This is the rub for me regarding vinyl sources. It just seems so much easier to send digital source material to a DSP for crossover, time delay, level, and EQ before heading to the DAC. Then it is very feasible to have multi-amped DHT systems for each driver. One little guy for the highs, and your Karna for the mids. Still can use transistor for the sub.
As soon as you want to use an analog source, the idea falls apart. So I agree, 'analog sources seem kind of pointless', but from a slightly different angle.
I was going to use 4 subs, but will definitely take higher fidelity of the midrange over prioritizing how low the midbass horn can go.
Though I am going the DSP route, I'm still going to use multiple SET amps. I used to be pure analog guy as well, but after hearing LX521 setup with 4 subwoofers and at the listening position using EQ similar to the Harmon target curve it was the closest I have ever heard a good classical recording "light up" a listening space and had tone nearly as good as my rebuilt ESL57. I think the linear flat bass response with no dominant room modes was one of many factors in that system's convincing playback. For me it was one of those wide eye opening revelations. While my numerous vinyl setups have sounded from good to truly excellent (I'll actually be selling my Nottingham turntable and Tape Project rig), no analog source has given me the same sensation which makes me believe most of what matters is the speakers and room. I want to do it with horns instead of an OB system. All purely my opinion and what sounded good to me, I wouldn't force this view on anyone.
I like using the twin 18 stereo subs along with a center folded horn (below 40 hz) and delayed rear channel dual 18 sub. It is very low compromise and offers real (as in live big room) sound and close to unlimited head room. Mates with 100 Hz front horns in my room matching the speed, dtail, tone and impact the front horns are so good at.
Years ago i had a Behringer digital EQ (8024?) and it did help clean up the bass - at the time I used three folded horn loaded 18's - they were the best I heard at the time but suffered from exiting the room in the wrong way - I have since corrected that and have another digital EQ and found it caused more problems than what it was worth in the current setup. To me if you can get the best driver in a good front horn to cover a decade or so and get the power response right you don't need to EQ the system much if at all. Multi-amping is far superior to using a single amp and increases the WOW live factor by enough to warrant the extra amps and complexity. First order electrical filters (not always hi/low pass textbook) passive line level is very pure, low noise and if done right with the natural band roll off of the horn/driver can open up the windows to the music recording most people never will know exists.
i remember listening to a pair of altec a7 home brew variants (don't recall the model) at a mcintosh, altec, jbl stereo store way back when sound was analog (~45 years ago). hated them. the highs were overpowering after listening to them for a period of time. they were fatiguing and unlistenable to me. the treble horn greatly overpowered the woofer. klipsch were even worse. the piezo tweeters were the pits - ragged and harsh. hated them even more. believed paul klipsch had bad hearing.
i have a pair of the jbl CD theater speakers. double woofer medium format upper horn. love the sound - outside. absolutely unlistenable in any indoor room not the size of a roller skating ring. these are more speaker than the altecs i listened to way back when. got them for a steal of a price.
moral of the story to me is horns in huge room or outside. others inside. this way listening fatigue is avoided and hearing loss is kept to a minimum.
My personal opinion is if you actually have the room for a horn loaded system you can't beat it. Now to qualify that I have to say that is a rare room that is both large enough and the horn system designed to work well enough together at a listenable distance for integration is so few that to talk about using horns down to 100hz is really crazy. What I decided to do long ago was to use horns only about 600hz and below that you have many choices to use direct radiators. Yes you have a very big difference in efficiency but with multi-amping that really is a non issue. I myself have very small horns for the 600hz and above range that use cone drivers and about 1.6Khz I use a small horn that mounts a 1" compression driver. That really give you the best of both worlds in a small package, something that 90% of people could fit into a room and could listen to without having to be 15 feet or more away and get a reasonable blending of the different drivers. I think the idea that you need these massive round horns stacked one above the other and the complaints about not having any real high frequency output off axis just shows how obtrusive and unacceptable these systems are except for a tiny portion of the audiophile type of thinking going on here. Nutz I say to all that. If you want to use a 15" or 18" speaker for the bottom you can do that without having to have half your room being enclosures. I really understand what Lynn is trying to do but at the same time I think he is still stuck in 1960 thinking, this having to use supper hgh efficiency speakers so you can use DHT amplifiers and a single unit at that is just not going to make any real advancement in the audio arts. I love to read about what he is doing but I don't think I could ever go back to anything like that in a home system. Now talk to me about doing some really cool PA horn loaded line array systems and I can get behind that, but otherwise it has little real application to home hifi sound.
