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Who is running "Full Range"?

mforys said:
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I am also a lover of the Radio Shack FR. These were given to me by ejfud. Built to the Hawaii plans available online. They await a set of phase plugs from Planet 10.
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Nice work, and glad you're enjoying them.
 
As of 6 days ago I am a full range fan. I guess I am a convert. I traded my Forte II's for a pair of Audio Nirvana Super 12's in custom cabinets. For me, my system has never sounded so good.

Mike
 
63pontiacgp said:
As of 6 days ago I am a full range fan. I guess I am a convert. I traded my Forte II's for a pair of Audio Nirvana Super 12's in custom cabinets. For me, my system has never sounded so good.

Mike
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A SET amp and FR's can do that to you.

Getting that passive crossover out of the signal path can also make a huge difference.
 
mhardy6647 said:
The Hawaii Five-O (or Five point two-five) from the old Bottlehead magazine ("Valve", I think it was called). It was one of the Bottlehead crew (Doc himself, I think... but maybe it was Paul Joppa) who said of the 40-1354 "it gets the midrange right". It's a beguiling little driver (and it really appreciates a couple of quick and dirty phase plugs from Dave Dlugos - http://www.planet10-hifi.com/pp-info.html).
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I am excited to hear them with the phase plugs. They are on back order right now, but I should have them in a month or so.
 
I've had success making FR speaker phase plugs from craft store wooden eggs. They come in several smaller sizes and shapes. Counter sunk screws allow them to attach magnetically. I think these cost a buck.

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mforys said:
I am excited to hear them with the phase plugs. They are on back order right now, but I should have them in a month or so.
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Maybe the ol' audio placebo effect, but I felt they no longer needed any helper tweeters when I added the phase plugs.

The nice thing about the 40-1354 is that it's a decidedly non-"tizzy" sounding twincone driver. I imagine the HF response is ragged, but the effect, to my old ears, overall is smooth and well balanced.

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(as noted above, I decomissioned the 40-1375 helper tweeters shortly after this photo)
 
Hah! Yeah, I'm living dangerously. Stupid.

The Skele-208 is on a shelf for the time being. It'll be back sometime.
 
every once in a while a cluster of speakers with big horns and boxes wont be ideal in a given space and line array speakers from Renkus-Heinz, Bose ,University or EV were just to expensive or not available yet. So we would build column speakers from either Altec 409's, 755's or 405 's. 8 -755s in a a 7 ft column, ported worked amazingly well in a few round Catholic Churches of 150 to 200 capacity. The response held up well to 50HZ when ported and was very nice to 5 khz with gradual roll off to 10 + khz. Which is more than enough for voice. The 405's strained to get below 100hz but did well to above 12 khz, and the 409's in a column could reach from 60 Hz to 16,000. But they were a co-ax. The 755 c,d,e were the best. But their so expensive today as being wanted by collectors the price would be prohibitive. But at close to 96 db sensitivity they would be a great choice. We took the column into the sound room and they compared favorably against a Cornwall at a fraction of 1960's costs. The sound was closer to a Bozak 302A, but the projection and intimacy was more of a Symphony with its line array tweeters.
 
twiiii said:
every once in a while a cluster of speakers with big horns and boxes wont be ideal in a given space and line array speakers from Renkus-Heinz, Bose ,University or EV were just to expensive or not available yet. So we would build column speakers from either Altec 409's, 755's or 405 's. 8 -755s in a a 7 ft column, ported worked amazingly well in a few round Catholic Churches of 150 to 200 capacity. The response held up well to 50HZ when ported and was very nice to 5 khz with gradual roll off to 10 + khz. Which is more than enough for voice. The 405's strained to get below 100hz but did well to above 12 khz, and the 409's in a column could reach from 60 Hz to 16,000. But they were a co-ax. The 755 c,d,e were the best. But their so expensive today as being wanted by collectors the price would be prohibitive. But at close to 96 db sensitivity they would be a great choice. We took the column into the sound room and they compared favorably against a Cornwall at a fraction of 1960's costs. The sound was closer to a Bozak 302A, but the projection and intimacy was more of a Symphony with its line array tweeters.
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I bet that sounded perfect in the right room/hall. I really-like the sound of cone-drivers, whether using separates or a full-ranger. They just seem incredibly-natural/organic to me. I'm not a big horn guy (I even like the LOOK of cone-drivers). I think WE/Altec used some sort of silk/cotton mix for the 755a (Was it a silk/cotton/paper combination, or was it primarily silk and cotton fibers?). Bozak used some kind of wool/paper-pulp mix for their low-frequency woofers, as did Wharfedale, but they used aluminum for the mids and tweeters (I think Bozak may have used wool/paper-pulp for the mids and tweeters in the pre-'61 models, but I can't remember for sure).

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I wouldn't mind a pair of old WE/Altec 755a cabs like this. I bet they sound really-sweet when mounted up nice and high.

WEwallcabs.jpg
 
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Dipping my toes in to the "full-range" world with these single-drivers: Audio Nirvana 'Super 8 Cast Frame' speakers in Audio Nirvana 'Monitor' cabinets (local builder). They're recent mates to a rebuilt Magnavox 8802 (6V6) amp and rebuilt Dynaco PAS-2 (POS-2, rather) preamp. It's a good think I opted to rebuild the Dynaco tone controls rather than bypassing them with the updated circuit topology - a bit of backing off on the treble and a bit of boost in the bass seems to help. There is a palpable midrange clarity that seems to be consistent with what I've read, though the focus can be a bit flashlight-like. I'll play around with height, angle, and placement a bit.

Plans are to acquire the Fostex FE206En for a comparison (already have the Fostex cabinets from the same local builder) and put some hours into listening in this single-driver world.

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I ran Full Range Audio Nirvana 10 inch , in a set of HUGE 6 foot tall cabinets, built to AN specs. Sounded "Ok", but there was a marked lack of bass and extended treble. With vocals, very nice, but with everything else, not so nice.

I switched to a pair of Tannoy Saturns and I'm much happier.

What I learned was that full range speakers can be fun, for for any serious listening., you've got to have component speakers.
 
i plugged in my brother-in-law's Akai SW-30 JetStreams in the other day. not bad, not great either. Looks like the drivers are different? One looks like a white cone Fostex, the other is all dark with a whizzer cone. But the numbers on the outside match.

Need to take them apart and investigate further, then give them back to him.

ha!
 
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