Hi all, New post here I really want to build the old Altec 816 (portability) midbass cab. I plan to use the Tuba 30 under since it has the same width and output down to 35Hz for playback dance music. The woofer I plan on using since the orig Altecs are too expensive either the 18Sound 15MB700(18 lbs) or the Sovereign Pro 600N(11.5 lbs) neo back saver but expensive.
I heard these 816(2 cabs) when Scott was still around in Coney Island around 2004(El Dorado Bumper Cars) and they sound amazing with the nice kick for dance music and very detailed midbass (vocals) and loud!!! The closest I could find to help my back since there is me and my 17 yr old to move it around is the Sovereign pro light cone, high BL, low Qts. Your thoughts???
I also plan on using Arauco 18mm plywood since it is light and seems dead soundwise (have not used these yet but a sample piece from a distributor 8X8X8") I also plan to put metal handles on each side but will build the braces and 2X4 inside supports on each side of the cab as per plans. The Baltic Birch is $63 each 4X8'(70lbs ea.) and the Arauco $23 4X8'(35lbs?) with exterior glue, BB regular glue (can't get exterior glue here in Florida as per distributor). So Tubas 35-100Hz then 816's 100-1kHz, Altec 945 1kHz-9kHz,and 9kHz-18kHz 2 small horns 80X40 Dayton H07E 6X6" with CDX1-1745 one on top of the other about 10" apart (plan on building a skeletal plywood frame to house the large Altec horns with a piece of plywood on front top for the HF.
Please help me with your thoughts on this subject (large scale dance stack), all replys are greatly appreciated thanks everyone!
I heard these 816(2 cabs) when Scott was still around in Coney Island around 2004(El Dorado Bumper Cars) and they sound amazing with the nice kick for dance music and very detailed midbass (vocals) and loud!!! The closest I could find to help my back since there is me and my 17 yr old to move it around is the Sovereign pro light cone, high BL, low Qts. Your thoughts???
I also plan on using Arauco 18mm plywood since it is light and seems dead soundwise (have not used these yet but a sample piece from a distributor 8X8X8") I also plan to put metal handles on each side but will build the braces and 2X4 inside supports on each side of the cab as per plans. The Baltic Birch is $63 each 4X8'(70lbs ea.) and the Arauco $23 4X8'(35lbs?) with exterior glue, BB regular glue (can't get exterior glue here in Florida as per distributor). So Tubas 35-100Hz then 816's 100-1kHz, Altec 945 1kHz-9kHz,and 9kHz-18kHz 2 small horns 80X40 Dayton H07E 6X6" with CDX1-1745 one on top of the other about 10" apart (plan on building a skeletal plywood frame to house the large Altec horns with a piece of plywood on front top for the HF.
Please help me with your thoughts on this subject (large scale dance stack), all replys are greatly appreciated thanks everyone!
Not sure if the prices compare?, but you can get get the real McCoy brand new for what you want to build here: Great Plains Audio's Homepage
http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/products.html
http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/products.html
Interesting, I didn't know Scotty was out of business.
I've used it quite a bit around the house and it's probably fine for a prosound app, but I wouldn't use it for a HIFI/HT one. Since you're building from scratch I highly recommend you use a shortened 825 or 828 cab horn section as the 816's parallel walls have strong eigenmodes in its pass-band.
WRT drivers, you need one that has the same stepped response as the Altec drivers to extend the horn's usable on axis output out to > 1 kHz, so look for a response that ~matches this one for the 816 horn: http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/specs/components/421a/page2.jpg or this one for the 825/828 horn: http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/specs/components/515b/page02.jpg
GM
I've used it quite a bit around the house and it's probably fine for a prosound app, but I wouldn't use it for a HIFI/HT one. Since you're building from scratch I highly recommend you use a shortened 825 or 828 cab horn section as the 816's parallel walls have strong eigenmodes in its pass-band.
WRT drivers, you need one that has the same stepped response as the Altec drivers to extend the horn's usable on axis output out to > 1 kHz, so look for a response that ~matches this one for the 816 horn: http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/specs/components/421a/page2.jpg or this one for the 825/828 horn: http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/specs/components/515b/page02.jpg
GM
I mentioned GPA because #1 you're building an Altec cab, and #2 the 18Sound driver you mentioned is approx the same price as the real deal from GPA (from a price I saw at US Speakers), maybe even a bit more expensive than GPA, and #3 it probably will be hard to find a driver that sounds better in an Altec cab for about the same $$$ as the GPA drivers... Just going by all I've read and heard from Altec users etc..
Cheers and Happy New Year
Arauco works well, not as stiff as Baltic Birch but fine with some extra bracing.
