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Hello, what is a good amp to use with the Altec A5 or A7
i have allready se 45 2a3 and 300b amps and it sounds very good with all these amps but i read that the altec vott bigger amps like 211/845 or maybe pp amps often prefers?
but i never try this and i never heard this combination.
a friend of me tell that is is because of the big woofer that the bigger amps maby is a better combination.
Is there someone who heard both?
Follow Ups:
Hi I A have Tried A Bunch Of amps. I found the jh50.lectron to be the most realistic. Second amps tend to sweeten the sound which, arguably, helps the top but tends. to take away speed and attack on woofer. Bi Amping offers more control and tends to produce a more balanced sound but even
with bi amp i did not find a set amp better on top than a low powered pp. In my experience the max power needed was 50 pp. Also..all pp amps don't sound good on horns. The altec.pp amps tend to sound real good with your speaker's but there a lot more to try. Also keep your eye open for theater amps. The sound good on horns. No surprise here
The Altec A5 was about 97db efficient. So, with 8 watts you could get to about 105db peaks. That is not so high really, and you could easily be pushing an 8W 300B amp to clipping even at moderate levels in a small room. 85db at the listening position and 20db peaks -- which is common in uncompressed recordings -- would push such a system to its limits. Yes, I know you can listen to your "girl and guitar" music at 75db at the listening position, but if you want different styles -- such as small group jazz, I'm not talking about party levels here -- you will need more headroom. The easiest way to see if you are power-constrained is to hook up any old solid state amp of 50 watts or more. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to make a high-quality tube amp of more than the 8 watts of the 300B. I would suggest PP 300B in Class A at 16-20 watts. You can do a bit more with tubes like the 52B in PP. GM70s in PP are great too but require high voltage. All of these require a MAJOR commitment of effort and cash. See Lynn Olsen's Karna amplifier for an example. A typical Class AB/feedback pentode amp can also sound quite good in practice, but there's a reason why people listen to 300Bs instead.
If you feel you are power constrained, probably the best path is to biamp using your SET tube amps for the horns and a good solid-state amp of perhaps 50-100 watts for the woofer, using a line-level crossover. I suggest one of the LM3875-based "chip amps."
Try to re-do what the manufacturer, for cost reasons, or being unconscious, failed to do.
First thing is to re-wire the leads from crossover to the woofer, with heavier and better quality wire, to transfer energy efficiently.
I recommend to use doubled up 12 AWG military wire, copper stranded and silver plated. When you double up 12 AWG, it becomes about 9 AWG. The military numbers are m-16878-4 12 or m-22759-11 12. You can easily source such wire from Steve at APEX JR at surplus prices, I seem to recall 55 cents a foot. Use EQUAL lengths. BE sure to double it up......two runs to the positive, two to the negative speaker terminal.
Personally, for lengths, I employ Bob Fulton's lengths, 57 1/8th inches, as a multiple or a divisor. Let me know how it sounds to you.
Jeff Medwin
hello Jeff
This are my crossovers Werner Jagusch made these
and are much better then the original ones
and the cables to connect everything to the drivers are the Belden 9497 like Shindo used
Its very good cable
My A5 is as follow
Altec vott with 515
1505 multicell horns with 288 drivers.
What Shindo does..... does not impress me much at all !!!WIRE :
Your Belden wire is 16 AWG, and its copper that is Tin plated. Poly Vinyl coated .........not so good !!
The wire I suggested you use was 12 AWG, multistrand copper that is SILVER plated in a TEFLON jacket............ Huge difference.
But wait, it gets better.
NEVER in one million years would I suggest using one 16 AWG run to a 515B woofer. Sheese !!! I posted above to use DOUBLED-UP 12 AWG, two 12 AWG, in Fulton lengths, to each 515B terminal, so you have the equivalent of a very GOOD sounding 9 AWG wire. Low loss !!!
As to the crossover construction, I will hand it to the guy, he KNOWS how to put parts at right angles VERY VERY nicely. BUT BUT BUT, the caps are TOTALLY deficient at reproducing the high frequencies.
The caps absolutely NEED proper MULTIPLE bypassing, which the constructor, sadly, was 100% ignorant to employ.
If you build a passive crossover as I suggested herein and in my post above, and IF ( a big word ) you build a proper SE all triode amplifer, a Type 45 or 2A3 Finals configuration will give best ( unbeatable in the normal home ) sonic results.
Its time for YOU to re-do that crossover, and do it right this time.
You can do it !! You need to trust your own ears, and experiment as I have outlined. If you have any questions as you work on it, email me please.
Jeff Medwin
Edits: 08/20/15
thanks
but no interest Jeff.
ist good as it is
A friend is trying to get me to try bypassing the oilers but I'm working on other things first.
I never like bypassing caps
i try it often not so long ago also but its not for me
A single good cap is (for me) always better and a good cap is the one that works best on the place he is used.
some times its an expensive cap but sometimes a cheaper narrower band cap work better
i use on some of my amps Duelunds these are very good cap's but not in all circumstances.
its all about balance.
I use in one preamp V cap teflon very good at this place but on other places were i tried these i hate them.
paper oil is also such a thing, sometimes i like them and sometimes not.
