chops

I've had CD horns (K-600 and Pyle Pro horn) and didn't like either one, so why would I want to go back to another one? I thought beaming occurred at higher frequencies, not lower. Not to mention that when I listen to my stereo, I'm sitting right in the middle, so if there is any beaming going on, it isn't affecting me anyway. "most feasible solution to the problem" I was unaware of any problem I was having other than the rolled off top end. You've seen the plots I've posted before of my system. You know how flat it can be, so if anything, the room is helping more than it's hurting.

Hi jc, Yeah, I really like the active route very much. Contrary to what some say about the "wonderful sound of op-amps", this Rane crossover doesn't add anything to the sound at all. It's dead silent all the way and is crystal clean, likewise with the Rane Ballance Buddy and Crown D-75A amp. There is only the very slightest hint of hiss coming from the horns, and even then you have to have your face right in the horn to be able to barely hear it. I love the fact that I can tweak the output of both drivers independently of eachother along with the delay on the woofer. The delay alone was a vast improvement in overall sound, once dialed in. As for if I'm against 3-ways, I don't exactly hate them, but there are greater gains to be had with a well setup 2-way. I think 2-ways are much cleaner and natural sounding. I've always preferred 2-way speakers anyway. And as far as the top end is concerned, that has all be taken care of as well with a Behringer DEQ1024. Again, this unit is also dead quiet and doesn't add to the sound either, except for where I've adjusted the EQ of course. As you can tell from the pic below, I am only using the EQ for the top end. Tomorrow I'll pull out the mic and fire up TrueRTA to see where this EQ gets me. I haven't done any measurements since I got all of these extra goodies, so it will be interesting to see what effect the new active crossover has made to the overall system response as well.

Hi Larry, I'm glad it arrived alright. You never know about these crazy shipping carriers. Enjoy! Charles

LOL... Yeah, like jt said, it would definately hurt my wallet! BTW, here's a quick pic of my setup. And yes, it sounds amazingly good and has no problems hitting the lowest lows with plenty of oomph! Just as my bro. []

It can when I have it cranked high enough! [] Which, that's the other thing. Since I sold my CT125 tweeter out of my center channel, I have it disconnected from the stereo. So I hooked up another 100 watt Pioneer receiver to it, connected the bass to the receiver, and now I have a bass tone cabinet with 100 watts, a 15" pro driver, and a K-55V on a 511B! And I can play it along with the stereo at almost any volume level!!! Amazingly enough, it sounds pretty damn good too! []

The action and tone are rather good. It's my out of practice fingers that suck. With the right combination of "PHAT" and gains adjusted, you can get either a lean and light sound or a thick and heavy mellow sound.

Thanks Indy! ------------------------------ Mike, it DOES have too many strings! LOL Actually, I was originally going to get a standard 4 string, something under $200 like a Yamaha RBX170 or Ibanez GSR100Z, but leaning towards the Yammie for its dual pickups. Each of them are bottom-of-the-line, but still fairly decent compared to the no-name junk on eBay. Then my bro's (jt1stcav) boss walked up and talked me into the SR 305 DX which is a $400+ piece (retails for $340). I walked out of the store with this bass for UNDER $200 including tax, thanks to being Jim's bro and the boss being a real cool guy! It has the "soapbox" DX5 N & B pickups, dual gains, tone and "Active PHAT" tone controls. I'm glad he talked me into the 5 string bass also! For about 4 hours straight when I got home with it, I played 2 different Metallica CDs, AC/DC and Stranger Cds and tried playing along with them. I have to admit, for not touching a bass in over 13 years (acoustic upright string bass in highschool), I did pretty good for the first time, all by ear no less! But to get to my point, that 5th string really comes in handy. Those bands, as I'm sure most all others as well, like to get down deep in those notes, and I wouldn't have been able to play 3/4's of the songs without that low B string there. It's kind of funny too. I have 2 big ole' blisters now on my right hand, one on my index finger and one on my thumb. I don't have any blisters on my left hand, but a couple of the fingers are mighty sore! LOL Now all I have to do is re-learn reading music and learn the proper way of playing an electric bass! Boy I'm having fun! BTW, funny but true... it hurts to type! ouch!!! LOL []

So here it is. An Ibanez SR 305 DX.

