I am interested in building a set of speakers with Altec drivers. I currently am running 2 Seeburg DWS-2 with a 12" Utah woofer and an Altec 806A through an H-811B horn. I would like to most likely gravitate towards model 19 drivers using the 811b and 806a temporarily until a better driver can be purchased. I also would like to use 416 woofers. My issues with the current speakers is that they don't have much detail at all, lack both low and high extremes. They do offer a nice mid range much nicer than my old Snell JIIs. My goal is to have a efficient smooth speaker that can extend as low as possible reach high possilby with the aid of a super tweeter and works well with my modified Fisher 400 Receiver.
The Fisher 400 when completed with Dave Gillespies mods can show a clean square wave with a flat full 20hz-20khz and have more than enough power to overdrive my current speakers at 9 o'clock. I see most people interested in large Altecs are interested in even lower powered SET amps though I have no interest there currently.
I have followed Westends MLTL build and find it quite fascinating though a bit to tall and large for the "WAF" wife approval factor in my case. We have agreement on building a M19 though the aesthetics are oh so seventies. My hope is that GM and some of the other DIY Altec Gurus can help me find my way with the system I am working on and figure out the proper cabinet and drivers for my needs. Thank You
My current system
Fisher 400 currently in the process of being modded to Dave Gillespies mods
Schiit Modi2 Uber Dac
AR XA, Shure V15 mkII turntable hopefully being rebuilt my Marc Morin in the future
Seeburg DWS-2 with altec drivers, these boxes needed some basic tightening up when I picked them up they have very simple second order crossovers that could use a rebuild. The woofer sounds much better after dealing with some air leaks
My room:
currently 25 x 30 odd room sort of a large space but also whacky the ceiling is two heights 16' and 9' on the other side of the room.
I plan to have these in my next home an open plan of 20x24 octagon shape with walls all going out at an angle. Good luck trying to use that in some sort of room calculator.
Thanks all the best
I would not sacrifice the Seeburg extension speakers
to build M 19's
Best to off the Seeburg's on E-bay as they have collector
value or bring them to the "show"
Home
I sold a pair of Seeburg teardrop extension speakers for
$300.00 awful sounding things, But they have collector
value...........GC
I built model 19's of my own design, I think the original model 19 is one butt ugly speaker, that's just my opinion.
I have never heard model 19's, I bought 416's and cross overs from GPA for my project, I have 811 horns with some 802 drivers from some model 15's I bought along time ago.
These speakers will shake the house, literally, I was not going for bass, I'm not a big bass guy but they deliver very low.
I have had 808 drivers on these horns and they sounded very good also.
When I called GPA it was early morning and Bill answered the phone and I told him what I was wanting to do, 416's about 3 foot off the floor and the horn about ear height, he said the 416 would sound very good at that height.
He told me the cabinet needed to be at least 5 cubic foot for the 416, I forget now what the actual size ended up but these things are amazing, I can't say enough about GPA.
They actually turned out looking a little of an asian look, I was coming up with a design as I built, I get it rough out on paper and start and adjust to taste as I build.
I will see about putting a link up for an album with photos for you.
The finish sucks , that's were I usually get impatient on a project, with just a little more tweaking and some black lacquer finish I believe even a wife would like them, do the whole asian look to them.
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this might be it, Postimage.org — free image hosting / image upload
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My living area where these 19's are is 27 x48 half has a 9 foot ceiling and the other half has a cathedral ceiling, kitchen ,dining room ,living room and foyer area.
The house is 3400 sq ft with 9 foot ceilings in the rest of it, when I say they will shake it and fill it with music, clear music no distortion, that's exactly what they do.
No tweeter amazing speakers, these will be the last speakers you ever need ,unless your like me and just can't get enough of building Altecs.
Originally Posted by sunrayjack12
From your photos, it looks like you have sealed off chambers for the horn and at
the very bottom..by opening up these chambers you could increase Vb for more
bass extension & efficiency..
check this out ; Loudspeaker Design Tradeoffs
TA Speaker Topics: Loudspeaker Design Tradeoffs
what is your box volume ? ..........GC
I never thought about opening the horn chamber up for more volume, I think I will get the hole saw out and do that.
I measured the cabinet and went to a volume calculator , the bottom section comes out to 11.8 cubic feet and the horn section is another 3.5 cubic feet,man that's a good size cabinet.
I knew this when I built them but totally forgot their size.
If you cut a hole it will act like a port and you will have a resonant
chamber which is undesirable. you will need to remove most of that
partition. keep some for cabinet bracing.
did you read the article on Hoffman's law ??....GC
I was thinking more like five 4 inch holes , one in each corner and one in the middle
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I just went and found the hoffman law, it makes sense, I will be doing a little surgery.
I think the 604man suggestion has more merit.
Opinion is only as valid as its verifiable supporting evidence.
I do like the way they sound now, With more controlled porting of the two sections of the cabinet, I can close it back and play with the sound , or completely off to return to the original sound.
It's easier to take it out if I like the effect I'm hearing than put it back.
Besides cabinets are easy to build, I may just build a new cabinet with a much larger volume and see where it goes from there.
All good advice, thank you both.
The holes in your to partition will create an aperiodic resonant cavity.
cabinet volume Vb = acoustic capacitor
port or duct = acoustic inductor
combined they equal acoustic resonant cavity = helmholtz resonator
Do a search for my cabinets '604-8G big cabinets big sound"
21 cu feet , 20.5 cu feet with drivers and edge mounted baltic birch
braces . nice big boxes .
As a rule of thumb per GM , you could make driver Vas = cabinet Vb.
what is your driver Vas ? ....GC
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