adding dome tweeters to altec horn combo

[ke4mcl]

i have a pair of altec theater cabinets that have a 16" woofer and a coaxially mounted horn. i forget the model number of my speakers at the moment but they were from the 80's. i guess modern day version of a VOT.

i recently acquired a big pile of raw drivers and in the pile are what look like a pair of raw b&w nautilus tweeters. i've been thinking of adding those to my altec cabs to give me a little sparkle where the horns leave off.

anybody done this? got a ballpark figure on where i should be crossing over at? the tweeters look like they may be silk domes, aprox 1.5" across.

[Cal Weldon]

Your drivers sound like the 600 series. Most likely a 604 or possibly a 605. I've not heard anyone using a helper tweeter with a coax but is often done with the larger, non-coax horns. The biggest advantage of a coax is the point sourcing of the sound. This will be lost if you add a tweeter outside the frame of the woofer.

Hopefully GM will pop in here and give you some advice. He's the man.

[mpmarino]

I would be more concerned about matching sensitivities. I would think that the domes would be inaudible next to anything Altec.

....sort of like a cat meowing next to my daughter screaming

...........not that I think of Altec as screaming, just very efficient, like my daughters vocal chords.

I'd go for a bullet or slot tweeter there if a tweet is needed, IMHO.

[Cal Weldon]

I agree with the Crazy Yankee and will add that the tweeters in the 604 series were pretty good at HF extension so what is it you feel is missing?