Vintage home built 3 way speakers

elitopus

elitopus

Addicted Member
I just picked these up. Mostly for the cabinets, but they have a cool driver load. The woofer is Utah. I think maybe a G15? The mid range is a Realistic MI driver, and the horn is a Realistic 40-1228. The crossovers are Lafayette adjustable units.

I’m wondering how old the 40-1228 horns are. Most of them I see online are “A” models. These are just regular 40-1228.

I think the crossovers are pretty cool. That you can set them up for either 2 or 3 way, and there are different crossover points you can use. And it looks like you can use it with either 8 or 16 ohm drivers.

The cabinets are pretty decent looking. I have other plans for them in fact. They sound nice as 3 ways with the drivers they have, but not my cup of tea.
They will most likely be the new home for my PAS CXL1580 drivers.

You can tell they’re home built cabs. The plywood grain runs front to back on the top/bottom, and vertical on the sides. They used MDF for the front and back panels. The back has some issues around the screw holes, and I’ll be replacing those panels with plywood. Also some bracing will be added, as well as some insulation inside the cabs. The cabs are just over 4 cuft as they are now.

Here are some pics.

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With something like this, you need a rta to measure performance. Who knows how well matched everything is?

Either that or listen to it and take the listen to it and see what you think approach.
 
Off hand, I see that the woofer cone and mid cone share air…not good.

The mid should have its own little enclosure or else be a sealed-back type of driver.
 
Agree an open back midrange should have its own small enclosure closed off from the woofer's volume. Otherwise the woofer will be able to push around the midrange cone as it compresses and decompresses the air in the box as it moves forward and back. If you can find the Thiele-Small parameters you can figure out a sealed box volume for it.

Trying to remember the grain, I used birch in my old DIY projects but Oak was usually readily available too.

On some DIY speakers along that line with generic crossover and L-pads can use FM inter-station noise to roughly blend the midrange into the woofer, and then the tweeter into the midrange by ear. I think I got that from some of Speakerlab's DIY documents from back in the early 80s.
 
I agree especially in this sealed cab that the mid should have its own enclosure. I was thinking the flower pot mod like people do with their Bozak speakers.

The guy I got them from claims they were made in 1971 from the date codes on the drivers. I’ll have to stare at the numbers stamped on them and see if I agree. The cabs definitely smell like they were made in ‘71. They have a nice tube organ smell inside them.
 
Lol. Exactly.

You know I got a good talkin to last night by the wife. There were things said like “these speakers are too big” And “why do you need another pair of speakers”. And “we don’t have room for all this stuff”. And I just looked serious and said yes dear of course, I’m trying to sell some right now.

I didn’t tell her I’m only one pair away from 30 pairs of speakers. Lol.
 
Remember these lines:

It's what makes me who i am!

Why do you want to change me?

That should get you through the next 10 or 12 pair. :biggrin:

Just be ready for the shoe count to take a jump.
 
Heres the thing, and this is where she cheats. She says she needs new shoes, and needs a new jacket etc. Otherwise she’ll be cold or her feet will hurt or whatever.
Also shopping done for the kids. They also need whatever. Right, just like the kids need a new pair of speakers.
If shopping for clothes was my hobby everyone in the family would need something. Like my dog needs a new jean jacket.
I understand the kids are growing, but I’ve been wearing basically the same clothes for the last 10 years! New socks and underwear of course. Lol.

Since my last post on here I have acquired the 30th pair. Yes they are Minumus 7w, but they still count!
It’s funny that half my speakers are refrigerator sized, and the other half are bookshelf speakers. Gotta have variety.
 
elitopus said:
I understand the kids are growing, but I’ve been wearing basically the same clothes for the last 10 years! New socks and underwear of course. Lol.
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The trip from my new place to Audio Classics is about 5 minutes shorter,
30 minutes door to door. :D
 
Lol. Yes.

So what are the differences between the different 40-1228 versions? The regular versus A and B. Did they switch to plastic eventually?
 
Gotcha. Did the different versions sound different? Is there one that is preferred to the rest? Obviously I would think the metal are preferred to the plastic, but I know with something like the Altec 32 horns some people like the way the plastic sounds better.
 
elitopus said:
Gotcha. Did the different versions sound different? Is there one that is preferred to the rest?
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I think so.

But, i am infected with heavy expectation bias favoring the high quality workmanship of Japanese product from that era and market segment. I just like that stuff. :)
 
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