Just my opinion and anyone can disagree. I understand Pooh's concepts but would rather not show all the things that I think are wrong with his implementation. His pictures of his systems tell me enough to not go there.
Just my opinion and anyone can disagree. I understand Pooh's concepts but would rather not show all the things that I think are wrong with his implementation. His pictures of his systems tell me enough to not go there.
totally agreed, that's why i mentioned the roller skating ring for room size. although this is too large for a single pair of altecs. and 15' isn't enough for the jbl CD horn systems i have. 30' is more like it. just too much sound for anything but a theater and up.
i remember the good old days with vinyl records: the pops, the white noise hiss, the dust on the stylus, the hum, the feedback if the speakers were too loud or too close, etc. i also remember the arguments over which cartridge sounded 'best': shure, stanton, ortofon, etc.
The real moral is that crossovers should be designed for the room and the intended use. I have owned Altec VOTT A7s. In my garage they sounded like crap. 😀. After some stiffening, reducing the port size and, most importantly, a better crossover, they were great. Not forward, not fatiguing. Rather laid back, actually. When you do it right, horns can work in a normal size room.
Pano,
when you look at the VOTT the bass horn itself really isn't all that large, without the ported reflex enclosure they wouldn't go very low by themselves. Most people here are talking about horns without any reflex function and are relying strictly on the horn itself with small rear chambers.
when you look at the VOTT the bass horn itself really isn't all that large, without the ported reflex enclosure they wouldn't go very low by themselves. Most people here are talking about horns without any reflex function and are relying strictly on the horn itself with small rear chambers.
The Altec A7 bass section is a combo, for sure. Not a full bass horn. Horn loading from maybe 250 on up.
But I don't think that's the horn sounding part, or the fatiguing part.
But I don't think that's the horn sounding part, or the fatiguing part.
you can believe this is the 'real moral' of the story, but i've never heard non-HL speakers sound like the a7, klipsch, etc. in a room, bar the cheezy guitar speakers w/ piezo tweeters.
some folks stuffed (a) towel(s) in the a7 to make it less tiring. smothered the life out of it, but it sounded better. maybe this is what you have accomplished electrically.
Non-HL? Horn Loaded?
I love Altec drivers, and some of the box designs. But the crossovers and some of the box construction, not so much.
No argument that the pro models don't sound great for Hi-Fi in stock form. With proper care and the proper crossover, they can sound very good indeed. They measure a lot better, too. These old gals can really be transformed, I've done it several times. The base is good, but the stock implementation is not ideal. Unfortunately this gives horn speakers a bad name and people write them off. It does not have to be that way.
I'm thinking you live up near my father. If you ever eat at The Great Outdoors Cafe or see a movie at the Priest, then you are in the neighborhood.
I love Altec drivers, and some of the box designs. But the crossovers and some of the box construction, not so much.
No argument that the pro models don't sound great for Hi-Fi in stock form. With proper care and the proper crossover, they can sound very good indeed. They measure a lot better, too. These old gals can really be transformed, I've done it several times. The base is good, but the stock implementation is not ideal. Unfortunately this gives horn speakers a bad name and people write them off. It does not have to be that way.I'm thinking you live up near my father. If you ever eat at The Great Outdoors Cafe or see a movie at the Priest, then you are in the neighborhood.
Pano,
Before Eastern Acoustics came along and shrank the A7 sized enclosure down and we used the old A7 and A2 enclosures I remember that most of the time we changed the Altec 15's for JBL 15's. The highs were usually Altec 1.4" drivers and some smaller 1" drivers to bring up the top a bit. We had both multi-cells, 311 and some 511 horns back then.
The Eastern enclosures just fit into trucks so much easier and basically you used as many of those as you needed spl. The days of the VOTT was basically over at that time for PA usage.
Before Eastern Acoustics came along and shrank the A7 sized enclosure down and we used the old A7 and A2 enclosures I remember that most of the time we changed the Altec 15's for JBL 15's. The highs were usually Altec 1.4" drivers and some smaller 1" drivers to bring up the top a bit. We had both multi-cells, 311 and some 511 horns back then.
The Eastern enclosures just fit into trucks so much easier and basically you used as many of those as you needed spl. The days of the VOTT was basically over at that time for PA usage.
Non-HL? Horn Loaded?
I love Altec drivers, and some of the box designs. But the crossovers and some of the box construction, not so much.
