 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
107.77.215.37
It occurs to me that my listening experience is really rather limited. The vast majority of my experience is limited to horn type speakers. I moved from tower dynamic type speakers to my first horn high efficiency speakers (Klipsch Heresy) about forty years ago. Over the years, worked my way up through the Heritage line to Cornwalls, then on to Altec Valencias. Also, added vintage EV Aristocrats along the way.
All these speakers have been horn type speakers and I enjoy the sound. However, I am curious and I would like to try another design type, but must still be 95+db sensitive. What should I look for in the used market?
Follow Ups:
Art Dudley, rip.
Comments removed.
Edits: 08/19/23
they are too small. too much midrange and not enuf bass.. put the components in a bigger box or get a m19 (similar footprint). i am not a big fan of tannoys (compared to altec) but prefer the bigger ones over the valencia. for domestic use, the duplex 604etc might sound more balanced . the modern jbl4367 might be a the solution for a person who wants to trade chewy altec musicality for audiophile precision.
While Altec components are high grade their home speaker line is simply close to junk. Hard to believe the same engineering team was responsible for both. That opinion is based on hearing stock Valencia ( my home ) stock home VOTT and stock Model 16. All representing boombox sound quality with Valencia and Vott being laughably bad.
Heard a VOTT at a Small, local theater. Compared modern THX or my own full Atmos in living room, the sound was Vacuous! (totally sucked) No bass, no treble, just 100 to 4 khz. to my ears.
Hi Claude
About 20 years ago i rebuilt a pair of VOT's for a friend using modern drivers (a JBL 2226 for bass and BMS4550 for hf).It was possible to make a "synergy horn" style crossover (without normal crossover phase shift) by moving the horn an inch or so to the rear and a figuring out a new circuit. The bass was extended by re-tuning the port.
Here is how they measured before and after mag and phase, might be hard to make out.
These sounded real nice after the mod, modern full bandwidth with about an octave or more at each end..
Best
Tom
Edits: 05/19/23
Looks good. Wonder how a large BR and modern horn would compare.
Yes although i had to move it to the rear a little to make the crossover work out. On axis, it sounded like a Synergy horn, it's off axis where it would be different. The 511 horn has a wide horizontal pattern but narrows in the vertical with increasing frequency and the woofer is still a separate radiation.
The big difference would be if you walked into a room where it was playing and you were well off axis, the room sound is noticeably "dark" compared to on axis where it's flat, due to the narrowing pattern with increasing frequency.
For a Constant Directivity source, the room spectrum off axis is essentially the same as the on axis response shape.
Nice work, Tom.So, basically, you used the aluminum and lumbers with all else "new mod" territory.
All it needs is a TH-50 in between and it would rock anyone's world!
Edits: 05/19/23
Yep, the acoustics are the same but modern drivers can be very different.
I did have to close off the large port opening and change to 4x 4 inch dia port tubes to tune lower. I also reinforced the woofer flare as they had a resonance around 350 if i recall.
The octave added at each end is the difference in drivers and the "flat" without the normal phase shift is a computer aided crossover design.
Best,
Tom
Co-incidentally, I have a pair of JBL 2226 drivers from Ebay to be delivered in the next hour. But it's for refurbishing some 2-way JBL PA speakers whose horns with 2447 drivers and xovers are intact (too much power for FOH operators who ignore power meters and Limiters). The guy needed the space so I bought the lot as an investment. Most of the woofers were blown and he needed the storage space, so, solde them to me for a song (pun intended).Those 2226's can take a lot of power in pairs, but any device can be overdriven to the point where it will fail. This is why I like your speakers so much for HiFi because they will never see more than 10% rated power for home application, even during a "demo" for friends (some of who have been scared out of the room by the BT7 and TH50 running LFE).
He told me he had to sell off the "flying bananas" (really like that expression) during Covid he had subsequently purchased as replacements for the blown driver ones in storage. Live music was nowhere to be booked then, as you well know.
Still, I got some very solid late 90's tech. no longer made but the drivers are available used from other boxes that are pieced out.
The boxes I have have twin 12's and twin 15's with very well built cabs that get down to 40 hz.
I hope to make my modernized BT-7 become part of a package eventually since I got a local "steal deal" from a drummer who didn't need the JBL BR 18" Sub designed for theaters (same Motor Tech as the 2226). Using it in the rear, firing against the back wall and waiting for help to move the BT7 into the shop for permanent driver upgrade we discussed. Thanks for all your help, as always.
Even your improved version of the VOT, whose size would not work in my living room with LCR "miniature" SH-50's with Subs asking as working "speaker stands." I like to make every cubic foot count in my small room, which is 11.5 x 16.5 x 8 with full 11 channel Atmos with 2.2 at the touch of a button for music.