Hey, I was just on here trying to get some answers. It's not my fault there's people on here who like to be wise-@$$es and start trouble all the time. If you look back through the thread, you'll see everything was going on fine right up until "you know who" had to start shooting off his big mouth and calling me names as usual, ruining every single thread I start. You can tell what kind of person he is just by looking at his avatar. I guess it's to be expected on this forum these days. And I'm the one who usually gets shot down simply because I stand my ground. Go figure... blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc...

.

Once an idiot, always an idiot.

why, Chopsy.... I just copied that almost verbatim from a previous thread of YOURS.........[] yer daddy needs give you a spankin'......[] Read my post above! And STOP screwing with my name!

Nowhere in that thread did it mention the words "work hardened". How was I supposed to know that's what you were getting at?

ya know what I can't stand ,Shawn ....??? when people read a post, and then ask the same dumb question over again just a few posts down .... don't you hate that too ...???.....[].....[].......[].......[].........[] Why? What "same dumb question" did you ask again? LOL As far as I know, I didn't ask any same question twice. Look again. [^o)] I'm just trying to figure out why you always have to come onto every thread I start and take a dump on it. Why do you do that? Are you trying to make me blow up in public and get banned from the forum or something? Do you get some kind of "rise" out of bothering me for no earthly reason? I asked a ("a" - as in singular) question, you gave an answer, I replied back to your answer, now you're starting cr@p with me. I just don't get it. [:|]

Yes I did... twice! Nowhere on that thread did it mention anything about work hardening or lack of driver movement. Nor did it mention anything about what exactly was wrong with the old drivers. The big question in that thread seemed to be why there was a spike after 20kHz and what was the cause of it, something that both new and OLD drivers produced.

IF "work hardening" was the issue, then you would lose low end extension due to the lack of movement and probably gain a little extra output on the top end. The last time I checked, tweeters moved less than midranges and midranges moved less than woofers. But yet, the less they move, the higher in freq they play. Hmm...

No I'm NOT kidding. Take a look at Figure 4 on that pdf file Fritz posted. No, it's not flat to 20kHz, but it's also those Pascalite diaphragms which were known to roll off sooner than the aluminum like mine, but it still makes it out to 20kHz eventually. Do I expect mine to make it out to 20kHz? No, but I expect it to make it further than the alnico K77s 13kHz or those Pascalite ones. And with the right recording, these 902 drivers sound just as open and extended as Bob's CT125s. Unfortunately, that's not the case most of the time. That's exactly why I keep saying that these drivers have the potential, I just have to figure out the proper tweak to get them there in my system. There are a bunch of others out there that own these 902s and claim that they have plenty of high freq energy, even too much sometimes.

Hi Shawn, Very interesting thread. I was kind of wondering if these diaphragms might be going, but I'll put in one CD and they sound fine, but put in another CD and they sound terrible. I just listened to Stereophile's Test CD3 and everything sounded just fine, however I have the treble tone control boosted +5dB. But the CD I played before that one just sounded awful. Even with the treble boosted, it still sounded real muddy. Yes, I know all recordings are different, but I have heard these two CDs plenty of times before and there was never this HUGE of a difference between them. That's what I don't get, that huge change in sound between recordings. None of the CDs I have have never tempted me to have to use tone controls. Everything always sounded either just right or a little hot. Now, most of these CDs sound either almost just right or down-right muddy, almost like they roll off at 10kHz or so. Hmm... Charles

