Altec MRII594 vs K 402?s

[juniper]

Wondering what you guys and gals will think will happen. A friend wants to A/B his Altec  MRII 594 horn vs the K 402 on my Jub type bins, and then take some measurements. He seems to think the Altec horn is better. I have never heard the 594 but have heard the 394 and it was a nice sounding horn but seemed not to image very well and didn't extend as high as some horns I have heard.

[mikebse2a3]

I believe he will find imaging and clarity issues compared to the K402 due inpart to the diffraction slot and differences in the vertical versus the horizontal apparent apex locations of this type of design. See pdf specification attachment below the picture.

 

This horn also looses polar control versus the K402 at the lower frequencies in both the vertical and horizontal angles and will require a different crossover (passive or active) compared to the K402. (ie: he can't simply stick it on top of the Jub and expect a reasonable comparison.

 

MRII594A_hfhorn_spec_sheet.pdf

[moray james]

I  think Mike meant to say the Altec will lose polar pattern control at a much "higher" frequency than will the Klipsch. I don't think there will be much of a contest between the two. By the way the Altec was designed by Don Keele Jr. and the horns were built by Electrovoice.The deal was EV would rebrand them as Altec for a number of years then they could build their own and sell as EV.'

   Another interesting note was that Don got paid by Altec for designing a whole series of horns then got paid a comission by VEV for bringing the build job to them. After that Don went over to JBL and designed all their CD horns and gave them a new patent to go with the horns and won an Oscar for technical excellence. So he did the same trick at EV Altec and JBL. A while later he worked with PWK for about a year. Don single hand-idly changed the Pro speaker world and his work still impacts it to this day.

[juniper]

Thanks for the great info guys! I truly appreciate it!!!