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Peavey FH-1 cabinets to make La Scalas from. Any advice?

soundbound

soundbound

Well-Known Member
I took Gigantic’s advice and bought a pair of old 1978 Peavey's FH-1 bass cabinets with Peavey Black Widow woofers locally off Craigslist today. As Gigantic posted they’re beat to heck, so I’m going to fill their years of damage and sandpaper them smooth. I’m building them to be like La Scalas. I have a pair of Crites older oil filled can capacitors AA crossovers that I’ll be recapping with his new capacitors replacement kit, a pair of push pin K-55V midrange drivers that I put new diaphragm in some years ago, and a pair of K-77 alnico tweeters with new diaphragms. All those items I removed from my Klipschorns when I put all new items in during my restoration of them, so all I need is midrange horns that I’ll see if Parts Express offers any close enough or eBay. I’ll build top cabinets as I did for my Klipschorns because they were decorator models. I’ll paint it all semigloss black. I’ll make grill covers for my built tops and even bottom FH-1 cabinets. If I’m impressed enough possibly veneer them as I did to my Klipschorns. Any advice from Gigantic or anyone?


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Here’s a photo of one of my Klipschorns that I completely restored. I put in all new electrical components including wires and connectors. As mentioned in my first post above this one, they were decorator models in very bad old dried out aged condition. I built their tops, grill covers, and veneered them. It was a lot of work hours, but I enjoyed doing them.


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1" format horns that go down to 400~500Hz are not too common. Of course, unless you want to use a K400 or 401. The ZXPC (18x10 or 17x11) 2" horn or Selenium HM3950 (2" too) would be perfect and both go to 500Hz.
 
Why would you want to make a LaScala from a FH-1? talk about making a sow's ear from a potential silk purse!

Forget about using any vintage Klipsch parts, you can do a lot better. Many here have gotten excellent results with the PRV WG4550 18" x 10" mid horn with a 2" driver. PRV's D2200Ph is a fantastic value, but there are even better drivers available. K-77 dog-barkers should be avoided at all cost, unless you like weak treble wth a lot of sibilance rolled in. I'm partial to @Daveintn's MAHLs, but there are a plethora of tweeter lenses available. If you do Dean & Mikes 4500X crossover, iirc, they include an option with a 3d-printed elliptic tractrix tweeter that's paired with a Celestion CD1-1425; other options include tractrix lenses from Dayton Audio and FaitalPro, among others. For woofers, I'm partial to JBL's 2226h, but their 2235 is better yet, with the 4Ω version being most desirable of all, but hard to track down. @THD+N advocates for the Celestion FTR15-3070E, which he claims offered similar performance to the JBL 2225h/2226h Lastly, the DJK Port mods will allow you to have bass extension to 32-35hz or you could go all out with a pair of 12" passives per unit for low profile or a 15" passive radiator, for extension to 22Hz or lower.
 
Since the OP indicated he needed midrange horns, I gave him a few suggestions. However, I agree with @Gigantic, move away from the Klipsch drivers. Even though the K55V's are great, you can easily sell those to help finance this project with better drivers.

The FTR woofers have been around awhile but they have some very ingenious technology in them, and they sound superb for almost half the cost of JBL woofers.
 
I would use that horn with a nice driver and compensate a bit for the constant-directivity pattern of the horn with DSP/EQ/PEQ.
 
Many years ago I used FH-1s that had an extra 1/4" of mdf and a veneer added by the previous owner, he also installed K33 woofers. They also had the braces some FH-1s had. Anyway, probably because of the reflectors in the back corners they had response up to 700hz, as measured with a RTR and calibrated mic I had at the time. This extended response gives more flexibility in choice of crossover point, drivers and horns. I crossed at 500hz using Altec and sometimes JBL 1" drivers on Altec 511 horns.
 
Tom Brennan said:
Many years ago I used FH-1s that had an extra 1/4" of mdf and a veneer added by the previous owner, he also installed K33 woofers. They also had the braces some FH-1s had. Anyway, probably because of the reflectors in the back corners they had response up to 700hz, as measured with a RTR and calibrated mic I had at the time. This extended response gives more flexibility in choice of crossover point, drivers and horns. I crossed at 500hz using Altec and sometimes JBL 1" drivers on Altec 511 horns.
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This is one reason I really like the FTR15-3070E, great mid-range response in a W folded horn and much higher than a K33 (and its variants).

Orange - FTR15-3070E, no crossover
Blue - FTR15-3070E, 6dB crossover (coil)
Three-Way_Low-Mid_X-over_No x-over.png
 
Gigantic said:
If you do Dean & Mikes 4500X crossover, iirc, they include an option with a 3d-printed elliptic tractrix tweeter that's paired with a Celestion CD1-1425;
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CDX1-1412

A lot of people really like the sound with the Klipsch parts, and the 4500x/CDX1-1412 combo really takes care of the most common complaints without replacing the whole top section - which really requires measuring tools and some network design software. Rescaling the Universal for every different driver/horn combination isn’t really ideal.
 
