Ga. slate top inlays of the coffee and end tables.

Later, I'd hoped the 9846, being designed for studio monitoring, would be much more in line with a 'best of both worlds' design, i.e. a 9845 with more/better bass extension, but alas, twas not to be. The 9848 was a 'mixed bag' at best, though closer in some ways, so as I previously noted, the lack of efficiency seems to be part of it and the lack of HF 'snap' (technically distortion) of the earlier Altec woofers to help blend them to a horn probably accounts for a lot of it too, hence my dual 411/311-90 'dream team' thoughts.

OK, that's what the 9846 is and already optimized for the 511/802D, so only in-room tweaking required. Art J. made some risers for his, but don't recall if he tweaked the horn or electronics any: http://www.lansingheritage.org/image...-8a/page02.jpg

GM

[Panomaniac]

So you guys don't like th top end of the 411, is that it?

Would be very interested to see what could be done with it. I may try next year.

[Art J.]

I spent a lot of time with the 9846 trying to optimize its performance but their
are certain default mechanical mismatches between the horn and woofer that cannot be overcome.

Matching a massive slow 411 woofer to a fast 511 horn will cause smear in the midrange.
no way around it that I can see. crossing at 500hz 2nd order is pushing it.

The difference in efficiency between the 2 will make your volume control non-linier.
I don't recall any discussions about this in the past.
I have charts here somewhere that show, SPL increase per Watt increase, based on efficiency.
They are rather impressive because it takes considerably more watts to get a given increase
in volume with low efficiency compared to high.

These observations come from the purist camp of hi-fi but can be easily forgiven in other
applications like home theater where the bass output of these will rule.........(with a low horn setting)

GM, the speaker stands and cabinet refinish were already done when I got them. (nice).
I spent my time re-foaming and converting to bi-amp which was the only hope for this combination.

[Altec Best]

Matching a massive slow 411 woofer to a fast 511 horn will cause smear in the midrange.
no way around it that I can see. crossing at 500hz 2nd order is pushing it.

The difference in efficiency between the 2 will make your volume control non-linier.

Art isn't this were the 30923/30904 Attenuator's come into play ? Or required when using this combo due to the difference in efficiencies ?

[Art J.]

Art isn't this were the 30923/30904 Attenuator's come into play ? Or required when using this combo due to the difference in efficiencies ?

Yes, the 30904 was already in line at the time I made the observations.
It may have helped to hide the situation.

My main take on the 30904 is to take the perceived shout out of the horn
due to the confined space in a home environment.
In your case you can add yours later in your speaker if you perceive that the
horn needs a bit taming down. It will depend on your room acoustics.

[Altec Best]

In your case you can add yours later in your speaker if you perceive that the
horn needs a bit taming down. It will depend on your room acoustics.

OK Thanks Art, for the tip and explanation.

[theophile]

I've got two 411s,both in cabinets.One is(supposed to be)an Altec cabinet,the other a 'road case' stage type box with speakon connector.

They will be used below 70Hz via an active crossover.I read somewhere that the 411s require an amp with a high damping factor,so a pair of Kenwood L08Ms will be driving the 411s actively.I want the subs in the same listening plane as the mains will be on(about 6 feet from the rear boundary and 3 feet from the side walls).Room size 20 feet by 38.

I like what GM is saying about the 411s,as subs.If I was to have cabinets for these custom made,given my system and room,would there be a decent set of cabinet plans for these anywhere?Cabinet size is not a problem.I'm single and live alone.All interior design considerations are based upon the listening system,not vice versa.