Some time ago I had gotten a pair of Altec Model 5 cabinets for $5 with a little water damage and the foam degrading on the alnico woofers. Accepting the 70's vintage (warmer tone than new stuff), I was extremely pleased with the overall bass performance of these 2 way boxes which was warm and tight (again considering their era). My comparison point for clean sound was Monitor Audio Silver 8's with a Sony ES80 preamp, Cyrus CD transport and Anthem power amp.

I have refoamed the drivers (professionally) and now the boxes are tending to boomy (I don't get this, I thought they would get firmer not softer sounding). Maybe my tastes have changed or the cabinets are just resonating more now. I know that a person's "sound memory" is very fleeting.

Before and after were driven with the same Sony ES80 preamp, Cyrus CD transport and Anthem power amp.

If anyone is familiar with or has measured the specs for the Model 5 woofers I'd love to hear about it so I can redesign the cabinet (I planned to rebuild them anyways).

Otherwise, perhaps someone has experience with using a particular cabinet size or different port size to tweak this driver and could share. My thought was to reduce the cabinet size (10%?) and keep the same port size as well as making more rigid cabinets.

Thanks for any help or suggestions!!