|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
69.3.223.201
In Reply to: RE: VOT A7 compared to Edgarhorns Titan posted by audiophilewannabe on September 07, 2016 at 19:45:45
According to your system profile you already have the Edgarhorn Titan ll's plus the Seismic subwoofer, so this apparently makes you Altec curious. I've heard both and I would say that it's no contest with the Edgars being the winners, and this is not a knock against the Altec VOT which many consider the loudspeaker of the 20th century, myself included. By comparison a basic A7 rig would be quite a bit lighter in the bass, though a comparison between a horn sub and a vented box (which the A7 is on the bottom end) is really not fair to say the least. On first hearing a VOT I always notice that the highs are rolled off, as there is no tweeter, but I always wind up forgetting about this after hearing some music, and oddly enough I don't miss the highs after awhile. The Edgars, with their symmetrical midrange horns and tweeters, will have more of a focused soundstage, though the imaging of the Altecs is certainly adequate as long as the room is'nt too small with a lot of reflection off the side walls. Many VOT rigs in the home wind up being "hot rodded", and acquiring a horn sub and tweeters, and at this point the comparison becomes difficult, and it's down to personal taste and how much DIY work one wants to do. The Edgars were sold as a completed "turn key" system however, and were certainly a fantastic deal price wise, when you could spend much more on a pair of "recommended component list" direct radiator boxes and get performance inferior in every way IMHO. It's a shame that more people haven't heard the Edgars, or even a well set up VOT rig for that matter.
Paul
Follow Ups:
Yes..!! I love my Edgars.. I have change things on my system but the speakers are the same. I haven't heard anything that would better the Edgars...so far
Every now and then I see local ads on VOT A7 for sale... Never heard them live..only in Youtube..they seem to sound nice, thats why I am curious.
Basic VOT requires a lot of work because it's rather flimsy in its stock form. I say, if you aren't a skilled woodworker don't get involved.
No wood modification needed on MY 5/8 ths plywood VOTT 825 enclosures. Spent $70 and mass loaded each cabinet on top with red concrete blocks form my local Lowe's garden department. Close to 300 pounds, each, did it fine.
Jeff what's the Sensitivity of your altec system?
Thanks
Lawrence
have a shortcoming, it's around the 500Hz crossover region.
I suspect that Bruce's choice of a first-order crossover on both the tractrix horn and the mid-base horn is the cause of this but who knows?
Guessing WAY too much high frequency information is trying to be reproduced by the mid-bass horn (6dB at 1KHz?). Been thinking of going with a steeper x-over but...
Agreed. The problem is not very noticeable if you play soft jazz and such. But on load orchestral pieces, yes, you can hear it. We tried the 4-th order and it really fixed the problem.
TIA!
4-th order on the bass horn. The original 1-st order allowed too much lower frequency information into the midrange, muddied it up. The x-over was designed by my friend Cy Brenneman. The horn was actually my own design and we called it J-horn. Well, It's an 80Hz bass horn in the form of the letter J. If you go to Asylum Trader you can see it listed there with photos and all. Cabinets only.
I've had the same experience with ALK Universal x-overs and Peavey FH1 bass horns. Too much midrange coming trough, dirty cavernous sound. That's actually the only reason that made me go active bi-amping: I now have a 12dB/460Hz filter on the low pass, and that's enough to cure the problem.
Bought the from Chris Brady years ago, note the Cocobolo wood vernier.
Mid-Bass horn is a folded horn with a re-coned JBL musical instrument driver (no metal dust cap).
Yes, I do think it need a steeper x-over as the higher than 500Hz frequencies are making in sound like a hollow tree trunk at times.
Also need a sub but have no room for a horn sub as the system is in a loft with a 4 ft. high wall behind the speakers and audio gear, speakers being out into room about 6 feet from said 4 ft. wall
...
