The largest speaker in the world ?

[RacerXX]

Last night my 11 yr. old son asked me what the largest speaker in the world was. I have some pretty good ideas..........but it kind of depends on your perspective.

What are the top 3 largest speakers ever made?

I know that there are a lot of ways to interpret that question, but what do you think and why. List the year or vintage if you know.

Who's #1 ?

I'm guessing that the 3 woofer Altec 310 VOTT system w/ three 515's in it takes the crown. With a big horn on top, and wings on the sides and bottom it's just a massive speaker.


#2 I vote for the Klangfilm Euronor. It has a height advantage over pretty much anything............

http://www.fsfl.se/backspegel/euronor.html

#3 Hmmm......I don't know....how about an Altec Lansing A1 system w/ three 210 cabinets per side.



What do you think the top 3 are?

[Old Guy]

Submitted for your consideration, in The Twilight Zone.

http://www.hornmassive.com/

Be sure to read the specs on the about page.

Weight has to be close to number one...

Then again there were concrete horns using Altecs cast in place somewhere back in the "50's.

[RacerXX]

A single 12" ? 2000 watts ?

HUGE............no doubt.

Heavy.........definitely.

Not quite sure how it would sound, but I have an idea..........

It is definitely big, but a little crude looking.

I didn't really say in the initial post, but I was thinking of speakers that were manufactured by companies rather than one off or handmade types.

Thanks for the picture though. Haven't seen that one before....

Very cool.

[Old Guy]

I suspect that hornmassive thing sounds awful.

Hmmm factory built big stuff eh?

Then we get into how big a production run to qualify? I saw a huge horn that had to be moved by semi. Was an experimental antipersonnel weapon.

What about speaker stacks? There were the Community Light and Sound Leviathans, huge fiberglass bass horns used in multiples.

If we are talking single cabinet only that knocks out your nominees.

Please let me know parameters, I got tons of stuff.

[Old Guy]

Would this qualify?

http://www.royaldevice.com/ellittico.htm

Factory contact info is at the bottom. I'm sure at a price they'll build you one.

Bass horns (not shown in pic) are built into the floor each driven by eight 18" bass drivers.

Personally I think someone would have to be seriously ill to buy that system.

[RacerXX]

If nothing else, I think he wins the biggest subwoofer contest.

That's an awful lot of work for good low end ........

[Old Guy]

Yeah he's nuts- here are the subwoofer pics- about a third of the way down.

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm

[GM]

Originally posted by RacerXX:
I didn't really say in the initial post, but I was thinking of speakers that were manufactured by companies rather than one off or handmade types.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Greets!

Hmm, from this POV we can only consider a single complete speaker (no ganged together multiples), so the Klangfilm Siemens Bionor probably wins by a furlong with their huge version of the relatively tiny Altec A4 since even the somewhat larger early Lansing and RCA W bins are left a bit wanting: http://www.lammindustries.com/PICS/C...iemens_etm.jpg

The original A1 could have been the King had it been configured like the Bionor, but it wasn't meant to be. Anyway, they are so rare that I'm not sure it would qualify even if it had been. Then again, maybe it would have sold better in this configuration, but we'll never know since it's way too outdated to ever be resurrected.

FWIW, a fairly vocal horn 'hater' on one of the HT forums who has a really high end 'audiophile' system auditioned these at one of the shows and admitted being pretty much 'blown away' by their dynamics, imaging, soundstaging, etc..

WRT limited production horns, the US military's 500 lb TNT bomb simulator gets my vote. I umm, 'experienced' this two way 'thing' at one of Ft. Benning's Special Forces mock battles in '64 (as an observer, I'm not warrior material). Driven by a 40 hp compressor, <10 Hz output and SPL that seemed loud enough to drown out a loaded C5A on take-off, I don't know how 'accurate' it was to an actual detonation, only that it convinced me that I never wanted to find out.

On a totally unrelated 'note' : http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/200...eus/index.html

Middle C = 261.6 Hz, so -57 octaves = ~0.000000000000001815 Hz if I did the math right. Don't have a clue what the SoS is near a black hole, but based on earth's 1130 ft/sec it would have a diameter of ~37,533,409,653,110 miles or ~5,097.4 AU! Our solar system only has a mean diameter of a paltry ~79 AU.

Now that's what I call getting down loooooooooooooow............

GM

[stpower]

My vote would have to go to the massive A1-X with the 3 woofer 310 enclosures. With the big multicell driven by four drivers, six 515 woofers and the extra large 310 enclosure with full wings, this was probably one impressive sounding system in a 5000 seat movie palace! We will probably never know how many of these were actually manufactured. I have never run across one of these or the elusive A-3 system made with one 310 cabinet. I even wonder if any 210 enclosure A-1 systems have survived.

stpower

[RacerXtreme]

A while ago I put some effort into locating one of the 3 woofer Altec cabinets. As far as I know, none have survived. There was even a rumor that one of those cabinets was at the Klipsch museum, but I contacted them and there is nothing there.....

I did find a pair of 3 woofer 210 cabinets that were custom made, but nothing authentic from Altec.