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New Beast Horn Sub for Basement 2 Channel! WOW


ClaudeJ1

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Took 2 of us to get it around the narrow corner, and a few days to get it hooked up with some old TD-1 USA horns. Using 1/2 of a Crown K1 to drive it (400 W).

 

Itsed to be the "Most Powerful Sub in the World" 30 years ago, and the basis for the famous LAB Horn when Eminence made a beefy enough driver for this type of horn. Flat from 28-125 Hz Using 15" cones and an IBM Servo motor. But now I would give the title to another Tom Danley invention............the MATTERHORN.........a tapped horn made from a Seatainer and 40 drivers with a 1 KW amp each for a total of 40,000 watts that will knock over a Honda Civic.

 

The
BT-7 used by bands like U2 for their world tours, Disneyworld, etc. This thing kicks royal bootie on music crossed at 60-80 Hz.

 

Finally got it tweaked and it's hard to stop listening with such super low distortion BASS!!

 

IMG_2196.JPG

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Where'd you stumble onto that thing? Me and a buddy went to a Musicians store about 30 miles from home.  We lived in Southbay and the store was in Pasadena or somewhere out in the valley. Musta been back in the late 80s to audition one of those things. They were selling(or trying) to bass guitar players. Just crazy amounts of bass. I remember the plate glass storefront windows flexing and everything in the place shaking. Just crazy.

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The story I heard about its origin is that Danley was tasked with designing a subwoofer to use in studying elephant rumble communications across long distances.  
I heard that, too. Something to do with elephants wolfing down spicy burritos and the after-effects.

Which reminds me......

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1 hour ago, ben. said:

The story I heard about its origin is that Danley was tasked with designing a subwoofer to use in studying elephant rumble communications across long distances.  

This came after the BT-7 I have (1987). The Pachyderm 6 was founder Tom Danley's answer to a request from Cornell University for a sub-subwoofer small enough to fit in the back of a Pathfinder, for use in elephant research in Africa (it went down to 14 Hz.). Later, Tom designed a smaller version called the ContraBass, which went down to 16 Hz., followed by the LAB horn for the DIY community, once Eminence agreed to build a driver to his specifications. Also he did some with some boundary subs for Sound Physics Labs. Not bad for a guy without a college degree who used to play bass in a band!

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3 hours ago, Dave1290 said:

When do I pick it up?  :)

How much cash ya got? Everything I have is for sale at the right price! I got it from the original owner (a builder with a huge house) who paid 5 grand for it new. Make me an offer I can't refuse and I might not.

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3 hours ago, CECAA850 said:

Now to start modding it.  First up is a conversion to a serpentine belt and auto tensioner.  Maybe rewind the motor.  LOL.

I actually know a PA guy I bought 4 TD-1's from who has about 8 of these and a lot of spare parts including belts. It actually works fine as is. The DCR on it is about 20 ohms. Since it's a full horn of about 10 ft. long and about 106 db/watt sensitivity, I don't think it needs much power at all. If it ever needed service, I would just use twin 15" LAB sub drivers instead with a throat modification. It is about 300 lbs. so it's staying put for now. LOL.

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2 hours ago, babadono said:

Where'd you stumble onto that thing? Me and a buddy went to a Musicians store about 30 miles from home.  We lived in Southbay and the store was in Pasadena or somewhere out in the valley. Musta been back in the late 80s to audition one of those things. They were selling(or trying) to bass guitar players. Just crazy amounts of bass. I remember the plate glass storefront windows flexing and everything in the place shaking. Just crazy.

Local guy listed it on Ebay, pickup only. Yep, when I ran sine waves through it I could feel the flesh on the back of my calves being modulated. It's a very SERIOUS and very LOW DISTORTION subwoofer horn for sure. Dimensions are 45x45x23 inches. It's almost like new since it was used in a home theater and never hit the road. It's for my basement system in the workout room I'm putting together.

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This came after the BT-7 I have (1987). The Pachyderm 6 was founder Tom Danley's answer to a request from Cornell University for a sub-subwoofer small enough to fit in the back of a Pathfinder, for use in elephant research in Africa (it went down to 14 Hz.). Later, Tom designed a smaller version called the ContraBass, which went down to 16 Hz., followed by the LAB horn for the DIY community, once Eminence agreed to build a driver to his specifications. Also he did some with some boundary subs for Sound Physics Labs. Not bad for a guy without a college degree who used to play bass in a band!

Right on! He’s a super humble, nice guy too. I met him at the VTC Elevation series product launch when I was point for the brand in the US.


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5 minutes ago, ben. said:


Right on! He’s a super humble, nice guy too. I met him at the VTC Elevation series product launch when I was point for the brand in the US.


