New Heathkit AS101 owner - First post.

[RonSSS]

I think it needed some messing with, Ron...at least for my taste. The mids are so out in front, the lower frequencies lagged. I added the wood on the bottom of the horn and then put a few pieces of closed-cell foam on either side of the horn leaving about 14sqin per speaker of port. It seems to have helped the bottom end catch up quite a bit. Bass drums are punchier and bass guitar licks are bouncier. The foam might be narrowing the horn dispersion, but it seems to sound great.

You are the listener, so give it some time with various music and see. As Geek mentioned, it is nice to see where it was stock by measuring as he stated, then see how it measures after the tweak. It's a pretty simple measurement. Would be interesting to know where heath had them tuned.
Might also be interesting to mess with differing amounts of stuffing.

Ron

[cradeldorf]

Sounds like your having a hayday with them, Enjoy.

[alancohen]

Sounds like your having a hayday with them, Enjoy.

I am indeed. Thanks. I feel better that the XOs are rewired. The guy that built these originally must have been heavily invested in lead futures. There was solder everywhere. I think I accomplished a 2% reduction in overall weight.

[VolvoHeretic]

Am I to assume that the battle ship navy surplus gray/green color of your heath kit altec drivers is brand specific? I have been wondering why my later 70's A7's were that color and not metalic green or black and nobody had an answer. Neat. Good luck with zeroing in those beauties.

[voice of the theater]

You are the listener, so give it some time with various music and see........Would be interesting to know where heath had them tuned.
Might also be interesting to mess with differing amounts of stuffing.
Ron

I agree--that's what I suggested (experimentation with different port sizes) as a good way to find out which cabinet tuning sounds best to you as far as better low end response....

Another upgrade you might want to try if you want to experiment is to adjust the tuning of the cabinets. AS 101's, like Valencias, were not tuned for really "deep" bass like many later Altecs were (and many other manufacturer's speakers that came along later were--Altec Model 19's, etc.). Those are Altec 416 woofers in your cabs--and they are capable of much deeper bass than you'll get with the stock tuning of those cabs. There are people here who know a lot more about this than I do, but I can tell you that the empirical/scientific method (trial and error method) is a very good way to achieve a "better"/deeper tuning for your cabs. By reducing the port size (blocking off part of the port from the inside of the cab) you can achieve a deeper tuning. You can evaluate your results by listening or by measuring (with a microphone and computer software) combined with listening. For example, you can start by blocking off a small portion of the port by "tacking" a small piece of wood in place to see if you have noticeably improved the bass response, and then blocking off more to see if they sound even better. At a certain point, you'll have blocked off too much of the port and they won't sound right--then you have to go back to a previous tuning/whichever one you liked best and "permanently" block off that portion of the port (use screws to secure the wood you're using to block off part of the

So this cabinet doesn't even have a proper bass reflex port. The horn is only bolted at the top of the cab with two bolts, the bottom of the horn is just floating. The entire horn opening IS the "bass port". Wow. I have some work to do. It's scary how good these are going to sound.

Yes, that opening around the horn is the port. Even though it may not look like it, it is a very specific size that was calculated as part of the design to achieve a specific cabinet tuning. You'll want to decrease that "port" in small increments to find what tuning sounds best to you -- unless you're confident you hit a "bullseye" on the first attempt of adding wood etc.?