It is probably superior to the wood used in the original cabinet.
I think your estimate of a 4x8 sheet 18mm at 35 pounds is low, my muscle memory says at least 50 pounds.
Thanks DaveCan, I can get the 18Sound at $124 ea. brand new from a distributor in Miami, I also seen on ebay 421's for $124 and $165. I like what I heard in 2004 for what I remember and would not hesitate to use 15MB700 the Fane may be a good substitute being neo and I can get that at $224 from a distributor in New Jersey. I am going to call GPA for pricing as I think they still produce the 515 and 421 brand new this week.
weltersys, thanks for the help do you think it is a good idea to use 15mm BB on the exterior with battens then use interior 3/4" Arauco and Baffle 18mm BB??? Would this save a considerable amount of weight? These cabs will be finished in Duratex rolled on, thanks!
weltersys, thanks for the help do you think it is a good idea to use 15mm BB on the exterior with battens then use interior 3/4" Arauco and Baffle 18mm BB??? Would this save a considerable amount of weight? These cabs will be finished in Duratex rolled on, thanks!
Bump. I am also interested in this cabinet, in some sort of light weight variation with a 12" or 10", with a 14"x20" fron face dimension. I think the general type of design is called a vented horn loaded woofer, and compareable designs would be the EV SH1502ER and JBL 4560.
http://www.wmeckle.com/ALTEC/index.htm
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/36758-speakers-club.html
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=119862.0
Now this is really interesting:
http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=74565&whichpage=2
http://www.wmeckle.com/ALTEC/index.htm
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/36758-speakers-club.html
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=119862.0
Now this is really interesting:
http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=74565&whichpage=2
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The 515B is still available at $360 a piece as well as 421 slightly lower priced from GPA. Also I have not built them yet but you say they can be built smaller as in 12" version or 10" even??? I was also planning on putting a phase plug like the EAW MR102 horn but on the EAW the polyurethane phase plug is mounted on the metal mesh and there is space between mesh and the cone cap about 2" from when I used them way back in the mid 80"s. If you have plans it would be interesting for higher frequency range, please show us here on DIY.
Hmm, didn't see this...........
Standing waves. Yes, but once chopped down isn't a lot bigger/heavier and IMNSHO it sounds enough better overall to justify the extra labor, etc.. Not really as it changes the horn's HF performance, though it might work out well enough for when using a smaller driver. Use HornResp to find out.
A belated you're welcome!
GM
Well, I'm pretty new to horn resp, but things look promising so far. I'm looking for a cheap PA mid, so it be great to be able to build this with a simplified design and cheap modern woofer. I'll have more details later.
So I'm going to call these the "econo mid-horn". I've been looking at the econowave designs for a few year (using the jbl copy waveguide and compression tweeter) but have always been disappointed with the overall sensitivity once baffle step correction is done on the woofer. Happened to be looking at PA kick bins, mid horns etc, and came across these old designs - EV SH1502ER and JBL 4560, then the Altec 816, which are a vented, horn loaded woofer. Just to be clear, these actually use the woofer in a bass reflex ported rear chamber that fires out the front of the cabinet.
The EV version claims a sensitivity of 102.5 db/w/m.
There are a few keys to this design. They do not horn load the driver into the bass range, thus the horn is much shorter (~1 ft) and smaller - the bass reflex porting fills in the bass in the lower useable octave. This design is a high efficiency midbass/midrange, so don't expect much below 100hz, and use of a sub or stereo subs is expected.
Lack of a baffle means no baffle step correction and resulting loss of efficency. Most drivers should be able to be boosted several db's in efficiency above their spec'd measurements and tuned for a relatively flat passband, +/- 2 db. For example, the Delta-12A I simmed last night spec's at around 96-97 db/w/m on an infinite baffle, or 2pi space (afaik) from 100 to 1000 hz. In the horn+vented box its around 102db +/- 2 from 90-700 hz. If you were to put this woofer in a normal box, you would have to baffle step correct it and it would end up around 93db in the midbass. So that seems like a massive increase in efficency to me, and a very good reason to use this type of design.
There are other variations of this type of design, that I believe make use of phase plugs to further extend the high frequency response with good success at the expense of build complexitiy. An alternative seems to be to use a woofer that has a natural response above 1000hz, to attempt to counter the rolloff off the horn. I'm not quite sure how this will work in practice, with dispersion etc. But it should, in theory, be enough to match up with a econowave compression tweeter around 1500-2000 hz.
Overall, I'd like to come up with a design that is cheap and simple to build, while sounding reasonably good and going LOUD. It would greatly preferable to avoid any complex horn shapes - no curves, multiple angles, etc, but will have to figure out how to sim a very simpler than cone horn shape. I'm not sure what the effect of having parallel top and bottom panels with curved sided in the altec, vs. box conical in the ev vs. curved and angled in the jbl.