Back to the OP. While Bill F's and your curves clearly show I was right about the limited response I experienced in a small, cheap local theater with the unmodified versions (6 years ago), the improvement shows what can be done with better drivers, crossovers, and optimized tuning, using the right tools. Applied Science wins again.
Edits: 05/19/23 05/19/23 05/19/23
The improvement also shows that the needs when the VOTT was invented aren't the same as those today. It was very much an empirical seat of the pants design, made to sound as good as possible with the audio content of 1940s movies, driven with 25 watt amplifiers. One should no more expect them to perform to today's standards than one would a 1947 Ford.
Absolutely right!
There were so many things that were the build / listen /modify loop with very few acoustic measurements.
It was the TEF machine that allowed one to measure the loudspeaker's phase and that didn't happen until the late 70's and become practical in the 80's.
I heard an old WE driver from a theater speaker and it sounded great. looking at the insides, except for materials, it was a modern compression driver = there was very little that could be improved in the acoustic part in many decades since. That was something to think about, the process that lead to that driver design.
Tom
Jim Hunter, Klipsch Historian, retired Chief Engineer showed me a WE 555 unit the he says the Atlas driver was based on and he was amazed at how good it measured. Pretty impressive those Engineers were almost 100 years ago!
I agree fully! the ones that got it, really got it and left little to improve other than new materials mostly and to a degree computer modeling neither of which they had.
I don't remember which theater driver it was i heard but it sounded just fine to me.
At a trade show a person asked why the old drivers didn't have power compression?
Good question but the answer is the glue that was available for the voice coils let go at around 150C and so the wire never got hot enough to suffer from that.
I agree with your historical statement, Bill.
They were good in their time. Just like Altec Drivers, which can be bettered in every regard by modern drivers, like an Eminence Deltalite 3015 in the right box.
Altecs were my favorite back in the day. I preferred them over JBL and EV. By the same token while I loved my BMW 2002 in 1972 I wouldn't want one today over my 328iX GT. They both have 2000cc engines, but that's where the resemblance ends.
" I loved my BMW 2002 in 1972"
Oh man my Mom had one of those maybe a year or two earlier, a blue one (Dad had a 1960 R-60 bmw) that I got to drive. It was a fun car at a time and place when there weren't that many sports cars.
What i do remember was it was "cold blooded" like the Honda motorcycle i had and needed to warm up for a bit in the winter.
I heard domestic Vott in private home in Indian Village. The fucker was so bad that it was beyond the point to even discuss the sound quality.
It just produced sound pressure and isobarik changes. The same quality stock Valencia offered in my house.
To me ElectroVoice is the top vintage brand for high efficiency vintage home speakers. Doesn't have much following but they are all properly engineered unlike Altec ,Jbl or even Tannoy meh .
I like the EV stuff as well, but it depends on the APPLICATION dictated by the spaces and portability.
100 to 5kHz. This is an SPL plot of an A7, 1988 version.
That you?
"Reality cannot exist because it cannot keep up with the lies on the Internet."
There's a fellow that builds a Model 19 type cabinet for the 15" woofer and upgrades the 19 with a 511 horn on the top. lokie linked to an fellow doing a similar DIY project.
Or, get some VOTT speakers.
-Rod
I think triodesteve is on the right track. Speaking from my own experience, upgrading capacitors in the crossover and the HF drivers to Altec or GPA tangerine 902's produced amazing results.
I like Valencias, I've heard quite a few. I think of the Model 19 (which I owned) as the Valencia perfected and the ultimate version of the Altec 2-way (Duplexes being another story). Compared to the Val the 19's bass is deeper and the treble is flatter and more extended. And the directivity of the woofer and horn is supposedly matched at the crossover. Anyway I consider the 19 one of the finest turnkey home speaker systems ever.
I have never heard Valencias.
Like you, I tried a couple of Klipsch speakers. I had a pair of Cornwalls in the early 1980s. Much more recently, I bought a pair of used Klipschorns. I know a lot of people love Klipsch speakers, but I found them hard, honky and fatiguing to listen to.
I bought a pair of Altec Model 19s and thought they were much better speakers than either of the two Klipsch models I owned. Clean, open and far less colored than the Klipsches in my opinion.
Lately, the price of Model 19s has gone up quite a lot, and, keep in mind that they are considerably larger than your Valencias. I think they might be better than the Valencias. By how much of a degree and whether it was worth the cost, I couldn't say.
One other observation. I had a buddy who had Klipschorns, Altec Model 19s and a pair of their Model 17s, with the co-ax driver. I spent several hours with him listening to all three models. I thought the Model 19s were the best of the lot. I did not care for the Model 17s at all. I found them hard and colored. I wouldn't recommend them to you. Of course, YMMV.
Good luck!
A bigger Altec? I'm not sure where one goes after Altec. Maybe JBL?
You could keep the Valencia and make it better I guess.
Altec 2-Way
Nt
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
