I'm looking to use one of these is a small room soon. I listen to all kinds of music & will probably merge the speakers into a music/2 channel home theater system. Thoughts as to what extent one is best is most appreciated.
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I'm looking to use one of these is a small room soon. I listen to all kinds of music & will probably merge the speakers into a music/2 channel home theater system. Thoughts as to what extent one is best is most appreciated.
Stlblue, how big is the room you plan on using? Might make it easier for forum members to give you advice. I use 604's and model 19's in what many would consider a small room 12X17 and they sound very nice.
Hard to say, juniper. I haven't moved yet, but I suspect that wherever it is, 12X17 would be about right. I've always read the bigger Altecs (19's, Valencia's, etc.) needed room for the drivers to "mesh." I've never had a problem with my 604E's in that regard. I'm just wondering if the opportunity arises to get some 14's or 19's (or Valencia's), would I regret selling the 604's when they are placed in a smaller room. Thanks.
I'd stick with 604's, but that's just my opinion.
This subject gets a bit involved and don?t have much time now to elaborate, but it basically boils down to where the first reflections will occur; so where in the room the speakers can be placed, the axial distance to the listening position [Lp] and its width/depth [AKA ?sweet spot?] will determine the speaker?s required polar response.
For a generally ?good enough? starting point in a HIFI app, just draw to scale a plan and side view where the Lp is either in thirds or fifths from the sound wall [ideally the HF horn?s centerline will be spaced from the floor in thirds or fifths also], draw the axial lines from the speaker locations to the center of the Lp [at an average ear height in the side view], then add the polar response angles that cover the Lp without intersecting any of the room boundaries ahead of it.
If there?s no angle that allows this, then that boundary ideally needs to be damped and/or dealt with at the horn/baffle interface, which is generally a ?pain? to do if WAF is a factor.
For HT apps, I recommend following DD/DTS/THX room layout guidelines, which will severely limit your speaker, Lp location options.
Once this is done, post them along with any budget/cab size/WAF restrictions.
GM
This is why so many like the sound of the 604's myself included is that they are already meshed.. They are a point source speaker meaning the sound HF & LF emit from the center of the driver. I really like the 604's for smaller rooms.And my 19's in my larger listening room. They both excel in their specific applications for my purposes.I have been tinkering with a home theater setup for a little while now.But I too prefer the 2 channel stereo for my louder listening sessions(19's).Quote:
Originally Posted by stlblue
To help you correctly.The members here will need a lot more info IMHO.. Especially the type and size room you are going to have..Since you already have the 604E's I would keep them and then try to find 14's or 19's.. Unless money is an issue... But there has been a few pair recently (Model 14's) selling for $400 an absolute steal IMO. :)
I typed out a long reply & then a storm wiped out the Internet and everything I typed. Anyway, thanks for the replies. I can't answer the questions you guys raised because I don't know the answers. I am hopefully moving for a job. As such, everything is packed & ready to go. I suspect it will be an apartment, so I will probably have to merge the tunes & TV. The stereo consists of 604E's, Red Wine Audio Sig 30 amp & DAC, and a Squeezebox Touch. To make things more interesting, I no longer have the 612's I used w/ the 604's, so if I keep the 604's (new cones & diaphrams, around 5 years ago by GPA), I'll probably have some 620's built for me.
Why not just wait & see? Because I am sure I will be VERY busy upon moving (probably hundreds of miles away). I want to just hook it all up & not have that to think about,too. I don't want to have to look for a cabinet builder, or 14's/19's. So now is the time to decide and either have cabinets built or hunt down new speakers. I will consider a powered sub later on. I like lots of different kinds of music (rock, blues, jazz, pop, R&B, easy listening, classical).
Any more thoughts are welcomed & appreciated.
Stlblue - You are halfway there, IMHO - you already have drivers you like, so run with them! If you get 14s/19s, you dont know what you get till you get them and you will likely have to do some work anyway. Build some boxes, and maybe some good Markwart xo's, and you are golden!
I have a small/medium sided room - 15x17 and am 100% satisfied with the 604s in them. Much more so now that I have build these - http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700...-604-mltl.html and gotten them more dialled in. They are GMs design, and really do sound excellent now (I know, I need to update the thread but I am not quite done tweaking) with only 3 watts! The sim he sent me looks very good, too. ;-)
More info in threads here - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum
And here - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum
If you want, I can send you a cut-plan I have and some general info I put together from emails and various threads. PM me if you want with your email addy.
Thanks, gortnipper. I have crossovers already. They are the original prototypes for these: http://www.iconicspkrs.com/downloads/dn604e_16su.pdf.Quote:
Originally Posted by gortnipper
I'm pretty sure they use Stonehenges. Do you think those crossovers would be a good match w/ your MLTL design or would I be better of having Stonehenges built?
BTW, eds in your third link is me. :^)
Your help is genuinely appreciated.
Sorry - I cant give you any meaningful advice about those xo's, but they should work fine in GM's speaker design, I would think. I would think that there may be diffs in the sim with a 604E vs. a GPA 604-8H-III, but he would know far better than I. But you would need the series-R.
A 604's XO point is well above the cab's 'sphere of influence', so has no bearing on its design/performance. The baffle area OTOH affects baffle step diffraction requirements [if any], but as long as the XO is adjustable it can usually be dialed in. Worst case, additional series resistance may be required if a very narrow baffle is used, so the rule-of-thumb is to maintain the same [or larger] baffle width as the cab the speaker was 'voiced' in.
GM
Do you know what baffle width the 604 was originally voiced with?
I did find this: Thiele Small Parameter measurement question for a 604E. I'm going to lean on a buddy to get them built correctly. Needless to say, I'm going to just keep the 604E's. Thanks for all your help. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gortnipper
Which 604? If you mean what GPA sells, you'll have to ask them. For all I know, the XO they sell has enough adjustability to cover every size ever recommended.
GM
Sorry, meant the 604E since that was what the OP is looking for help on.
The E has a simple, generic XO with adjustable HF, so I assume it was voiced in a 620.
GM
shouldnt we be using a minimum of 30 inch baffles?
Well, it's my preference since it lowers the baffle step to around 100 Hz, so even a 24" deep cab is acceptable if up close to a wall.
GM
Stlblue - The board is supposed to have an auto-save feature,just for stuff like this.You just have to bring it back up and it should have saved your post.. I'll look into why your post wasn't saved.Sorry about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlblue
I have had that happen to me many times and is very frustrating.
No worries. I saw that it was auto-saving, but when I hit the button to post, my Internet was out, due to the storm. Not sure what happened after that. ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by Altec Best
I have a Woofer Tester II and a pair of 604E's that are sitting on the floor on a 20" square piece of plywood each, so they're accessible. I can test them this weekend and give you the TS specs from them to compare to. For the box you only need the bass section, so I won't bother with the horn.
I have to type everything out in Works word processor, due to the fact that I am the world's worst speller; the rum doesn't help. :) especially if it is a long winded dissertation.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlblue
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/Loop/NatLoop_Small.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by stlblue
That would be MUCH appreciated, Mahalo!Quote:
Originally Posted by zelgall
I'm using Opera browser and it has a spell checker built into it.. And is very fast.. Opera 11.51 I'm using now...The current version is 12Quote:
Originally Posted by VolvoHeretic
TBH, I don't recall. Chrome, maybe?Quote:
Originally Posted by Altec Best
I think Chrome has one too.. What cabs do you think you want to use then..The 620 or 612 ?
ALTEC 604-8G & 620 ENCLOSURESQuote:
Originally Posted by Altec Best
Looking for a cabinet maker in St. Louis right now.
I am considering baltic birch for these, but would like a darker finish than I've typically seen such plywood (maybe appleply would be darker?). Are there better sonic alternatives? Not sure I want to add a laminate finish due to added expense.
