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511B's, 2225H's, 4647's (sort of), and divine intervention

tomlinmgt

tomlinmgt

Lunatic Member
Well, it all just kinda' happened so fast without me even planning on it (reminds of my first time :naughty:). This morning I hop on CL and see a pair of 511B horns. I call the guy and we get to talkin' and turns out he's an old customer of mine. I ask him if he'd be interested in a trade and next thing I know we agree on $50 and some Polk Monitor 5's I had sittin' around. I jump on the 'bay and there's an auction for a pair of recently reconed 2225H drivers ending in a few hours. I set everything up hoping to snag the JBL's for a little over a bill each and while I'm picking up the horns I get the email that I won the drivers. This all happens over the course of a few hours. After I get home I do a little research and see a set of JBL 4647 cabinets on the 'bay and check the dimensions. They sound awfully close to some CV D-8-E cabinets I have so I go out to the garage and measure and they are almost exactly the same as the JBL's (30.5"x21.5"x17.5" for JBL's, 30"x20"x17.75" for CV's). OTOT, the CV cabinets are made from 1" MDF, are cross braced, and port tuned to 29 Hz. Only thing left is pick up some Radian 475 drivers and an active xover and (que angels trumpets)...I'm gettin' a proper intoduction to, ahem, proper horns. Aside from my KG5.5's and their Tractrix horns, this will be my first set of horns that can really get down to business. I have a modded ST-70 for the top and several SS beasts to choose from for the bottom. Somehow I get the feeling I'm going to be impressed.

This has been way too easy. If ever something seemed "meant to be", this certainly qualifies in my book. And it happened on a Sunday. I better get my butt in the church house next week.

- Michael
 
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Good choice of horns and drivers ;) The Radians are great sounding drivers for the price, and the 511s are very good sounding horns if damped thoroughly.
 
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me and a friend will be setting up eWaves to test with the MiniDSP. Looks like a great fit.
 
After years of playing around with many horns including various EVs and JBLs, McCauleys, Edgar salad bowls, P Audios, Klipsch Pro and others I ending going full circle and back to 511s and 811s; then I got out of horns altogether. ;)

IME placing rolls of non hardening modeling clay in the lips and screwing the horn to a baffle are all that's needed to damp the horn. Note too that later 511s eschewed welding the vanes inside the horn together and instead filled the gap a rubber of some sort. Some guys cut those welds in older 511s and fill the kerf with rubber.
 
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Tom Brennan said:
After years of playing around with many horns including various EVs and JBLs, McCauleys, Edgar salad bowls, P Audios, Klipsch Pro and others I ending going full circle and back to 511s and 811s; then I got out of horns altogether. ;)

IME placing rolls of non hardening modeling clay in the lips and screwing the horn to a baffle are all that's needed to damp the horn. Note too that later 511s eschewed welding the vanes inside the horn together and instead filled the gap a rubber of some sort. Some guys cut the weld in older 511s and fill the kerf with rubber.
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Hi Tom,

Your comments on 511s encouraged me to give them a try; and after damping them, I'm quite happy. I'm using them free-standing on top of the midbass cabinets, so mine took quite a bit of work to damp. I suspect various examples have different amounts of internal stress, and will ring more or less.
 
Tom Brennan said:
After years of playing around with many horns including various EVs and JBLs, McCauleys, Edgar salad bowls, P Audios, Klipsch Pro and others I ending going full circle and back to 511s and 811s; then I got out of horns altogether. ;)

IME placing rolls of non hardening modeling clay in the lips and screwing the horn to a baffle are all that's needed to damp the horn. Note too that later 511s eschewed welding the vanes inside the horn together and instead filled the gap a rubber of some sort. Some guys cut those welds in older 511s and fill the kerf with rubber.
Click to expand...


Well, horns are one of the last speaker frontiers I've yet to explore, so I just have to see what the fuss is all about. I'm swingin' for the fences and hope I'll get close to the type of sonic performance folks get out of 19's, K-horns and the like.

These horns came in a fresh coat of 2010 SS Camaro Victory Red. I suppose that'd be the ticket if they were gonna' be used in a night club in Puerto Rico, but I have something else in mind. I'll take 'em to the shop and sandblast the auto paint off and powder coat them (one of the perks of owning a powder coating business). A few coats of powder will have a film thickness of about 6-7 mils and really does a good job damping resonant metals. Any sort of "ring" turns into a "thud" after powder coating.

- Michael
 
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tomlinmgt said:
Well, horns are one of the last speaker frontiers I've yet to explore, so I just have to see what the fuss is all about. I'm swingin' for the fences and hope I'll get close to the type of sonic performance folks get out of 19's, K-horns and the like.