If you will try bypassing go ahead try it, i think Jeff wil help you
and maybe you like it.
there are more people who like bypassing caps.
i used to have the maginificent and i tried around 15 amps with them ,the best was the komoru 845 amp ,followed by the the audio electronics 572,811 amp ,i also used a krell ksa50 mk2 driven by a welbourne battery preamp and that could be played loud but did not like vintage recordings as much
these speakers dont really go very low so even a 45 sounds decent
the dyna st35 was the only pp amp i had and it was really fun sound
hope this helps
was that Komoru amp a single ended one?
Yes a 45 and 2a3 is also good at the moment i play with 2a3
300b is also fine.
i like it even a little more with the 300b i think …...i don't now….sometimes yes, sometimes no
i am not sure :-)
yes it was a single ended 845 with all tango transformers a real beauty and plenty of power ,i also used it with the rogers ls3/5a for fun,
i use the welbourne drd(slightly modded) 300b for my 1505 tar filled horns with 288g and right now dyna3 (also modded)running in triode for the 515b
i use a marchand tube crossover at 500hz
While I don't have direct experience with the a5, I can get close so maybe this will help. I run 416a woofers and 288 on 311 and prior 806 on 811b, so I'm familiar with Altec components used in a5 and a7 variants. Anyway, I've used 300b set amps on these to good effect, and I have friends who do the same. Now, I run PSET with two 300b and find the bass control is better. I'm now running the 416 in Onken cabinets, and so that could be the difference in why the extra oomph matters. But a friend with Magnificents runs PSET 300b also and likes them. I've tried pp amps with 6l6 and el34/kt77 but the mids are more to my liking with the set. No question the single 300b is a purer sound, but the bass control isn't the same. Give and take, as always!
Doug
yes i like se 300b but 1 tube only for the same reason also over the smaller tubes
it has more balls
therefor i tought maybe a 211 amplifier would something
Just curious as to where you xover w the 288/311?
500Hz is the normal but I've tried at 800Hz also. The reason I got the bigger horn was to cross over lower than 800, although doping so makes me think I need a tweeter so now I have a 3 way system. But that's another story, I suppose!
Tweeters in these Altec variants always seems to be a work in process.
Please indulge me w what tweeter your using. Sorry I couldn't resist.
Yeah, I can see why many probably never quite get there with the tweeter finalization. I'm running jbł 075 and they are ok. I haven't tried my ev t35 but something tells me they would be a better fit. Frankly, the 311 are too big for my room and need more space to breath and so getting a tweeter to work well with them is kind of cart before the horse. It's all a work in progress for me.
What are you running for tweets?
I've used many small SET PP SS OTL class D- T amps etc on Altecs of most types and in home they do fine on a low power SET amp. I wouldn't upgrade the set. But if you're looking for a different sound try a 30 watt or so PP tube amp.
hello Kloss thanks
did you try once a 211 amp?
Not on Altecs but did use a good num of SET types inc 845. If I were you I wouldn't change out amplifiers if you want improved sound quality try fostex t900a tweeters.
Hello Kloss i tryed allready some good tweeters on the Altecs but i prefer it without a tweeter
these Altecs are just for fun it my second system
i have also the Orpheans from Bert Doppenberg they go flat from 20 hertz to 22k with 114dB at one watt
the altec i think 50 to 12 k hertz and i don't miss anything that so strange
but my older ears hear the highest tones anymore
but also the low end is fine for me its go's not so deep but its ok
only church organs have more grunt on the Orpheans.
these are fine with a 45 or so amp but the low is active with a ss amp
45 or 2a3 on the altec with the passive filter and 15 inch woofer that must feed benefit more from a little bigger amp as the 300b but thats the biggest amp i have
if a 211 or 845 is better i don't now therefor my question
here
You are going the wrong way.You and Doug seem to be using 16 AWG to the woofers, when I suggested high quality 9 AWG. !!
With proper wiring, a 1 Watt 45 amp will KILL any 300B, or certainly ANY clunky three stage 211 amp out there. The bigger the amp, the more stages you need, with an attendant loss of musical expression.
IMHO, IME, NOTHING beats a KISS set up, with a two stage directly coupled Type 45 or 2A3 finals amp, into a well-wired A7, or maybe your A5.
I like A7-800s for "my" home use, in my medium-sized listening room.
Fix your internal speaker wires first, then, amp to speaker wires, and guess what happens ??
.....you can most effectively, use audio's INTRINSICALLY BEST-SOUNDING amps.... with your efficient ALTEC speakers !!!
Got it ?? Hope so. The chain is as strong as its weakest link. Fix your wiring first.
Jeff Medwin
Edits: 08/20/15 08/20/15
Stop with that Jeff
i really don't care what wire you use
its good and fine if you like it .
My question was if someone try a 211 or bigger amps on the vott
notting more
you tell me that i am an idiot with my amplifiers an speakers
and it is not he first time
if you don't remember ?
I follow you advise once on an amp cost me a lot of money work and it was totally not my sound.
i build the amp back and i am again very happy with it.
then it was the same you never heard my amp and every thing was not good
but you had the solution
you daze me with the alleluia stories and i tryed
it don't work for me
Its fine that it works for you but don't try to be the messiah
to push people in you're experiences.
But for you i am now still more an idiot can't listen and have just garbage
no problem for me but if you say that to me but one time is enough.
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