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Heath AS-10 Cabinets - Need Driver Recommendations

Heath AS-10 Speaker Rebuild Status

The Heath cabinets have been stripped and refinished. Cabinets turned out to be hardwood plywood and look like either walnut or dark oak. Stripped them with Citrus Strip Gel and refinished them with two coats of Fornby's Tung Oil Finish. See the attached pictures.

Found two JBL 127-H1 speakers on eBay in good shape. They will front load in the cabinets perfectly. Waiting on the horns and tweeter drivers now.

Regards, BmWr75
 
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Zilch,

Is this L-pad circuit laid out correctly? See my private message.

Scott
 
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L-Pads are not symmetrical; the resistance between terminals 1 and 2 varies from 0 to ~30 ohms, then none, with clockwise rotation, while that between terminals 3 and 2 varies from 8 ohms to zero.

This application uses the "parallel" leg, between terminals 1 and 2. On the front side of the L-Pad, the terminal numbers are embossed in the plastic, so tiny I need a magnifier to read them.

It appears that you have constructed the "Balanced-T" compensation filter correctly.... :thmbsp:

Waveguides there yet? :banana:
 
Zilch said:
Waveguides there yet? :banana:
Click to expand...

Hello Zilch,

Yep, the waveguides just came. They fit in the cut outs just fine (see Picture 1). One concern though. I marked where the pilot holes will go for the screws. They are 3/16" or less from the edge of the front plate cut-out. Should I think about putting a wood trim piece around the horn cut-out on the front plate of the speaker? This would also cover the edges of the barbed inserts that were originally there to hold the old tweeters (you can see this in the 2nd picture). The pilot hole mark is shown in the 3rd picture in the dead center of the pic.

Do I have the waveguide oriented properly?

Thanks, BmWr75
 
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jsmonroe@com said:
Do I have the waveguide oriented properly?
Click to expand...
Yes, for vertical orientation. One virtue of this format waveguide is that you can rotate it 90° for horizontal.

There are two issues here. Well, three, actually:

1) Can you get enough "bite" with that 3/16" available to hold the horn and driver? Since it's plywood, I would guess, "Yes," but would likely employ an improved mounting technique using a plywood adapter mounted from the inside, either a single piece with a sufficiently smaller cutout to accommodate T-nuts from the rear, or four strips with T-nuts in the appropriate locations, one for each edge. Either could be mounted to the existing T-nuts from the inside. Just drill through holes at your pilot locations, and it doesn't matter how little meat is left; they could be slots, even.

2) Does the gasket make a seal to the small surface area between the existing T-nut counterbores and the edge of the opening? Again, I would guess "Yes," but would likely fill them, if only with "plugs" of some material such as closed-cell foam. Look also in the faucet-washer section of your hardware store for rubber washers that'll just pop in there. You may want to leave the T-nuts in place for attachment of the mounting adapter or strips of #1, above.

3) The aesthetic issue of the counterbores. Plugged or filled as suggested in #2, they may look just fine. If not, make a thin adapter sufficiently larger than the waveguide flange to cover them, and sandwich between the waveguide and baffle. A vinyl or rubber moulding around the outside of the flange would also work, and look good. A resilient "P" moulding might be captured by the flange.... :yes:
 
Zilch,

I'm still contemplating how to mount the waveguides. But, in the mean time, here's a picture of the ports mounted and the woofer and waveguide placed, but not screwed down yet. I'm very satisfied with how the layout turned out.

Regards, BmWr75
 
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jsmonroe@com said:
I'm still contemplating how to mount the waveguides. But, in the mean time, here's a picture of the ports mounted and the woofer and waveguide placed, but not screwed down yet. I'm very satisfied with how the layout turned out.
Click to expand...
That certainly seems to have worked out beautifully. :thmbsp:

Don't be tempted to power up the compression drivers without the active crossover in place, now.... :nono:
 
Zilch said:
Yes, for vertical orientation. One virtue of this format waveguide is that you can rotate it 90° for horizontal.
Click to expand...

Zilch,

Is there a preferred orientation, vertical or horizontal? I plan to place these speakers on stands that are 24" high.

Thanks, BmWr75
 
Heath AS-10 Rebuild Complete

Hello AKers,

The BMS drivers came this afternoon and they have been mated to the JBL horns and installed in the 60s vintage Heath AS-10 cabinets. Here's a picture of the finished product. :banana:

Thanks much to Zilch for all the help he has given me and his patience for my newby questions on circuitry and just about everything else involved with the speaker innards. :thmbsp:

Sitting hear now with a classic Robin Trower tune playing on my new/old Heath speakers. :smoke:

Regards,
BmWr75

attachment.php
 
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EXCELLENT! :thmbsp:

Looking back, I recommended 1.8 kHz. You can dial the frequency around a bit in that region to determine what sounds best in your system.

Be sure to have the "X10" crossover frequency buttons on the rear panel engaged for both channels. You should be operating in the 440 - 9.3 kHz front panel control range, with the woofers playing most of the mids, and the waveguide behaving as tweeter.

As you've likely already noticed, the crossover may be used three-way to drive subs, as well. That can be a single using the "Sum" function.

Enjoy your modernized Heaths, now. Operating and set up properly, they should be sounding better than just about anything you may have heard in those cabs before.

To the best of my knowledge, you and I are the only two people in the world to have this system, presently.

Let me know if there are any problems, and we'll work our way through them.... :yes:
 
System driving the Heath AS-10 Specials

Marantz 3200 preamp
Two Marantz 140 amps
Behringer CX-3400 active crossover
iTunes via an Airport Express - all songs ripped from my CDs in WAV format
Sony DVP-S3000 CD/DVD player

Have a 70's vintage turntable too, but it's hooked up to my other vintage sytem right now.

You could get by with a low wattage digital T-amp or tube amp driving the horns and a larger (150+ watt) amp for the woofers wouldn't hurt anything. I run out of woofer amp (peaking) way before the needles ever move much at all on the tweeter amp.

Sound wise - wait until I listen to it for a few more days. Right now it sounds great to me. Need to do some AB testing with my higher dollar tube preamp/hyrid power amp 2 channel system. Stay tuned.....

Regards,
BmWr75
 
Vintage System with Zilch/Heath Specials

Hello Zilch,

Here's a picture of my vintage system with the Zilch/Heath Specials being driven by a Marantz system from the 1970s.

I'm listening to Tool - Sober on them right now. Sounds great!!.

Regards,
Scott
 
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Very nice.

It's quite amazing how well vintage boxes can play with modern drivers in them.... :thmbsp:
 
Zilch said:
Very nice.

It's quite amazing how well vintage boxes can play with modern drivers in them.... :thmbsp:
Click to expand...

Zilch,

Per your recommendation....I resealed the backs of the speakers today to stop air leakage.

Have I told you lately that these speakers sound great?? :beerchug:
 
New Pictures

Zilch,

Just realized I never posted any decent pictures of these speakers. Here's some new ones to look at. Thanks again for all the design help.

These are still at the top of my list for best sounding speakers I've ever heard.

BmWr75

P.S. Still trying to figure out what to do with the Realistic MC-1000 cabinets. Think I'm going to have to have a new front baffle cut, remove most of the old baffle, and mount the new baffle on top of it to get the Indignia parts to fit.

P.S.S. The JBL L112s are not in the system picture. Moved Tyler Acoustic Taylor Reference Monitors and custom stereo subs into the system this weekend.
 
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I have a set of Heath AS-10s, and I'm considering doing something similar to this. Am I right in that you can use standard JBL 127H woofers, that all you lose is some of the power handling? Is it possible to use JBL 125A woofers? I'm pretty much limited to whatever I can find on ebay for under $100/pair, though it looks like I just missed a set of refoamed 127H-1s for $75.

I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the compression driver/horn/active crossover/biamping; is there anything I could do as far as keeping the tweeter structure there but just replacing the two 3" tweeters?

I'm interested in updating these, but my budget is somewhat more constrained than the original poster's.
 
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