Anyway, that's what I have so far. I think there's alot of potential here.
The EV version claims a sensitivity of 102.5 db/w/m.
There are a few keys to this design. They do not horn load the driver into the bass range, thus the horn is much shorter (~1 ft) and smaller - the bass reflex porting fills in the bass in the lower useable octave. This design is a high efficiency midbass/midrange, so don't expect much below 100hz, and use of a sub or stereo subs is expected.
Lack of a baffle means no baffle step correction and resulting loss of efficency. Most drivers should be able to be boosted several db's in efficiency above their spec'd measurements and tuned for a relatively flat passband, +/- 2 db. For example, the Delta-12A I simmed last night spec's at around 96-97 db/w/m on an infinite baffle, or 2pi space (afaik) from 100 to 1000 hz. In the horn+vented box its around 102db +/- 2 from 90-700 hz. If you were to put this woofer in a normal box, you would have to baffle step correct it and it would end up around 93db in the midbass. So that seems like a massive increase in efficency to me, and a very good reason to use this type of design.
There are other variations of this type of design, that I believe make use of phase plugs to further extend the high frequency response with good success at the expense of build complexitiy. An alternative seems to be to use a woofer that has a natural response above 1000hz, to attempt to counter the rolloff off the horn. I'm not quite sure how this will work in practice, with dispersion etc. But it should, in theory, be enough to match up with a econowave compression tweeter around 1500-2000 hz.
Overall, I'd like to come up with a design that is cheap and simple to build, while sounding reasonably good and going LOUD. It would greatly preferable to avoid any complex horn shapes - no curves, multiple angles, etc, but will have to figure out how to sim a very simpler than cone horn shape. I'm not sure what the effect of having parallel top and bottom panels with curved sided in the altec, vs. box conical in the ev vs. curved and angled in the jbl.
Anyway, that's what I have so far. I think there's alot of potential here.
The altec pro website is a wealth of information, go here and pull up the 816VIX spreadsheet:
Altec Lansing Professional Audio - Vintage Speakers
I believe the dip around 650hz and the peak around 850 are caused by the parallel top and bottom panels of the horn, spaced ~16" apart....?
Here's a version with ports on the sides:
http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1979-screamer/page02.jpg
Altec Lansing Professional Audio - Vintage Speakers
I believe the dip around 650hz and the peak around 850 are caused by the parallel top and bottom panels of the horn, spaced ~16" apart....?
Here's a version with ports on the sides:
http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1979-screamer/page02.jpg
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Looks nice with the vents on the side, you think the standing waves on front can be eliminated as per GM with an angled piece top and bottom of the horn mouth from the baffle instead of the straight piece. How about the plans for EAW MR101 which is the 10" version used in clubs in NYC previously by Paladium in the '90s from Richard Long Associates nice sounding back then and loud if I can remember. They have the phase plug infront mounted on the screen mesh. Typical EAW if you look also on the EAW KF850 concert cabs!
djlivex,
I think what everyone forgets is that the original Altec and JBL horn reflex cabinet enclosures were designed to go behind a movie screen and the bass response is not that good. The response of the ports below the cutoff frequency of the horn is down by more than 6db and the integration with the horn is really not very good. Why not just use the horn without the ports, sealed back and add a true bass tuned cabinet. That is what happened to all of the PA enclosures during the 70's, the ports were deleted from most of these types of cabinets. The Eq required to bring the level of the bass up to the horn gain is severe and the amplifier power required is heavy to do this. Also you get into the uncontrolled excursion of the driver at these frequencies and it was common for the cone to slam into the back of the throat of the horn. Just an observation from someone who has been there with these enclosures since the late 60's. Believe me I moved my share of A7 and A2 enclosures.
I think what everyone forgets is that the original Altec and JBL horn reflex cabinet enclosures were designed to go behind a movie screen and the bass response is not that good. The response of the ports below the cutoff frequency of the horn is down by more than 6db and the integration with the horn is really not very good. Why not just use the horn without the ports, sealed back and add a true bass tuned cabinet. That is what happened to all of the PA enclosures during the 70's, the ports were deleted from most of these types of cabinets. The Eq required to bring the level of the bass up to the horn gain is severe and the amplifier power required is heavy to do this. Also you get into the uncontrolled excursion of the driver at these frequencies and it was common for the cone to slam into the back of the throat of the horn. Just an observation from someone who has been there with these enclosures since the late 60's. Believe me I moved my share of A7 and A2 enclosures.
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