Speakerman was over the other day and among other things, we A-B'd the whatever you call my tall 2226 cabinets with Bill's Woodhorns perched on top driven by Altec 806A's, whew, with the JBL 3677S cabinets with 2226's and stock 2618 horns in the HT set-up. Norah Jones. First the Altec/Wood/Jbl. Then the 3677's. We spontaneously and simultaneously cupped our hands over our mouths the way kids do, that's how muffled the 3677's were. And yet, and yet, movie dialogue is clearer with them than most other transducers. "Must be some quality lurking in there, thinks I". So I asked Ing. Martinelli to conjure up some screw-on to 2 bolt adapters so I could try the JBL 2618's with the 811B's and the Woodhorns.
Tonight I've got the 2618's drivng the 811B's. You need to know that the crossover is at 800 Hz, not 1600 and the 2618 sounds a few dB more efficient than the 806A's. And it's tuned for the 16Ohm Altecs. There's more sparkle here and subsequently a far deeper and up front soundstage. But there's also less of the excited sound of the aluminum horn. Can't wait to try the Woodhorns tomorrow. I obviously have to get a 1.6K high pass and revisit the 4Pi Pro attenuation circuit. Looks like the Music system will be all JBL and the 806A/811B will do Home Theatre duty.
Here's Muse the Cat looking askance at the Altecs:
I wonder how much better the 2445 or 2446 might be? JBL is really the BOMB, isn't it?
Wayne Parham Messages: 18792 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Those horns look great. I think Muse the Cat wonders if they taste like chicken.
You're running JBL 2226J's on bottom with Altec 811's as upper mids, right? That's an excellent combination. Excellent! And then sometimes you swap out to the Martinelli's, right?
Seems like with the Altecs, crossover around 1kHz is perfect. Having the 800Hz crossover point with those is just fine. Maybe a little low with the Martinelli's, but his horns give a little more even dispersion. I like them better especially in cornerhorns. But everything you have is such good stuff, it's like comparing the best with the other best.
Bill, The JBL drivers out of the 3677 cabs are designed for minimum crossover of 1.2khz but will probably squeak by due to the horn loadeing of the 811B which is actually a 550hz flare rate. I think muse is turning into a real audio critic. Does she tell you which horns and drivers to use???? Are you still running the 15 ohm resistors on the speakers for the 8 ohm load to the amp. It would probably be sweet if the "Ella" had 16 ohms taps to run your speakers without the parallel resistor to tailor the impedance to the amp. Ron
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