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Met him when he was judging a speaker competition about 3 years ago. I have also Emailed with him many times. He's basically a DIY guy at heart. He had me measure my TD-1's and gave me some Active PEQ/Delay settings to bring their performance up to his modern standards, which I have yet to do. He even told me what software he uses and gave me some great tips. He has all the qualities you speak of for sure.

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On 11/21/2020 at 1:11 AM, Fido said:

Crazy Bass heads on this Forum!!!! mercy me and he wants two????? lol

Even though we divorced for other reasons, my ex-wife didn't mind any size Klipsch in the basement, walk out type or not. Heck she even co-signed for me to get a bank loan to buy my first pair of Khorns right before we were married! She still has the Heresy's I bought for her in 1983, and she's the one that bought me the original Sony CD (the only one available) that same year. She also made most of the arrangements for me to tour the plant in Hope with Woody Jackson, as a surprise birthday present in 1985. But I had to write a letter to PWK to arrange for us to meet. He treated me like a long lost grandson (he was the same age as my Grandmother.). Heck she didn't even object to my bringing in 4 MWMs bass units and two VMPS Large Subs to make my 7 foot tall "horn stack" in the basement 13 years ago after I sold my second pair or Khorns!

 

So now, it's all about how to optimize available space and I can easily fit 2 of these monsters, but more than likely, the BT-7 will be paired with the Josh Ricci OThorn (influence by Danley TH-50's). This OThorn uses the 21" B&C "super driver" with the 6" voice coil so I could use it the other sub channel. I alrady own it and it's hard to find BT7's at the price/condition I got mine for.

 

It's not about how loud the output is, it's about how LOW the bass distortion is. Horn sub-woofers of either type simply go way beyond any Direct Radiator Box (ported or not) in terms of sensitivity, effortless, low distortion output, and detail at any chosen listening volume. So yes, you can still get "stupid loud" levels out of them for Audio Geek Demos, but they are simply just there whenever the music calls upon them to perform their duty for sane level listening. I believe that even Khorns and Jubiless effectively start rolling off at about 40-80 Hz. with most speakers rolling off at at mean/average of 60 Hz. after doing more measurements in real rooms than I care to remember. By avoiding putting that range of frequencies into the Main Speakers will RADICALLY reduce the Inter-modulation Distortion that PWK received the prestigious Audio Engineering Society Silver Medal for his published work in this area, and something he spent most of his career convincing people about in his writings and his speakers! In other words, ALL speakers are "straining" to produce the bottom end, so logically, why not relieve them of that nasty duty and let them work with NO modulation in the band they are designed to reproduce so well? A quick look at the 80 db. Equal Loudness Curves put out by the ISO should convince you that I am right about this. If not, then go ahead and enjoy your Intermodulation distortion from digital medium that can reproduce sound down to 10 Hz. and below or ignore it altogether from Vinyl that can't even get down to a clean 35 Hz. which ignores the low B string on a 5-string Electric Bass of modern times. Heck, Leland Sklar even has a de-tension lever on his B string to get it down to an A1 (28 Hz.), but that is beyond the scope of this text.

 

That being said, I just got a DBX Sub-Harmonic Synthesizer that works in the sub-woofer range, so we will see what that device does to correct the Anemic Bass in some pop music recordings, but that is a project for winter, right behind assembling my other 2 subwoofers, which will go into the living room HT to replace the OThorn that will be moved downstairs. Yee HAH!

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Live your passions! 🤩

 

it’s easy to be passionate about some great detailed  deep solid bass even for non bass heads. Those lower octaves are what you feel. I compare it to a high torque car engine. My 400 hp 400 lbs of torque corvette was fast but my newer Corvette at 485 lbs of torque is fast you feel deep inside.

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On 11/21/2020 at 10:34 AM, Fido said:

Live your passions! 🤩

 

it’s easy to be passionate about some great detailed  deep solid bass even for non bass heads. Those lower octaves are what you feel. I compare it to a high torque car engine. My 400 hp 400 lbs of torque corvette was fast but my newer Corvette at 485 lbs of torque is fast you feel deep inside.

Let's just say that the sub woofer disease is much cheaper than the Corvette disease, and it doesn't require a Garage! So are Camera lenses for that matter, aye?

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Much like the 1812 Overture WARNING label about the output of the Canons...........they were used by the local Audio Engineering Society Members who were early CD adopters to set up their direct radiator sub-woofers, like M&K,  in the early 80's,  to just below destruction levels. I no longer have to worry about doing that with this BT-7 however look at the label below:

 

BT7warning.jpg

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