Edits: 10/06/16
Before anything else, consider replacing the tweeters with Fostex 90 or 925A models, or even T500.
yes, definitely get rid of the Fane tweeter. T900A is another good choice. or, a TAD-2002 on a 1khz horn.
-Ed
What a beauty!! I remember them from another site. That would be the Titan 1 correct? What do you have driving them? and how do you like it?
Titan II might be the straight horn version while Titan I may have been the folded horns that I have?Using DIY HI-FI supply 300B kit amps with mostly better parts and the US(Kansas) made WE re-issue tubes from Charlie Whitner in the mid 2000's.
All other tube NOS including GZ-34 rectifiers and National Union 6SL7's.
Still, needs steeper x-over in the 500Hz region.
Edits: 09/10/16
Try the 4th order - it worked well in my system.
I had a pair then went back to the straight horn version.
Not using them now but my system is still Edgar architecture but different horns.
I have found that you should use something like REW and see where your woofers are acoustically crossing over. I found that the expected choke value was too low (2.5 mH) and I got a better looking curve and sound when the choke was larger. In my case this was 4 mH. But using a different driver. I had started with the typical value, which is what I used with the Edgar. How a driver is loaded by the horn and the room can make a big difference in impedance. I bet the EV's have a much larger impedance than the 2.5 mH choke was based upon but likely not as great a jump as the horns I am using which have a much smaller throat than the Edgars.
My plan is to place a choke in series with the amps driving the below 500hz horn and gain some further attenuation. But for the moment the sound is very good.
Worth a try.
But I don't recall the number. Re-call he has them re-coned without the metal dust cover that they normally come with for guitar amps, etc.
Don''t recall if 8 or 16 ohm as I can't find the schematic of the system/x-over anymore. :-(
There was a version without the metal dust cap.
Mine were definitely not re-coned - though my cabinets were unfinished - not one he sold as RETAIL - maybe the folks who bought them READY TO GO got re-coned drivers.
I think this box is Romy Besnow's favorite of Edgar's sub 500 hz horns.
My room seemed to be a little too big for them. The giant straight horn I replaced them with went in the other direction. I do remember liking the character of the JBL 12 better than the EV. I got off-track when I brought up the EV before. I knew which driver you had but was trying to write/think quicker than I am actually able! Sorry for the confusion.
I spent many hours massaging those boxes. I smoothed all of the corners - coated the inside and out with many coats of shellac. I installed slots on both sides for sand damping. Whether any of that made them sound any better I have no idea but I HAD to do it!
They are good sounding.
You should consider getting the TRUEXTENT diaphragms. They were a big improvement. And the FANEs are just a stop gap. You might find you do not WANT them if you try the TRUEXTENTs. I am using the FOSTEX T500s but wonder how important they really are. One of those things where you just like knowing they are there.
Do try out REW - it is free though you will have to get a decent mixer and a microphone but it can tell you lots of interesting things.
Was it 8 Ohms?
Seem to recall that's the case.
My two bits re tweeters in Edgarhorn system - I agree that you can almost do without a tweeter. When I say almost I mean there may be a little more air there when you use a tweeter, but nothing really dramatic. Another point: we (Cy and I) compared A-B Fostex T500 and Fostex 925A (with 1.5 uF cap) and heard practically no difference between the two (with T500 costing almost twice as 925A)
No question, pure vanity drove me to purchase the T500s.
I figured this way, not matter what, it is done and I would not think about super tweeters again.
The price we pay for audio peace as Herb Eeichert would put it.
As I seem to recall the overall system sensitivity is 106dB (100dB woofer with a 6dB boost due to the horn?)
T90 is still better than the Fane but if you are going to bother to do it, I'd get the T925A, T900A or T500. I have had the T925A and T900A, both are a step up over the Fanes (which I also had). But lately I am just running a TAD-2002 crossed at about 5k as a tweeter.
also consider active bi-amping (line-level) with multiple amps. It's way easier to make XO changes that way, correct level mismatches, etc.
any experience with Fostex T845?
