Altec 811B Horn + Big Woofer DIY System

Party speakers for sure. Weekday? Watch the volume. Even though we had low watt amps, we did have efficient speakers. And a lot of them sound great still. But I can tell you.... well I was visited a few times by campus police for excessive volume.
The helicopter was overhead and.... Wrong decade. (Just a joke) They knocked, asked me to turn down the volume. I apologized. End of story. Thank goodness.


“It's up to you – the reader – to decide if you want to roll with the changes, and see if you will enjoy what's going to be happening here, or if you'd rather cut and run. Your call. Not mine.

Tyll is gone”- Rafe Arnott

 

Anyway, it wasn't too much with. Just had to enlarge hole for horn, and put in the l pad. I'll try these out tomorrow.

 

And what a great furry finish he or she has.

 

A bit big for my current space, but the l pad makes it much better sounding. Not getting my ears blown out by treble. These 15" woofers can make some nice bass too.
Time to put the l pad in the other one. They weigh in at 85lbs each.

 

Yeah im going to need to get a miniDSP and do some active crossover stuff. Don't sound that great now (though my room is much to small), and I can see some issues with the FR when I measure it.

 

Ill take some outdoor/more anechoic measurements some time later, as my room is again, not optimal.
This is the measurement setup. Excuse the terrible mess. I really need to clean this up...

 

Where's the crossover point right now? It actually doesn't look too horrible.

 

According to the online documentation, 1.1 Khz.
That's where that big dip is too.

 

What does it say the slope is?

 

It doesn't list it anywhere that I could find.

 

Having a suckout at the crossover point can mean the slope is too steep, but I wouldn't assume anything until you measure the drivers individually outside.

 

Try to invert the phase of one of the drivers and see how it measures

Or maybe you actually do have a driver with inverted phase

 

You know what, jbl 2226h actual does have inverted phase. Maybe the horn did too and my new one doesn't.

 

I haven't read this thread yet except for the original post but I want to reply right away saying that cheaper drivers on better horns would sound better than high end drivers on those 811s unless you know how to make a perfect passive eq circuit to lose that honky sound that these give. I would invest in decent lechleach horns instead before you get knee deep in trying to make drivers sound good out of those. I got rid of my pair of these horns because I couldn't stand that old honky PA horn sound. I was using Altec drivers for them and now using these small lechleach horns instead for a more natural tone.
Here are some dirty (literally) pics

 

How much did those horns cost though?
I'm trying to keep it cheap because I'm a broke college student.
I'm going to play around with a minidsp and see if I can get it sounding good. First I'll put them in a proper sized room though. I don't think they are really designed for listening 2 ft away.

 

These horns were free because they were a factory reject (see the seams on the side) from my cousin's factory.

 

Your cousin have any more rejects?

 

hahaha try and ask him. Refer him to these posts and maybe he'll chime in or do something for you. Here is our FB page. https://www.facebook.com/sierraaudiohorndesigns/

 

check out a vid of one of our horn systems in action. It was recorded with a phone and an ios mic though but it still came out decent.

 

Those horns look nice, but I was just thinking about space concerns too. They are not exactly compact.

So it seems my issue isn't a phasing issue.
I reversed the phase on the woofer between the two measurements here, and no difference in that area.