new Shorthorns

ApexBikeShop

New Member
Can't believe it, looking through CL and found an add for an old Bogen tube amp, at the bottom he mentions he's got some Shorthorns.... That was it! Went there and picked them up, a nice mismatched pair. One is a '58 and one a '59. Got them hooked up to the mighty Dynaco ST 70, these old dogs can move some air! Deep Purple, Zep live, Trower, Guess Who, man, they are right here in the shop!!! My floor is buzzing with happiness. The mids are a little hot compared with the Forte 1s. Very surprised by these, they sit 26 feet apart and there is even some center image going on. Room is about 26x14, high ceiling, these things can pressure cook the space, very much. have not opened anything yet. I'm going to just let them roll for a while, still have the guts of my Speakerlabs all over, so I'm not about to start something new till they are done.
Oh, John Bonham was here, hard hitting kick and snare on the live cut Moby Dick. Put me right back to high school, I never heard it quite this live sounding, these like to play loud. I gotta stop looking on CL, anyway, had to share with you guys. Here's a picture or two. Check out the funky pink grills! Why?! Oh why?
z
 

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And he SCORES ! Don't put a seconds thought over not having sequenced speakers ,the Shorthorn was sold as a monoural system like the altecs we're ,all 4 of mine came down from a defunct movie theater back when Audiogon was a newsletter ,being mine hung in a theater all 4 would have been bought at the same time I would think, but all 4 of my cabinets have different wood grains that don't match and are extremely nicoteen stained ,seeing your new score makes me want to dig mine out & give em a workout ,great score man ,you should be extremely happy to have the Klipsch unicorn so few of us own .
 
And he SCORES ! Don't put a seconds thought over not having sequenced speakers ,the Shorthorn was sold as a monoural system like the altecs we're ,all 4 of mine came down from a defunct movie theater back when Audiogon was a newsletter ,being mine hung in a theater all 4 would have been bought at the same time I would think, but all 4 of my cabinets have different wood grains that don't match and are extremely nicoteen stained ,seeing your new score makes me want to dig mine out & give em a workout ,great score man ,you should be extremely happy to have the Klipsch unicorn so few of us own .
Well, this post triggered me to go outside in below zero weather and pull my pair of Electro Voice Royal II cabinets out of the shed to start their rehab with Altec 846B components (Heathkit AS101). I'll start a new thread for the rehab, but here's the first image of an ugly but complete cab with its sad, trashed EV SP15--a friend gave me these after his cats took out the woofer cones. I sold off the T35s and T25s to fund this, so here we go! Apex, I'll be following yours too--according the the interwebs, there were only about 50 of those shorthorns made.
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Can't believe it, looking through CL and found an add for an old Bogen tube amp, at the bottom he mentions he's got some Shorthorns.... That was it! Went there and picked them up, a nice mismatched pair. One is a '58 and one a '59. Got them hooked up to the mighty Dynaco ST 70, these old dogs can move some air! Deep Purple, Zep live, Trower, Guess Who, man, they are right here in the shop!!! My floor is buzzing with happiness. The mids are a little hot compared with the Forte 1s. Very surprised by these, they sit 26 feet apart and there is even some center image going on. Room is about 26x14, high ceiling, these things can pressure cook the space, very much. have not opened anything yet. I'm going to just let them roll for a while, still have the guts of my Speakerlabs all over, so I'm not about to start something new till they are done.
Oh, John Bonham was here, hard hitting kick and snare on the live cut Moby Dick. Put me right back to high school, I never heard it quite this live sounding, these like to play loud. I gotta stop looking on CL, anyway, had to share with you guys. Here's a picture or two. Check out the funky pink grills! Why?! Oh why?
z
This may be the back end of that tweeter. Lifted from a web image of shorthorns showing the same-looking horn.
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Hey man,

I just recapped a pair of those, belong to Royzilla. His are loaded with University drivers n crossovers. Not a simple cabinet to get open, but they be worth it.

Biggles
 
I will need to open these up to see what's going on in there, I can just see inside the thin port.... can't really make anything out, see some horn magnets. I will pull the cool funky pink grills and check out if the woofers even match, then it looks like a lot of screws to get to the crossovers and horns.... I'm glad the stickers are still on them, never know what's going to be in there! I like what I'm hearing, all drivers are alive and these do kick out some good bass for my favorite 70's rock. Really it's all I need them to do, 70's rock. I'm going in, can't take it anymore, gotta see inside! I'll post pictures.
z
 
I'm in! damn. I've never seen this woofer before, the magnet is HUGE! Cast frame and heavy, the University mid has a huge magnet and screw on binding posts... looks like they have never been touched. tweeter has solder connections, university stickers still there. The tarnish on all the screws and nuts looks all original. Found some old stickers in there. No stuffing.
Crossover has some really big coils, bigger than a beer can in diameter. The Capacitors must be inside the metal can, can't see any other caps. The crossovers are k 1000-5000-w, 16 ohm input, I didn't even take a meter to measure yet, I have them connected to my 4 ohm taps on the Dynaco. I'll verify the 16 ohms and try the 16 ohm taps. Maybe they will rock even more. Yeah I shoulda' put the fluke to them before cranking the Zep, What can I say? All wound up like a dog in a meat market! Anyway, here's the insides....
z
 

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Stephens woofer, nice. It’s been a long time since Klipsch used gear like that; PWK came to think high quality drivers such as Stephens, Altec and JBL made were uneccesary.
 