No, I've thought about buying Fostexes many times, have been granted return rights, yet have not pulled the trigger. Part of that is that I'm happy with what I'm listening to, and just feel like stopping and enjoying the music.
Do you have experience with different Fostex models?
We've seen how well that worked in the past! =:-0
Hey, just sayin' what worked best for me. ;-) Everyone here is just an enabler anyway, that's nothing new. And if you don't think you will get that 845 amp built someday, well, you know who to call about the iron and such. ;-)
best regards!
I dare say that most folks, including those writing above, have not heard a really well set up set of A7 and A5 speakers.First off, a tweeter is very easy to integrate as the acoustic rolloff of the mid horn + compression driver is close to 6db per octave, measured in situ, listening position of 8 feet.
Second, a lot of the drivers out there are beyond their prime and could use reconing / new diaphragms. Easily done, inexpensive.
Finally, most of the Altec crossovers don't sound great, never mind their age, which only adds to the problem.
The talk of needing to be far away from the speakers is the hardest thing for me to figure out, it must have to do with the overwhelming visual size
of the speakers because I often enjoy sitting 4 feet from them and hearing very realistic sound with great dynamics an immediacy. There have also been many studios over the decades that have used them in such close listening situations. There are so many bad drivers, creaky cabinets, crossovers with leaky capacitors, mismatched Voice of the Theatres out there that these must be one of the most misunderstood speakers in history. Couple that with a wide adjustment range on the crossovers, which don't attenuate the mid driver enough for most home situations, (easily rectified by padding the mid driver) and the typical description of the speakers is way off.Using the right drivers, in good condition, good crossovers that can properly adjust the balance of the drivers, supertweeters, the speakers can be very smooth, extremely detailed, yet in a natural way, put out very dynamic bass with good power down to the upper 40's (measured). None of the above is hard at all. They are my favorite speakers, and I own a pretty vast array of big name speakers, so this is not a "I own it so it is the best" post.
Edits: 09/22/16
I'm sure you could use it as well. It is smaller in size than 925A, couple dbs less efficient and can handle a little less power. It is also cheaper.
Bruce gave me a copy which I have somewhere with all of my other audio paperwork but the wife re-organized and took over the office a few years ago when I retired.
Have no idea where anything is anymore. :-(
most likely 1st order...
parallel with the 2441 to knock it down 3dB to match the mid base. Just a series coil on the 12 inch in the folded bass bin but wired 180 deg out of phase with the mid horn.
My copy of the schematic had all of the drivers and wiring labeled and with it I would not have to pull things apart in order to decide what changes I might want to make.
Might have to order that Titanium Philips screw driver after all. ;-).
Edgar must have had a bunch of 40 uF caps.
One only needs half as much capacitance for a 16 ohms driver compared to an eight ohms driver. If one decides to use other caps remove the parallel and use 20 uF, though these are nominal values. You still shoudl use REW and see what you speakers are really doing in your room.
He used to specify a coil made by ELECTRA PRINT for the sub-500 hz woofer, 2.5 mH.
in parallel with the 2441 was to knock it down 3 dB and make an 8 ohm driver out of it to match the woofer?
Anyway, yes it's an EI core inductor on the mid bass driver and 2.5 mH seems to ring a bell. Been 10 years since I even though about it.
Anyone remember the nomenclature of the 12 inch JBL guitar amp driver he used for the mid-bass horn?
Found the x-over drawn by Bruce at RMAF quite a few years ago...
40uf cap then series 4 Ohm then TWO resistor parallel of 2441, a 8 Ohm and 15 Ohm.
So the 40uf cap sees about an 8 ohm driver and I'm guessing this drops the 111dB driver(with horn) down to about 106dB or close to the mid-bass bin?
Yes, it's still 2.5 mH and Jack at Electra print still makes the best iron there is.
This guy knows what he is talking about, re Horns !!
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: