sootshe

BTW, I love the look of your trachorns now that they are 'finished'. I imagine that was some sanding and various coats of paint. No, not really....only 3 coats of grey undercoat, 3 coats of satin black lacquer & 3 coats of clear satin lacquer with the odd sand every now & then!!

They look awesome & I bet they kick... well done. Can't wait to see more pics of the build & the rest of the veneer...I love that finish. Well done, John

Bob, Thanks for your help in getting these to Australia. Arrived safe & sound. These horns really let your tweeters breathe! The sound has opened right out...sort of like the Trachorn upgrade did for the mids. Listened to quite a few disc now & I can hear top end detail that I have never heard before, even on my Altec 19's. Seems to be a boost right up high or is it just that the range from 6K upwards is now so much smoother & open that It's letting the top end come through without being masked by a lot of hash? Other members should listen to the CT125 with this horn before discounting it. Sort of like going to a completely different tweeter...here's another shot. Just have to sort out some new mounting details. Thanks again Bob....sounds great!

Josh, Turns out you do need the adaptor to connect the horn to the CT125....but that's OK as it then just screws on. Here's a pic of the new "baby cheeks"

Here's some plans that I measured up from an old set I had many years ago. good luck, John

Thanks Bob...really appreciate it....email on the way. Will be using these with your CT125's & will report on the difference.John & yes, the adaptors are needed to connect between the CT125 & the horn.

Can anyone assist with the purchase of some Eminence horn flares & adaptors? I've tried to source these in Australia, but it could take up to 4 months to get them here. They are available from www.bltsound.com at a very reasonable price, but unfortunately he will not ship to Australia. Here is the link to the horn flares http://www.bltsound.com/index.php/categories/screw-on-horn-flares & the link to the adaptors http://www.bltsound.com/index.php/categories/adaptors Can anyone with a PayPal account purchase these for me & then send to me here in Australia? The items are: 4 x APT200F Horns 4 x APT-3 Adaptors If anyone has any ideas please email me....thanks, John

Sorry.....googled Bob & found his site straight away. So...how do they sound?

Cool...very cool. Can you give us some info on the amps specs? or a link to the site. And how is the sound?

No offence meant. Just that I've recently changed to the Trachorn & for my tastes, it was worth every cent & more.

I can't imagine anyone saying that the K400 horn sounds good!!!What you need are the ALK Trachorn or the Fastrac horn...once you've heard them there's no going back.

Thanks Greg, If I go with any Beyma products I'll let you know Am very interested to see what you think of the 21F's....keep us posted. Thanks, John

Bruce, You need to get those 21F's for your JBL's, then you can tell me whether they're better than the APT's!!! They would look great in the JBLS's though. I see a site I came across (http://www.bltsound.com/) sells the horn flares as a seperate item. Just have to figure out how to get them to here in Oz, as I think he only sells to US & Canada. He has the baby cheeks flares for $22.99 each & the horn flare from the APT150 for $6.50 each. Cheers, John

And here's the spec sheet on the CP25. Another reason for looking into the 21F instead of the 25 is that I notice on the Europe Audio site that the recone kit for the 25 is discontinued. Can anyone interpret the frequency response graphs given in the spec sheets for me, as to the possible difference between these two drivers? cp25.pdf

I agree, if you're going to change the horn on the same driver, then you might as well go for a better driver. So been doing a bit of research & found the Beyma CP21F. This seems to have a better horizontal dispersion than the CP25 & is 1 db more efficient. Anyone here have any experience with this driver?cp21f.pdf

Amen!

Rudy,Yes, I've seen those pictures before, but never took much notice of them....now I see what you mean. I looked up the local distributor for Eminence here in Oz & have sent him an email asking if he will supply just the horns only....don't really feel like splurging out on new tweeters when I've just bought these...but thanks for the tip....I'm sure it will be an improvement & I wouldn't mind a tad more top end. John

George, I'm using the stock K55 & can't believe how good this driver sounds when you give it half a chance. Many here are going to 2 inch format & from what they say that is another step forward again, but for the time being, I'm more than happy with the stock set up. My reference has always been the 19's, but these LS are sooo much better, so I've made a huge leap forward.

Al,Yes, I used to run them this way & felt that it was better with the drivers aligned. With the addition of the bass reflex cabinets the top of the horn cabinet is now an extra 10 inches higher. If you put the tweeter in line with the mid driver it needs to be some 6 inches higher then the cabinet in order for it to have an uninterrupted line of sight to my seated position. To have them this high, to my ears, seemed to overide the advantage of having the voice coils aligned. I've found the best compromise for my set up is straight on top of the cabinets right at the front & slightly angled to the listening position. Ah, I tell a lie... the best position is as I've just described, but with the tweeters mounted vertically. (I just can't live with the look of that just at the moment - maybe I'll get used to it)

Here are the plans for the basic cabinets. My inspiration for the design goes to Greg Roberts & the wondeful work he does....much better than I could ever do. He deserves all the credit for the way these turned out.Now all the hard work is done all I have to do is sit back & enjoy....oh & finally have a bit of time for getting back to the surf. PS: The tweeters are now removed from their stands & sit directly on top of the horn cabinets....they were just too high with the addition of the bass reflex cabs. Sound now much better. LaScala11.pdf

Thats all

Another

And another

Hi all, Finally got the Trachorns up & running, so here are a few action shots. I was originally going to stain the horns to match the cabinets but that was a disaster! The paint shop I went to mixed the cans of stain up & they ended up a horrible orange colour. After many hours I finally ended up with them as you see them now. They have 2 coats of grey undercoat, 3 coats of satin black enamel & 2 coats of satin clear lacquer. I jigsawed the original motor board to accept the larger horn which meant removing the grill cloth, making the cut out & re installing the grill cloth...turned out better than I thought it would. All that,s left to do now is veneer the bass reflex cabinets. And how do they sound? I originally built these cabinets for my wife to use as a second set of speakers. My reference has always been my Altec Model 19's that I have had for about 15 years. Whenever I would listen to another system or another pair of speakers I would come home, put the Altecs on & always think that they were the better sound. When I got the LS home in standard form (Crites stamped woofer, K400/K55, CT125's & A 4500's) I found that I couldn't listen to them as they had no bottom end, were glary & generally not very pleasant, but that was OK as they were only my second pair of speakers & the Altecs were still my favourites....then I met you guys!! First was the bass reflex cabinets, plus cast frame woofers....now I had some sort of botom end. Then was the crossovers (change to ALK Universals), much more refined & detailed (the Altecs still beter overall) & now the Trachorns. Well, I'm afraid the Altecs now take a back seat & I don't say that lightly, as I really wanted the Altecs to still be better. The Trachorns have changed the whole character of the sound. No more constriction, edginess, harshness. The sound is now completely natural & a lot more open. I hooked the Altecs up again for a comparison & they now sound strained in comparison. These horns open the sound up completely & produce an effortless quality that is hard to beat. As you can see, I'm extremely happy with my final result....thanks for all your help. John

I would disagree about using a sub, as to my ears it muddys the sound & doesn't give a true bass definition....on top of that it's very hard to integrate with your main speakers. I used the ported box underneath the LS & now have good output down to 30Hz which is plenty low enough for all types of music. If you want to shake the walls with subsonics then maybe you will need a sub. You definitely need to brace those side walls to tighten things up. An upgrade to the Crites cast woofer will give you a little more output at the extreme lows (more than you might think) & the ALK Universals or the Extreme slope if you can afford them are the way to go. Having the ability to cut back the mids is a real bonus. When you've done that you should think about getting rid of the K400 & using the Trachorn....it makes a huge difference. Good luck.