T35 reputation in the '60s and '70s compare to 075
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mr. Widget
Zilch's image posted below... this post taken from Storm's Altec +EV thread.
Below that I have posted a plot of three T-35s. The blue and green T-35s were taken from my Klipsch Belle clones and have been babied their whole lives so I'd suggest their response is likely as new... the red plot is from a K-horn... I have no idea how hard it may have been driven.
I'd say that for a bunch of vintage drivers these are following their original specified curve better than most that we see here and for the record, I'd say these are not the terrible tweeters that Maron and Zilch seem to think they are. I guarantee they produce higher frequencies than many here can actually hear. :p
Widget
The EV T35, and especially the K 77 (because of Klipsch's testing and selection procedures), had a good rep, better than the JBL 075, among the dealers and engineers in the S.F. Bay Area (Berkeley Custom, Pro Audio, etc.) in the '60s and '70s. Their stores all carried both the K77 (in various Klipsch speakers) and the 075. In one case, I found my then young ears could hear a 16 K Hz tone from behind a Klipsch Cornwall (which used a K 77).
The curve Berkeley Custom Electronics ran looked a lot like the red curve in Mr. Widget's post. Widespread opinion was that the K 77 was smoother sounding than the 075.
As to the subjective nature of the sound, EV T35s and JBL 075s were both often turned up too far in demos. This certainly made both the EVs and JBLs sound too bright or, worse, "shrill." I believe (if memory serves) that all of the EV speaker systems (including the "building block" kits) had a "brilliance" control for the tweeters; the JBL networks had a balance control on the crossovers used with the 075, as well. Paul Klipsch never allowed one on his speakers, precisely because for this maladjustment reason. On the Klipsch factory anechoic of the Klipschorn I saw, the tweeter response was in a straight "average" line with the response of the midrange.