More info.... popped the pink grill from the other one, it has an EV logo on the dust cap, so now I know the woofers are miss matched. They both crank loud and clear. Seems to be a little louder on the side with the EV woofer. I don't have the time to pull it apart to see the guts of the second one. The horns look the same from the front. They both get clean highs, I think I better leave them alone. I don't feel right trying to improve the caps, too old and rare to play with the original crossovers. Next I'll ohm out both sides and match the taps on the Dynaco. They have been playing the whole time, even popped the front without stopping the music. Yeah, not too smart. That's it for now, the Who is sounding happy right now.
z
 
Well, this post triggered me to go outside in below zero weather and pull my pair of Electro Voice Royal II cabinets out of the shed to start their rehab with Altec 846B components (Heathkit AS101). I'll start a new thread for the rehab, but here's the first image of an ugly but complete cab with its sad, trashed EV SP15--a friend gave me these after his cats took out the woofer cones. I sold off the T35s and T25s to fund this, so here we go! Apex, I'll be following yours too--according the the interwebs, there were only about 50 of those shorthorns made.
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Cat skin can keep your ears warm.... No, just kidding. Kinda. Those are some badass horns! Bigger horns are better horns! Can't get enough speakers, I passed on some Voice of the theater a couple of months ago, shoulda got them. The cabs were OK, grey paint, the woofers and horns were gone and replaced with Pioneer drivers. Didn't have the energy to tackle them. Tried trading some used bikes, he didn't take it. $250 was a good deal, but they are gone now. I have so many projects in front of me right now. The Speakerlabs are waiting for something, repaint them or wood veneer, have most of the crossover parts. Zener diodes and resistors from Parts express, waiting for the discount coupon. More. Speakers.
z
 
Hey man,

One of the things that capacitors do is provide your precious compression drivers with protection from unwanted frequencies. All capacitors age, some better than others. What happens to capacitors when they age is that their values drift, your crossover points move with them. They're resistance also grows, which makes your tweeters and/or mids sound a little or a lot, muffled. What people do when they can't hear things so well is that they turn them up, give them more power. This can blow drivers. In Royzilla's University loaded Shorthorns he had one compression tweeter driver that was blown. I can't why, no evidence to read. But the University N3 crossovers both had original paper electrolytic caps. I replaced all the caps with new non-polarized electrolytic capacitors, not modern film. This allows them to retain what the may have sounded like originally, and still add protection where it's needed.

Biggles
 
Biggles, yeah, I get it with old caps drifting... these horns are bright already, lots of highs. See the picture of the crossover? There's one can in there, must be where the caps are. I didn't want to open that can of worms, these look way different than the AA crossovers where you see the giant aerovox caps, nothing like that. As I play with the tone controls an the Dynaco pas3x the highs go up and down without any trouble. I took the ohm meter to them just now, one with the ev woofer was at 4 ohms and the other side was at 10 ohms. Connected them to 4 ohm and 16 ohm taps. Back to Robin Trower, they rock! I'm thinking leave em alone. The strat sounds like my old marshall! WOW! The floor is doing good things to my boots!

I looked though the slot and it looks like the horns and drivers are the same on both sides. The day went by so fast, I better fix a bike and make some beer money now..... mismatched woofer won't bug me too much, and the old caps are in there for now.
z
 
Are those University tweeters? Or maybe Jensen? And how tall are those cabinets? Cool system!

They have university drivers, 36 tall 24 wide 14 1/2 deep, and singing The Guess Who. They sound so good with this old rock, old caps, diaphragms, old wire. OLD. Hard to pick up a wrench in the shop and make a buck. Keep playing the same old tunes, and walking around to the sweet spots.... Surprised to hear some good center image. Trower's drummer was in the center! They are 26 feet apart and stuffed as close as possible in the corners, don't know why Paul Klipsch thought they were bad. He was wrong. They are pretty damn good.
z
 
They have university drivers, 36 tall 24 wide 14 1/2 deep.
Thanks for the dimensions. Same height and width as my EV Royal cabinets, which are 21" deep, and that will allow the placement of the Altec tweeter; they also contain that slanted board that apparently makes it a folded horn. Anyone know what that slanted board is called?

Back in the late 60s I had a friend who had University three ways in a big cabinet and it was the finest I had heard at the time. At age 18 or 19, I think that may have been the sound that began my lifelong fascination with audio.
 
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