Ok, I'm a believer.....

[doodlebug]

For my recent birthday, I decided to finally assemble the UREI 813s I picked a few months ago, they being removed from a well-known recording studio in Oakland, CA.

The Altec 604s needed a good reconing and recharging; done by Great Plains Audio. A local cabinet finishing shop stepped up to fix all the mounting holes and sanded/resprayed the cabinets while the components were out of them. I spent the birthday yesterday rebuilding the crossovers with new crossover caps and finally got them up and running today.

Now, I've used UREI 809s and JBL 4425s in the past - still have them - but I'm just blown away with the performance of these large-format speakers. I used them to mix down a live recording session I did last Friday and really like the level of detail I can hear through them. The smaller brother, the 809s, are nice but they do not have the space of presentation these monsters can do.

I can completely understand why they were the rage 25 years ago now and are still in use in some studios.

I know they aren't mentioned here often but they shouldn't be forgotten. I wonder how they stand up against a set of JBL 4435s?

Cheers,

David

[Zilch]

Yeah, well, we don't believe ANY of it!

[doodlebug]

I don't normally post pics mainly due to the technical difficulties on the operator's part. Let's see how well I do. Here's the current setup in the garage - soon to be my new Romper Room once the rest of the boxes are removed and I seal up the garage door for the winter.

Note the size relative to the 4425s - they're big! As the pic was taken, they are being burned in with a wireless Squeezebox 2 streaming internet radio through an older Hafler amp that's been extensively reworked itself. Next step is to pull out the tube amps.

Let's see if this pic posting works.....

Cheers,

David

[doodlebug]

Here's a close up of the left cabinet. The crossover is actually 2 boxes: one on the front houses the controls, the light bulbs (behind the access panel) and the crossover components for the horn tweeter in the Altec driver. There were 2 caps inside this box that required replacement.

The other part of the crossover - I'll see if I can get a picture of the innards soon - is mounted into the back of the cabinet. There's a large umbilical cord that connects the 2 internally.

The cabinet itself is 1" plywood with 2x4 bracing internally.

Cheers,

David

[doodlebug]

Here is the other cabinet of the set. UREI 813s, as well as the 809s, are made of a left/right pairing. For the life of me, I can't see any difference in them outside of the placement of the crossover control box on the front.

The Altec driver with the horn is engineered to be rotated in place with the use of the clamps. Internally, I can't see any reason for this particurlar designation. The cabinets even have a L and R stenciled on their back. I did keep track of the drivers and crossover components, however, and replaced them in their original positions just to be sure.

Cheers,

David

[clmrt]

Are the lightbulbs there to prevent overpowering?

[doodlebug]

Are the lightbulbs there to prevent overpowering?

That's correct. There are 3 colored lenses - one for each driver in the cabinet - so that they can be seen if the speakers are being driven too hard. They use, I believe, normal auto bulbs. This means there would be some limiting as the filaments heat up. I do know that it wasn't uncommon to run these things in a studio with lots more power than I'm using - most likely to impress clients, I'd guess.

BTW, the mixdown I did yesterday through them allows me to approach the near-live volume of the jazz combo from Friday night with the 100wpc amp you see in the picture. I have no meters to determine how much of that I'm using, though. A lot of this has to do with the size of the room, of course.

Regarding the lights, in reality, I'd probably have internal organ bleeding I managed to actually overdrive them in the one car garage where they sit now. Can't imagine what would happen to the 2 dogs.....

Cheers,

David

[Bob Womack]

I've attached pics of the early, JBL 813c's on which I monitor every day. They are installed in a Live End Dead End control room (unlicensed but design by a person who studied at Syn-Aud-Con). The front end of the room is designed to be as close to anechoic as possible and the back is diffuse, with custom DiAgustino/RPG diffusers. The whole room is floated on composite rubber blocks. The UREIs are mounted in soffits, but the speaker receiving boxes are independently mounted on pedestals that are bolted to footings poured below the sub-flooring of the complex, to prevent conduction through the walls or floor to the mix position. They normally wear matching-color grille covers to make them blend in to the wall. We purchased these for a control room we were designing in the mid-1980s after hearing them at the Audio Engineering Society meetings and being impressed. We used them free-standing until we installed them in this facility in 1995.

I recently played that recording of fireworks that's going around through them and got a kick out of watching the cover fabric jump in the breeze. Besides the excellent spacial locatization and wonderfully smooth midrange, the thing I love the most about these monitors is that they are so darned spike-free that I can monitor for long periods at reasonable levels without ear fatigue. I rarely end up with significant oddities in my mixes when I use these to track and EQ.

The JBLs will probably have a stronger low bass than the UREIs, but their point-source localization probably won't be as good. When I've heard the 4435s, I've heard a more "throaty" upper mid sound with a certain "rip" to it. I'm sure it is just a taste thing because lots of great recordings have come off the 4435s. I hope you enjoy yours!!! Be sure to find a source for the bulbs in the crossovers and buy a few of each. They are getting a little rare.

Bob