Well this morning I finally opened up my Altec 902s to see what they had inside. The internals comprise of loading caps, push-terminal aluminum diaphragms and tangerine phase-plugs. Under closer inspection, the diaphragms are # 35480, which there has already been a thread about on the Altec User Board by our own sfogg. 902 #35480 diaphragms While apart, I cleaned out the magnetic gap with masking tape and cleaned the entire surface with a soft brush. As for the sound, I am still fighting with the top-end extension. No matter what I do, I cannot get these drivers to reach up to 20kHz. I've tried crossover points from 500Hz all the way up to 1kHz, all at -24dB per/oct via my Rane AC 22B and the top-end still doesn't improve. The ONLY thing between the Crown D-75A amp and the 902 driver is a 51uF Solen cap on the (+) terminal of the driver for protection. I keep reading about you guys saying that the 902 drivers with aluminum diaphragms have excellent extension up to 20kHz. If what you say is true, then how are you doing it? What am I doing differently? Even the old original alnico K-77 tweeters in my Cornwalls which are only rated to 13kHz produce more treble than these 902s do. I don't understand it. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I know I can remove the loading caps and just add felt to the rear cover, but would that really do anything for the top-end? Anyway, here are a few pics (6 to be exact) of the findings this morning.

No, I'm not "projecting" anything. I'm just sick and tired of taking the time of writing a post with all of the information, then have someone come by a few posts later asking questions that were already answered in the first post. Just like with someone else in this very thread. I had already stated what crossover freq I settled on. Two posts later, he comes on here asking where I set the crossover freq. It seems that no one on here reads everything. They just skip to the end, throw something of their own in, and have me end up repeating myself again and again. It gets very old very quickly. The END.

I was goingto answer you, but since you're getting this stupid little cocky additude going here, I'm just not going to bother. Ahh... what the heck... I may not be an expert, but I'm not confused either. I mean, what the heck is so hard to understand about that 51uF cap being there?!?! It's NOT rocket science!... "nothing but wire between the amp and the driver" - Meaning before the CAP was inserted, NOT after. DUH! Lay off the beer. It's making you too moody and incoherent. []

Sorry Tom, but I'm at a loss here. What are you referring to as bass traps? I only ask because I don't have any. [8-)] Charles

Hi Bob, Glad to hear everything arrived fine. Do you approve of my packing skills? LOL [] You're most welcome, Charles

Please don't take anything that follows personally or as being overly critical. This first thing has more to do with something I'm just curious about -- I don't understand the cap. I get the part about protecting the driver, what I don't get is what the impact is to the shelving when working in conjunction with the active behind it. That cap value basically corresponds to a 500Hz high pass since it's in series with the 8 ohm driver. On the critical side of things, it's seems bizarre to me to go this route -- and then send it all through a cap. **The Crown D-75A amp is AFTER the crossover and there is nothing but wire between the amp and driver. This model amp has been rumored to produce some kind of thump durring power up/down. The cap is ONLY there to protect the Altec 902 driver from that "thump" if it ever happens. It is not intended for anything else but that. Even if mounted on a board, a capacitor's weight should never be supported by its leads, and what you have there is just a bad idea all the way around. Leads on most capacitors aren't soldered to the foil, and most are rated to only handle an axial pull of 3-5 llbs. for one minute or less. Basically, it's just something to be avoided. **The cap is actually supported by the wire. I cut the (-) side of the wire a little short going to the driver so that the (+) side of the wire would help hold the cap up. IOW, it is not freely hanging with the weight of the wire adding to it. The (-) wire is supporting the weight of the entire wire and cap. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. You may have done this, but it doesn't look like it -- but you should use non-magnetic bolts for mounting your drivers. **Since the 511B horn is all aluminum (non-magnetic), I see no point behind the bolt issue. Besides, those are the studs and nuts that came with the Altec drivers. You mentioned earlier that the sound was "ultra-clean". I find that interesting. In my half arsed experiment with this on my end -- I heard a sound that was ultra-lean, with music that was lacking in body and texture. There wasn't much about the sound that was natural, and everything sounded pretty much forced and two dimensional. In short, I found the sound fatiguing. **Not to sound harsh or anything, but maybe you shouldn't conduct "half-arsed" experiments and post the results. Those results wouldn't be valid and therefore be void.

"Perty is in the eye of the beholder for sure.Its all about the sound!" I was going to say the same exact thing! LOL