Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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I can’t match your experience listening to other’s systems. Have you heard a horn like mine breaking up?
I have described my objective in this thread. That is not it.
We are on audio forms to share and to learn, and I suppose a few like to argue.
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No. But as said earlier to Ralph I see advantages in paper, aluminium, and Be based speakers. It is purely academic to discuss what will happen if you replace Altec drivers with tad in an Altec or Cessaro drivers with some paper based driver. As other changes will need to be made. Also the Vitavox S2s I heard with with tweeter and super tweeter
But I am not going to use Be from Focal/Magico experience to judge how Be with low watt valve amps might sound in a universum or a TAD based dual FLH
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Your Q3 has a beryllium tweeter.
Which other beryllium tweeters have you heard that sounded unpleasant?
I recall my Sasha 1 had the inverted titanium-dome tweeter used in the Maxx 3 -- think it might have come from Focal. My original Alexia and Alexia 2 had a silk-dome tweeter. Cannot recall the provenance of the original Alexia but the Alexia 2's tweeter, from Scanspeak and Wilson modified, was the same used in the WAMM and the original Alexx. The Alexia 2 silk was a wee touch smoother and maybe sweeter than the original Sasha titanium. Although it has been a while I'd say the Alexia 2 silk is probably smoother than the flat-dome 475 nd horn driver in my M9500s, but it lacking in a natural articulation, near, but not quite too smooth. The JBL driver is described as having a Neodymium mgnet with a titanium diaphragm dusted with Aquaplas. I suspect implementation is a factor with the various Wilson X-type cabinet materials. Don't have in-house experience with beryllium tweeters to offer a comparison there.
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Focal and Revel speakers at shows and dealers, mid tier monitors and three ways, but mostly the direct comparisons between my Magico Mini II and the Q1. The Mini Revelator was more natural sounding. I actually did not mind the tweeter in my Q3 perhaps because it was a full range floor standing speaker and sounded more balanced, but I prefer the highs from my horn. The Q3 was my favorite Magico speaker.
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Not sure i follow , never seen a post worth anything technical from you , all subjective opinionated yada yada parroted from other’s stuff , so i was actually hoping you knew something on how to modify old Altecs.
If beryllium isn't done right, I agree they can be unpleasant. WRT breakups, its the sort of thing that you realize in comparison. I didn't realize the aluminum diaphragms were breaking up either. They don't have to play loudly to break up.
I found my Altecs had considerable resonance from the cast horns so I damped them using roofing cement (this was back in the 1970s). It made a considerable improvement! These days if I were to do that again I would probably at least try some damping compounds from EAR or 3M (the latter of which makes a very effective epoxy damping compound called 'DP105', which would have to be corralled before it set). Older hons like you see on Altec, Klipsch and the like made out of metal would seem to benefit from this sort of treatment.
There are many alternate horns available now to use on Altec speakers, including wood made by different people. Markus Klug's wooden horns seem to be selling the most. But yes Altec metal horns did have ringing and were not good. The material of the adapters also makes a difference.
Yes, the Classic Audio Loudspeakers use a machined maple horn. If I was to entertain the idea of using a vintage speaker like that I'd be very tempted to update the horn with something more modern. One problem vintage horns had (besides resonance) has to do with distortion; the horn flare has to follow a correct shape to minimize distortion. In the old days the curves were calculated using slide rules; these days they are computer optimized. TAD had a problem (don't know if they still do) that identified the 'sound' of their horns which turned out to be a problem occurring in the throat design. Once corrected that setup gets a lot easier to listen to- far more natural.
I have , My own Vitavox CN -191 x 3 S2 early , together with a friend’s CN-191 x 5 S2 early + his later production S2 x 2 mylar , but to a lesser degree… however you will neither believe it , nor even wish to hear it !
Romy Le Chat has a deal to say regarding S2 break-up ( presumably with rising frequency although I don’t recall his being that specific)
Romy says not to use Vitavox in 2 or 3 way, the ones I heard were 4 way designed by Kevin Scott (older version of Vox Olympians) and as I mentioned earlier misho prefers Altec in 2 way while Vitavox he would require minimum 3 way.
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