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In Reply to: RE: Recommended amp for Voice of the Theater (VOTT) Speakers posted by Inmate51 on June 09, 2015 at 08:39:39
To the OP, pay no attention, there is one in every crowd
Follow Ups:
It's nice to see that you took time to reply to my post.
Do you have any additional knowledge to impart?
My post was serious. VOTT A7s suck. Been there, done that. Bright, ringy, uncontrolled/irregular directivity, etc. Still, back in the day, they were decent - for what could be built at the time. This is NOT a slam to my friend John Hilliard. It was the best design technology of the time.
However, in the early 1970s, the Electro-Voice Sentry III and Sentry IV blew them away, and the big Klipsch speakers as well. Some people never got over that.
To the OP: pay no attention to the troll.
Inmate51, you are just plain wrong and have not heard a proper working pair of VOT.
Hey I am going to jump in here and defend Inmate51 a bit! My bias first...I own EV Sentry IV-A's. At this point they sound wonderful, but that is after a ton of work and expert guidance here, especially Paul E. and grindstone, on Hi-Eff asylum.
I have buddies that have Klipschorns and the other has A-7's. Both had their respective speakers long before I got the Sentry's. I had multiple listening sessions with both. Both sounded impressive with their respective amplification chains. (Klipschorn - Bottlehead 2A3 Paramours, A-7 JE Labs 300B's) I took a lot of crap, from both of them, on the purchase of the Sentry's..."butt ugly", (they were! ;-) ), "wannabe's" ...you get the drift.
Not to drag this out, but we did a "listen off" with my Bottlehead 300B Paramounts and Bottlehead Foreplay 3 Extended, (running 7N7's), after I got the Sentry's sorted. (Just in case you are wondering, we moved the BH kit to each house, thought it might be slightly easier than moving the speakers ;-) ) We all have similar tastes in musical genre, jazz, vocals, classical and some dino rock.
The winner was grudgingly unanimous. The Sentry IV-A's handily bested both the contenders in every subjective listening category. To be honest, the Sentry's have completely redesigned and built x-overs, all four 12" woofer refoamed and bass bins substantially built up. The K-Horns have ALK X-overs and the A-7's were stock,511B horns, reconed woofers by GPA and the stock networks.
The A-7 came in 3rd...weak bass, rolled off highs and a bit muddy in the mids with a metallic tinge. ('bout the same for the K-horns, just not as pronounced!) There is good potential there. They have cachet and a loyal following, but they need a lot of work to be on par with other "big sound" horn systems. I think the first step, assuming all is well with the drivers, is to dump the stock networks and build better crossovers. IMO that is a huge weak spot. (My buddy won't consider doing this, destroys the provenance!)
So let's cut Inmate51 some slack. He has a valid opinion. Just remember.....the only ears that you really have to please are your own!
Cheers,
Geary
Your commission check is in the mail.
I distinctly remember your odyssey of refurbishing your Sentry IVs. They're red, aren't they?
I appreciate you coming to my defense, although it wasn't necessary. The first time I heard the Sentry III (the furniture/home version of the Sentry IV) was at the "shop" in about '73-'74, when I was doing commercial sound installations. My boss was a hi-fi junkie. While myself and the other installer were out making a living, he'd be there ordering and receiving cool stuff. One day, I got back to the shop, and here were these beautiful speakers. After dinner, we met back there and put on some Pink Floyd and some EL&P. Ah, those were the daze! We installed several of the Sentry IVs in places like auditoriums and such, and later, after I moved to a different city, I installed four of the Sentry IIIs in a new jazz nightclub where the opening night artist was the great Freddie Hubbard. He loved 'em. (Whew!)
As you probably know, the Sentry IV uses a folded bass horn specifically to achieve greater efficiency for commercial applications. This is actually why I preferred the Sentry III - it goes lower better. The mid horn and the tweety are the same, though.
Here's the kicker... I had never heard the Altec A7 before I heard the Sentry III and IV. When I did hear the A7, I thought "that sucks". (No offense to anyone who likes them.)
Keep in mind that they A7 was the smaller step-child of the Lansing Shearer theater loudspeaker system, which was the brain child of John Hilliard. As often happens in loudspeaker design, as things get smaller, compromises must be made. So, unfortunately, the A7 ain't no Shearer.
:)
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