I can supply plans. Do you read French?
If you want to go to the trouble of building from scratch, you might want to invest in a better horn than the 811 or 511. Have a look at this thread:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/group-buys/166312-waveguides-horns.html
It's a long thread, but basically he's building very nice horns for a good price. You can contact him about them. A friend of mine on Maui bought 2 pair (mid and high) and is very happy with them. I have not heard them yet, but I've seen the measurements and those look very good indeed.
As for a crossover, there are steps to doing that right. You will have to measure, measure, measure. I've tired other people's crossovers on my rig and they just don't work right. I had to design my own.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/group-buys/166312-waveguides-horns.html
It's a long thread, but basically he's building very nice horns for a good price. You can contact him about them. A friend of mine on Maui bought 2 pair (mid and high) and is very happy with them. I have not heard them yet, but I've seen the measurements and those look very good indeed.
As for a crossover, there are steps to doing that right. You will have to measure, measure, measure. I've tired other people's crossovers on my rig and they just don't work right. I had to design my own.
Seems like this is a duplicate of an earlier thread, a year or two ago, in which I posed pix of what I called the A7x, a modded one that I did for a friend... suggest a search? Much useful info was exchanged there...
_-_-bear
This is one such post/thread: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/171828-onken-onken-w-a7-valencia.html#post2278041
A search reveals more... search on VOT also A7
_-_-bear
This is one such post/thread: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/171828-onken-onken-w-a7-valencia.html#post2278041
A search reveals more... search on VOT also A7
I designed and built a pair of Onkens around the Iconic 165-8G driver (515-8G) about 6yrs ago now works great - very pleased with the result. Used the old Onken calc spreadsheet.
around 1970 or so I bought a new pair of A7-500's. The drivers were Altec, (416-8a's + 511B's) but the cabinets were locally made in Montreal. I ended up selling the empty cabinets and built 20 cu ft infinite baffles and bi-amped the speakers. When I got married the speakers were moved to the dark basement. The diy amplifiers and crossovers still work, but now its time to build a pair of A7 cabinets properly. My son wants me to put the not yet built speakers in my will for him. I will be reading this thread with great intrest and hopefully I will find the other threads as well.
I agree they are not the best sounding, but there is something special about them...
I agree they are not the best sounding, but there is something special about them...
I started out in this insane hobby with a pair of 806-As, 811-B horns, and Altec 416A midbass drivers in a Valencia box clone, and that may be the quickest way into the Altec world to see if you like it there.
The Valencia is a simple bass reflex box, and you can either use circular ports ala the later Valencias, or cut the horn opening wide as in the original Valencia, porting the woofer with the space on either side of the HF horns.
Plans are available at audioheritage.org.
The Altec drivers sound great and don't seem to need much augmentation at high volumes, but for home use at lower levels I felt the need to supplement the HF with an Aurum Cantus ribbon, and two sealed 12" DVC subs mounted in a back-to-back isobaric configuration for deeper bass.
Even the big A7 boxes and stock drivers weren't designed to go much below 50 - 70Hz, but they sound and feel like they go lower, with very little thump or boxiness. People speak of "airiness" in the higher frequencies, but using classic Altec drivers, whether in an A7 box or a Valencia box, I feel that word can be applied to classic Altec bass as well.
The Valencia is a simple bass reflex box, and you can either use circular ports ala the later Valencias, or cut the horn opening wide as in the original Valencia, porting the woofer with the space on either side of the HF horns.
Plans are available at audioheritage.org.
The Altec drivers sound great and don't seem to need much augmentation at high volumes, but for home use at lower levels I felt the need to supplement the HF with an Aurum Cantus ribbon, and two sealed 12" DVC subs mounted in a back-to-back isobaric configuration for deeper bass.
Even the big A7 boxes and stock drivers weren't designed to go much below 50 - 70Hz, but they sound and feel like they go lower, with very little thump or boxiness. People speak of "airiness" in the higher frequencies, but using classic Altec drivers, whether in an A7 box or a Valencia box, I feel that word can be applied to classic Altec bass as well.
802 has more flux density than the 806, it is 2.2 dB more sensitive, and probably a bit smoother.
The 802, 806 and 900 series all use 1.75” voice coils, 604-8K and 900 series are ceramic magnets, the earlier are Alnico.
The all- aluminum diaphragms go higher than the Symbiotik Kapton plastic surround, though the Symbiotic won’t crack as soon with a low crossover point.
Unfortunately, with 50 year old drivers hard to say what diaphragm they are loaded with presently unless you did it yourself or open the driver up to check, or test them.
If you are interested in more information about these antiques, check out:
Altec Lansing Professional Audio - PDF Library
Art
That's a good link, it has a bunch of PDF plans. Cool.
Altec Lansing Professional Audio - Vintage Speakers
I guess a good plan of attack would be to select a woofer and design a box from there.
It may be a little sac-religious, I don't know, to just scale a Onken or 210A to a modern efficient woofer.
For the Onken I would try and get a woofer to fit in to the old chart.
For the 210A I could look for a woofer the uses a big enclosure, then scale the 210A to fit.
Lot's of things to think about.
Altec Lansing Professional Audio - Vintage Speakers
I guess a good plan of attack would be to select a woofer and design a box from there.
It may be a little sac-religious, I don't know, to just scale a Onken or 210A to a modern efficient woofer.
For the Onken I would try and get a woofer to fit in to the old chart.
For the 210A I could look for a woofer the uses a big enclosure, then scale the 210A to fit.
Lot's of things to think about.
Playing as loud as I care to the peaks hit 6V, max. That's 4.5 watts, peak.
Average power is 1/8 watt for 85dB at the listening seat.
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