I'm in the process of fixing mine. That looked like yours...all black. I'm planning to use 2 braces. Since in the 10 minutes I played with them in original state. They resonated like mad.
PXL_20260404_194249643.jpgPXL_20260405_095538550.MP.jpg
I'm satisfied enough with the wooden look. Sort of an industrial chique look.
 
Yesterday said:
I'm in the process of fixing mine. That looked like yours...all black. I'm planning to use 2 braces. Since in the 10 minutes I played with them in original state. They resonated like mad.
View attachment 3787338View attachment 3787339
I'm satisfied enough with the wooden look. Sort of an industrial chique look.
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You’re doing a good job on them. I plan on bracing mine too. It seems most came front horn braced. I wonder why all of them weren’t? It shouldn’t be too hard to do. Keep posting your progress.
 
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Gigantic said:
Why would you want to make a LaScala from a FH-1? talk about making a sow's ear from a potential silk purse!

Forget about using any vintage Klipsch parts, you can do a lot better. Many here have gotten excellent results with the PRV WG4550 18" x 10" mid horn with a 2" driver. PRV's D2200Ph is a fantastic value, but there are even better drivers available. K-77 dog-barkers should be avoided at all cost, unless you like weak treble wth a lot of sibilance rolled in. I'm partial to @Daveintn's MAHLs, but there are a plethora of tweeter lenses available. If you do Dean & Mikes 4500X crossover, iirc, they include an option with a 3d-printed elliptic tractrix tweeter that's paired with a Celestion CD1-1425; other options include tractrix lenses from Dayton Audio and FaitalPro, among others. For woofers, I'm partial to JBL's 2226h, but their 2235 is better yet, with the 4Ω version being most desirable of all, but hard to track down. @THD+N advocates for the Celestion FTR15-3070E, which he claims offered similar performance to the JBL 2225h/2226h Lastly, the DJK Port mods will allow you to have bass extension to 32-35hz or you could go all out with a pair of 12" passives per unit for low profile or a 15" passive radiator, for extension to 22Hz or lower.
Click to expand...
Agreed on using modern parts.
I think you'll get a great kick out of this project! Pun intended. ;)
Regarding compression drivers:
I'd seriously consider a coax compression driver with the FH-1, because of their (lower) low cutoff frequency. There's also the benefit of having a coherent source point for mid+high frequencies.
I'm linking TLHP as example because they have all coax comps (all the relevant ones I'm aware of at least): https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/speakers/coaxial-driver.html
For some of these the manufacturer also produces a passive crossover in case that that's relevant to you (external crossover/dsp and one amplifier per driver is an interesting route for this kind of speaker..)

Regarding horns:
Horn choice depends on availability if you go with a vintage one of course.
The 'basics' for you to think about are coverage angles and lower frequency loading limit of course.
How well the horn fits in terms of size and materials (plastic, aluminium, wood) in your room/for your use also isn't completely unimportant.

Wooden horns offer the option to build one yourself if you have the tools or a builder available to you.
In case that that's interesting to you, here's a DIY plan for a biradial horn: Classic Series Horn No.1836
And here are plans for a different horn geometry: Sabourin Front Horn DIY Plans

Another thing; The lower registers.
Perhaps not relevant for this build, but with La Scala builds you often see modification of the woofer's compression chamber so it will dig deeper. My choice is to not go there and leave the compression chamber as intended in its design as is, so it can 'focus' on kicks. It's better to let (An) additional subwoofer(s) focus on its(/their) 'thing' imho.

Another another thing.
I'm not completely sure for my own home use how I feel about a full horn system. If I'd have an FH1 or La Scala 'bin' I'd experiment with direct radiors in the mid frequencies for sure..
 
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A full range three-way horn system can be a challenge, especially if you want it to fit into a "normal" listening space. I don't care for corner horns, so a combination type bass enclosure (a ported LaScala or better known as a W folded horn) seemed like a good compromise.

I am a die-hard amp guy at heart and speakers are a means to my end. This means I like to use one amp to power my loudspeakers for audio listening, not bi or tri-amping. When implemented carefully and correctly, the ported W folded horn can yield excellent results with few compromises (at least that are audible).
 
THD+N said:
When implemented carefully and correctly, the ported W folded horn can yield excellent results with few compromises (at least that are audible).
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Do you mean 'ported La Scala' with ported w folded horn?

Asking because I think about this design type when I read ported w folded horn (there are also 15" and double versions), and these typically don't dig too low freq wise..
W Bin.jpeg
 
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