If you want to build 620's that sound like original 620's, you'll have to build them from the same material that originals were built from and damp them as the originals were damped.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlblue
Plywood will have different resonant characteristics, and some of the larger surfaces are likely to "ring" unless alternative damping and bracing are used.
I'm sure that ply construction can be made to sound nearly the same as original cabinets. But, it's going to get a lot more involved than just simply following a working drawing.
Here's a partial TS for a 604:
Buffer[0] Q,Fs Ver 5.00
Completed: Sun Jul 15 12:48:58 2012
Drive level 100.000 % [ 3.599 mA]
Sine,LoZP(LV/LA)->Q/Fs,85 pts
;------------------------------------------------------------------
Re 11.934 ohms
Fs 24.175 Hz
Zmax 227.233 ohms
Ro 51.907 ohms
F0 20.547 Hz
F1 53.580 Hz
Fmin 237.314 Hz
Qes 0.1770
Qms 3.1935
Qts 0.1677
Le 2.461 mH @1k
XLe 26.472 ohms @1k
PLe 35.737 Degrees @1kHz
;------------------------------------------------;
; Approximate Impedance Fitting Constants ;
; (Improved with Completion of Vas Test) ;
;------------------------------------------------;
Krm 12.724E-03 ohms Freq dependent resistance
Erm 734.479E-03 Rem=Krm*(2*pi*f)^Erm
Kxm 52.692E-03 Henries Freq dependent reactance
Exm 652.952E-03 Xem=Kxm*(2*pi*f)^Exm, Lem=Kxm*(2*pi*f)^(Exm-1)
I have guests this weekend that were unexpected by me (my wife neglected to mention them) I'll get the full specs early this week.
As long as the cab is properly braced and damped ? I wouldn't worry about that too much..
So VERY appreciated!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by zelgall
OK, so it wasn't early in the week.
I have the updated results for the 604E on a Woofer tester II. Note that I used 330mm as the piston diameter.
Buffer[1] Vas Ver 5.00
Completed: Thu Jul 19 17:02:53 2012
Drive level 79.433 % [ 2.847 mA]
Sine,LoZP(LV/LA)->Vas,19 pts
;------------------------------------------------------------------
Re = 13.6020 ohms
Fs = 24.5361 Hz
Zmax = 268.6107 ohms
Qes = 0.2303
Qms = 4.3178
Qts = 0.2186
Le = 2.4041 mH (at 1 kHz)
Diam = 329.9983 mm ( 12.9921 in )
Sd =85528.9996 mm^2(132.5702 in^2)
Vas = 688.2739 L ( 24.3062 ft^3)
BL = 24.0502 N/A
Mms = 63.5270 g
Cms = 662.3231 uM/N
Kms = 1509.8372 N/M
Rms = 2.2682 R mechanical
Efficiency = 4.1478 %
Sensitivity= 98.1962 dB @1W/1m
Sensitivity= 95.8911 dB @2.83Vrms/1m
Krm = 143.176E-06 ohms Freq dependent resistance
Erm = 1.112E+00 Rem=Krm*(2*pi*f)^Erm
Kxm = 26.907E-03 Henries Freq dependent reactance
Exm = 708.780E-03 Xem=Kxm*(2*pi*f)^Exm
;------------------------------------------------------------------
Ftest = 22.211 Hz
Ftest/Fms = 0.9052
Test Mass used = 14.0000 g (Equal to 2.8 nickels)
Test Mass (Ft=Fms*0.90) = 14.901 g (Add 0.901g for Ft=22.083)
Test Mass (Ft=Fms*0.75) = 49.410 g (Add 35.410g for Ft=18.402)
Mahalo, much appreciated!Quote:
Originally Posted by zelgall
No problem. Check the updated numbers though. I used a piston diameter that was a bit off on the first run. It doesn't change much but if your using a box calculator, you might as well use correct numbers.