Anyone into horns?

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Twodogs

Sounds like a darn good place to start. Those little Roberts amps are the bees knees for big speakers. Hopefully your room is bigger than mine, as the bass cabinet sizes are a booger sometimes.


Hey Ron, I'm thinking of dragging the scoops out. what the heck, the wife is already pissed. She came home, looked at the speakers everywhere and said "What is all this stuff"?

I'm expecting great things from them.

Right now, they are hooked up to a pair of tiny 4" Magnavox sealed box fullranges and it's astonishing the (near field) soundstage I'm getting from them on the bench. I'm running Tung-Sol 12ax7s and (repro) Mullard 6bq5's in them. A significant upgrade from the 40 year old stock NECs that were in them, as near as I can tell through the crappy little speakers. Bigger and more efficient speaks will reveal all.

Now to build some nice wooden cabinets for them. Time for a trip to Yukon Lumber.

Dave

[Twodogs]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

Being a paper-pusher for a living, it's fun to do things like rehabbing speakers and slinging a little solder. The hard part is that it too often looks like a paper-pusher has been doing the refinishing or solder slinging. But there is satisfaction in simple things - like a recapped pair of EPI 100 - pure beautiful simplicity.

Regards,

D-Ray

Audio gear always sounds better when you've had your own hands in there working on it. It's just one of the un-written laws of physics. Keep at it Don, you will be amazed at how fast it will come to you. You know you are always welcome at my shop, just ignore the McCain Palin sticker on the tool box, and we'll concentrate on audio, not politics.

[Twodogs]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

I'm expecting great things from them.

Right now, they are hooked up to a pair of tiny 4" Magnavox sealed box fullranges and it's astonishing the (near field) soundstage I'm getting from them on the bench. I'm running Tung-Sol 12ax7s and (repro) Mullard 6bq5's in them. A significant upgrade from the 40 year old stock NECs that were in them, as near as I can tell through the crappy little speakers. Bigger and more efficient speaks will reveal all.

Now to build some nice wooden cabinets for them. Time for a trip to Yukon Lumber.

Dave

I've seen a couple different ways to convert these for Hi-Fi, but not the one that gets rid of the 6267s (thanks by the way). Do you have a schematic or anything? Speaking of the little Magnavox speakers, I once had a set of small ones that used a woofer (8 inch mebee) and a horn for the upper mids / highs. Damn they sounded good. I was using them outside one day and forgot to bring them in, of course it rained that night and ruined the cabs.

[Twodogs]

BTW, Ron, I could easily live with these on the Dorian bottoms. Man do they show how bad the tater horn really was (I wonder if the driver on it is good, or if it was part of the problem). I can only imagine how they will be with a proper 15" bottom. The woofers I have to choose from are 515 8Gs or 416 8As. The 515s are way more massive, and supposedly have the sweetest mid-range of any of the big Altec drivers, but I've never heard either pair so I know nuttin. I also still have the Eminence Gamma 15s that I ran in the scoops. What are your honest thoughts on these Edgars with JBL copy bass scoops? The problem I had when running them back when, was the damn sweetspot was so narrow you almost had to turn your head and listen with one ear. That was with 511s and 902 drivers. I attributed the narrow sweet spot to the size of my room. In other words, you couldn't get far enough back from them to make them sound right. I wonder what Suzi would say if she came home and I had the couch moved all the way back to the wall where my kitchen door is, and the scoops downstairs. Anyone got a spare bedroom or couch I could borrow for a year or two? Oh hey, I also have a pair of A7 cabs???????????

[doucanoe]

LE14's are nice woofers and I would think that they will provide you with the greatest LF of the bunch in those cabs. Altec 515's are really nice also but with limited LF and really excel in more of a back loaded or front horn cab. Your scoops are nifty but just by physics and the nature of their design, won't do LF like the LE14's will. Horn bass can be a tough one to work with sometimes. You can only squeeze about 3 octaves out of them before they run out of gas. If you start too low or crossover to high using them for a 2-way, you can lose information in the upper midrange. They are also room eater uppers. I guess it just depends on what is more important to you.

Just on the surface, I would think that you be best off doing what you are doing right now with the Dorian cabs. I would spend some time with those dialing things in and really getting a feel for how things sound before confusing the issue by mixing thing up too quickly.

Those potato masher horns are cool as hell but your Edgar/JBL horns are better on a lot of different levels.

RC

[Twodogs]

Sounds like good advice to me. I just finished listening to Paper Airplane. Oh my.

[Twodogs]

I need to run out to EW's to pick up a couple 560 ohm 3 watt Rs for EKmannings Bogens I'm rebuilding, but I can't leave these horns. Mouser here I come.

[doucanoe]

Originally Posted by Twodogs

I need to run out to EW's to pick up a couple 560 ohm 3 watt Rs for EKmannings Bogens I'm rebuilding, but I can't leave these horns. Mouser here I come.

I've found they can be very addicting



RC

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by Twodogs

Audio gear always sounds better when you've had your own hands in there working on it. It's just one of the un-written laws of physics. Keep at it Don, you will be amazed at how fast it will come to you. You know you are always welcome at my shop, just ignore the McCain Palin sticker on the tool box, and we'll concentrate on audio, not politics.

Thanks for the encouragement. So the only wing-nuts to talk about would be something that might hold a shelf on an audio rack. I do want to attend Jay's Tube Academy sometime. I have an old guitar amp that I'm trying to fix for a friend, a tube amp pulled (actually waiting to be pulled) from an old console, and a Sony RTR with an internal tube amp. Today, though, is deep cleaning for a Pioneer SX-950.

Regards,

D-Ray

[Twodogs]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

Thanks for the encouragement. So the only wing-nuts to talk about would be something that might hold a shelf on an audio rack. I do want to attend Jay's Tube Academy sometime. I have an old guitar amp that I'm trying to fix for a friend, a tube amp pulled (actually waiting to be pulled) from an old console, and a Sony RTR with an internal tube amp. Today, though, is deep cleaning for a Pioneer SX-950.

Regards,

D-Ray

Which Sony is it D? If it's the 5000, the output TXs are to die for, and have a 600 ohm tap to put you in headphone Nirvana. I think I'm getting "decent" at geetar amps finally. I built one for Steve over at AK, and he said it was outstanding. He might have just been being nice though, you know how he is (Fotno). Heck, I'll even cover the McCain sticker with a big new Telefunken sticker I got the other day. Everyone loves Tele's right? .........................or Left.