S.P.Q.R. EZ10 for the AN Cast 10

[bassrogue]

I built these when the design first showed up using a pair of Eminence beta 12LTA and an old horn tweeter. I thought they sounded pretty good and would really shake the house if you wanted to. X-wife also liked them quite well also, haven't seen either in years now.

 

[GM]

Whilst we’re here, anybody know what’s inside this box in terms of structure ?

Based solely on speculation WRT this cab's likely 'labyrinth', think downward firing Onken variant.

GM

 

[Bigun]

So, something like Hiraga’s cab for the 604, an MLTL rather than a BLH

 

[GM]

My SWAG, though I found omodo's response here that he considers Shindo [RIP] an order of magnitude? better speaker designer than any of us across the various DIY forums: Any Shindo 604 AlNiCo owners here? [Archive] - AudioShark Forums

So what's special about how Shindo mounts a pair of Altec 604s inside of a box vice buying/building Altec 604 boxes? Does Shindo change something on the actual Altec drivers?

Sure, you could buy a pair of 604C/D/E from eBay and put them in any number of Altec cabinets/alignments or follow the advice of a multitude of forum experts, but I guarantee you won't get the results much less the live character that Shindo's tuned (& somewhat unique) cabinets and crossovers will deliver.

So, maybe there's more to it than I suspect beyond a bunch of damped vents, but briguy's remarks tend to reinforce my SWAG:

the pair of Shindo 604 AlNiCo's that Matt had in another room. They were as big as the Latour's, but with a very different approach. There's not a lot out there about this speaker, so I hadn't thought about it much and hadn't even planned to listen to them. I'm glad I did.

The 604's definitely share the Shindo sound. I'm lazy, so I'm going to borrow what I wrote about these in another thread earlier today...

We started with some Chet Atkins and the tone was incredible. I was immediately intrigued. Since we didn't have a lot of time, I wanted to test the 604's with some "thicker" more thumping music. We put on some Depeche Mode. Honestly, I wasn't impressed at first. It was way too relaxed, distant and polite.

Matt went behind the 604's and made some adjustments. Apparently, you're able to tune the speakers to your room and preference. We played the same Depeche Mode tracks and... holy smokes... it was like a totally different speaker. All of a sudden, it felt like Depeche Mode was playing right in front of me.

We threw on some Kraftwerk and it was like getting punched in the gut.
Exactly what I was looking for. We finished up with some tracks off Ziggy Stardust which were the only tracks we played on every speaker/amp combo as our baseline. Frankly, that album sounded AMAZING on everything we tried, a testament to the Shindo pre-amp as well as the quality of the recording. It's one of my favorite albums of all time, but it's never sounded as good as it did on the Shindo stuff.

Just like a large, well damped MLTL or Onken sounds with the Altecs or similar spec drivers without/with BSC + HF by-pass, which tube variable DF tone controls does with great 'fluidity' for lack of a better phrase, compared to typical inductor, etc., BSC filters.

GM

 

[Bigun]

I wish I had 1/10th of his skill.