These horns came in a fresh coat of 2010 SS Camaro Victory Red. I suppose that'd be the ticket if they were gonna' be used in a night club in Puerto Rico, but I have something else in mind. I'll take 'em to the shop and sandblast the auto paint off and powder coat them (one of the perks of owning a powder coating business). A few coats of powder will have a film thickness of about 6-7 mils and really does a good job dampening resonant metals. Any sort of "ring" turns into a "thud" after powder coating.

- Michael
Click to expand...

FWIW, my take on 511B damping is here:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/102329-horn-damping-9.html#post3060342

As Tom said, bolting them to a baffle helps a lot.
 
And for the selection of active xovers I can loan you a DOD 835 Series II or a Beringer CX2310 xovers! The DOD is 18dn/oct the Ber is 24 db/oct- either would work well with those Radians down to 800hz out to 22khz!! The are respectable xovers until you can find a Rane or a DBX. You will be amazed at what you are missing! You may want to look into the cabling to adapt between the xovers & the amps-I have purchased these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-5ft-Premi...734?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4158e0ec06

They have 16ga stranded wire and are WELL MADE! He sells in various lengths too. I do have some cables-probably not enough for you!
DC
 
Well, finally got a mock-up of sorts.


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That's 3/4" MDF used as a temporary baffle screwed to the existing baffle of the D-8 cabinets which are flipped upside down. I have some 3/4" maple ply that I'll probably use in place of the MDF once I get everything dialed in. Picked up a pair of the Radian drivers and an Ashly 2001 xover so now I just need to get some more damping material in the cabinets, drill holes in the 511 flanges to match the Radian bolt pattern, wire everything up and throw the coals to 'em.

- Michael
 
fpitas said:
The Radian 475PBs I have bolt right up to the existing 511B bolt pattern (2 holes on 3" diameter).
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You're right. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that two bolts would be sufficient. My 511's have four holes at locations that would be the end points of the lines that would form a "peace" sign. The Radians have bolt holes at these locations as well but they don't line up with one another. I got it in my head (for no good reason) that I should use four bolts when, now that I think about it, two would be plenty.

- Michael
 
tomlinmgt said:
You're right. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that two bolts would be sufficient. My 511's have four holes at locations that would be the end points of the lines that would form a "peace" sign. The Radians have bolt holes at these locations as well but they don't line up with one another. I got it in my head (for no good reason) that I should use four bolts when, now that I think about it, two would be plenty.

- Michael
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Someone must have drilled extra holes in the 511 flange for non-Altec drivers. Yep, the two bolts are plenty.
 
I love it! The red 511's look great! I almost got some 475BP's too, but opted for the BMS 4550. I'll sure give the Radian's a try next time I need a good CD.

az
 
I liked the Radians are they had the associations with Altec at one time, besides that they made a very nice sounding and quite rugged small forma driver!
DC
 
audiozaz said:
I love it! The red 511's look great! I almost got some 475BP's too, but opted for the BMS 4550. I'll sure give the Radian's a try next time I need a good CD.

az
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Oh hell...you like the red horns, too? My GF told me she'd "cut me off" if I stripped the red and powder coated them a more subdued color (I had planned on a dark bronze/black). Damn, now you've got me hesitant about changing the color. And I must admit....the more I look at that pic the more I like the red. :scratch2:
 
tomlinmgt said:
Oh hell...you like the red horns, too? My GF told me she'd "cut me off" if I stripped the red and powder coated them a more subdued color (I had planned on a dark bronze/black). Damn, now you've got me hesitant about changing the color. And I must admit....the more I look at that pic the more I like the red. :scratch2:
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Seeing as how large speakers generally have abysmal WAF, take any non-negative comments that come and don't screw with what's accepted! :D

az
 
audiozaz said:
Seeing as how large speakers generally have abysmal WAF, take any non-negative comments that come and don't screw with what's accepted! :D

az
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Great advice! But, fact is I'm pretty lucky in that regard. She LOVES big speakers. She went with me on a half-way across Texas road trip to get my Infinity QLS-1's. When she saw them she said "you HAVE to get these". When she saw my Maggie MG-IIIa's, after having only seen my MMG's before, she squealed with delight. She's saying the KLH 6's and Yammie servo sub I gave her just aren't quite getting the job done any more. She wants "big speakers".

She's quite excited to hear the horns...especially after I showed her a picture of Jimi Hendrix on stage at Woodstock with 511's in the background. :D

- Michael
 
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