808a/411 two way design

[gkirby]

Hi, I am new to this forum but have already learned a great deal. I have had for some years a mint set of 808a drivers with the 511 horns and a set of like new, looking anyway, 411 drivers. I have wanted to build a set of cabinets for them for some time. My question is this, once completed, assuming I do the drivers justice by building a quality cabinet, is this the type of speaker I would want to listen to at home or is this setup going to be overly bright or take over the room? From what I have read these speakers were originally designed for commercial uses, primarily, and as such I wondered if they would actually perform well for home stereo speakers. The room they would occupy is approx. 20 x 18 x 9ft high. I just don't want to go to the trouble of building cabinets only to find that they really aren't suited to everyday listening of music or even connecting to the home theater system.
FYI, these speakers belonged to a relative who had them installed in his home many years ago. He switched to McIntosh equipment and gave these to me, and they have been stored properly in the original boxes for some years now in my home.
Thanks for any advise.
Greg

[Mr. Widget]

Originally posted by gkirby
My question is this, once completed, assuming I do the drivers justice by building a quality cabinet, is this the type of speaker I would want to listen to at home or is this setup going to be overly bright or take over the room?


That really depends on your expectations, how demanding you are, and what you think sounds good.

I could never take those components and be satisfied with them as my primary system. I think an interesting system could be made with them, but they are not my idea of the ultimate system. You may love them. There are many who would find them not only acceptable but consider them to be sonically near perfect.

For me the limitations are a lack of sparkle, shine, air, what ever you want to call what we hear when the range is smoothly extended above 12KHz. They tend to have a pronounced mid range and the bottom, while deeper than some of Altec's other woofers isn't as deep or tight as I would like.

All that said, if I had a cherry set of those components, I would be very tempted to see what I could do with them by augmenting them with additional bits and some EQ. Also I have only heard them in their original Altec studio monitor enclosures circa 1971 and well, we've learned a few things since then.

Widget

[korgroenewoud]

Hello,

The 411 was used in the home cabinet Barcelona. I remember it was also used in a gray sudio monitor cabinet( 9846-8a). Just have a look at the Altec library. The components used in that cabinet were Xover N501-8a, bass 411-8a, driver 808-8a, horn 511 B.
To match the efficiency from the horn/driver to the 411-8a Altec used an attenuator. I dont know if you still can get this extra attenuator. Here is the link: sihttp://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1971-monitor/page3.jpg