I'm thinking you live up near my father. If you ever eat at The Great Outdoors Cafe or see a movie at the Priest, then you are in the neighborhood.
yes, non-horn loaded (dynamic).
never heard any a7 sound good. a lot of the jbl were the same, especially the big ones like the L300, L400, etc. HF would knock a person on the ground and make 'em run for cover! altec and jbl drivers are very 'professional looking'.
i do have plans for the a7 and 'plan' to build a pair after the new workshop is finished.
with the jbl 4675 speakers i have, they do sound really good - outside; actually great. would sound better if woofers were in HL enclosure (plan to do this also but they get real heavy). only crossover i used was a capacitor for the HF drivers. a bit of woofer breakup, but not too bad. bi-amping w/ electronic crossover is probably far better than single cap.
heard a pair of klipsch 'gators' - huge quad woofer setup HL enclosure (bass only). not transportable w/out several dudes and dollys. not for home use. outdoor probably better. stationary best. highly recommended.
live just above high springs. never been to the grill or theater.
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All true and only the ~deaf wouldn't be 'offended' in one or more ways by a honking, squawking A7 and most rising-on-axis horn systems in general, but again, when properly set up for the intended app, they are not fatiguing, etc., to anyone I know of that has had this apparently relatively rare experience; indeed, they can be quite mellow if one chooses, same as any speaker when properly setup to achieve this type of performance.
The downside though is usually a much lower average efficiency down around 92-95 dB depending on the room, personal preference, which in a HIFI/HT/studio monitor app is usually an acceptable trade-off to get a horn system's superior polar/power, transient, etc., performance through the critical speech [telephone] BW out to beyond the limits of the cinema sound track limit it was designed for.
GM
The early Altec crossovers were nothing more than textbook 12 dB/octave highpass and lowpass filters, with no EQ on the horn section at all. The 511 and 811 sectoral horns are nowhere close to flat and very raucous if used "as-is". By the time of the Model 19 in the early Seventies, Altec was using more sophisticated crossovers with EQ for the horn section, which makes it more suitable for home use.
Most horns require a lot of equalization to get flat response, and this is standard practice these days ... in prosound, studio monitors, and home use. But look at JBL and Altec speakers from the Sixties and earlier, and there's no EQ at all, just a very simple 6 or 12 dB/octave crossover. So the response was very non-flat. The selling point of the "West Coast Sound" back then was efficiency and loudness, with frequency response never mentioned except in the most general terms. FR curves were closely guarded secrets by the manufacturer, and almost never advertised (for obvious reasons).
The "East Coast Sound" speakers ... AR, KLH, Advent, et al ... had even simpler crossovers, sometimes as rudimentary as a single paper cap and variable resistor for the tweeter, and nothing else. The direct-radiator midwoofers and tweeters were reasonably flat, which was good, but efficiency was pretty low, in the 84 to 87 dB/meter range.
Most horns require a lot of equalization to get flat response, and this is standard practice these days ... in prosound, studio monitors, and home use. But look at JBL and Altec speakers from the Sixties and earlier, and there's no EQ at all, just a very simple 6 or 12 dB/octave crossover. So the response was very non-flat. The selling point of the "West Coast Sound" back then was efficiency and loudness, with frequency response never mentioned except in the most general terms. FR curves were closely guarded secrets by the manufacturer, and almost never advertised (for obvious reasons).
The "East Coast Sound" speakers ... AR, KLH, Advent, et al ... had even simpler crossovers, sometimes as rudimentary as a single paper cap and variable resistor for the tweeter, and nothing else. The direct-radiator midwoofers and tweeters were reasonably flat, which was good, but efficiency was pretty low, in the 84 to 87 dB/meter range.
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Lynn,
I still have a pair of vintage Altec Barcelona speakers in their original condition and they didn't do anything in those crossovers beyond a second order xo that I know of. They have the 511 horn and symbiotic diaphragms in them and the 15" cones are still perfect even the foam surrounds. Never have seen any sun and the grills have always remained on them. Real collectors items. Actually I just took a look on Google and it looks like they are really first order filters with an L-pad is about all there was!
I still have a pair of vintage Altec Barcelona speakers in their original condition and they didn't do anything in those crossovers beyond a second order xo that I know of. They have the 511 horn and symbiotic diaphragms in them and the 15" cones are still perfect even the foam surrounds. Never have seen any sun and the grills have always remained on them. Real collectors items. Actually I just took a look on Google and it looks like they are really first order filters with an L-pad is about all there was!
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