Vari intense concert horns

[Skelt]

Wondering if anyone here has experience with these massive horns?

Tell me about them. What size room are they in. What do you use for the bottom end. What tweeters do you use?

A horn lover for sometime and normally found on the klipsch board , some has come up for sale locally and I am intrigued.

I would try to intergrate them into my garage system that consists of a pair of klipsch mwm singles and kp301s version 2. Likely these horns will replace the top cabs and use a dbx driverack pa+ to sort the signals.
TIA.

[RMC]

Hi Skelt,

Sorry for the delay in replying to you as I'm pretty busy these days, but took a little break to give you some of what I have about these interesting horns since nobody has helped you yet. I don't own the horns so can't provide you with actual user info, but I have some background info about these which may help you decide.

The Vari-intense horn was designed by Engineer David Gunness of Electro-Voice late 80's. An EV design but first released by Altec! The connection here is that Altec, EV, Gauss, etc. all belonged to Mark IV Audio for a while, and exchanged some of their ideas, designs, technologies, etc. Later EV released its own versions of the horn's design with the Variplex name. And they still have, as I recall, Vari-intense indoor speakers.

I think I have more info about the Vari-intense/Variplex horns but I'd need to dig in my stuff to see...

Hopefully the following will give you some insight into those clever devices. Regards,

Richard

See docs:

David Gunness, in Wikipedia, see EV section of it, specially paragraph starting with "In 1989,..."

Altec Vari-intense horn, data sheet, Pdf

EV Cinema Systems-Variplex, Data Sheet, Pdf, see top right plus Description section

EV CINEMA SYSTEMS Variplex-B EDS.pdfALTEC VARI INTENSE HORN VIT.2480224208.pdf

[grumpy]

might also have a look at similarly inspired JBL 4660a and Everest 55000 (home) re intended use and implementations.

http://www.cieri.net/temp/everest_dd...hite_paper.pdf

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post178621

[RMC]

Found another Altec smaller size Vari-intense speaker in my papers. Cab looks similar to EV's S 200 LF unit. However, the Altec version is both Duplex and Vari-intense CD horn.

A couple of Altec Duplex ceiling speakers are also shown.

Finally, a pic of Altec's 4024A DSP. That processor was designed with Duplex Loudspeaker Systems in mind.

The processor, as well as the DTS-200 shown here, announce for an upcoming post, a whole bunch of Altec DTS Series, Duplex or not, sound reinforcement speakers. Those may be their last SR lineup offering before Altec disappeared forever... Some could be in the Altec Library here (e.g. 9864, 9894), while others are not.

Richard

[Flamingo]

Found another Altec smaller size Vari-intense speaker in my papers. Cab looks similar to EV's S 200 LF unit. However, the Altec version is both Duplex and Vari-intense CD horn.

A couple of Altec Duplex ceiling speakers are also shown.

Finally, a pic of Altec's 4024A DSP. That processor was designed with Duplex Loudspeaker Systems in mind.

The processor, as well as the DTS-200 shown here, announce for an upcoming post, a whole bunch of Altec DTS Series, Duplex or not, sound reinforcement speakers. Those may be their last SR lineup offering before Altec disappeared forever... Some could be in the Altec Library here (e.g. 9864, 9894), while others are not.

Richard

Good find! I knew about the coax can speakers, but not the one in the same Sx-series cabinet. The Altec duplex drivers in that would have sounded far smoother!

[1audiohack]

I have never seen him or any of them over here. I have met Ivan but don’t know him at all. Doug however is an age old friend of mine.

I am glad you are here. You have lots of interesting stuff.

Barry.

[Flamingo]

I have never seen him or any of them over here. I have met Ivan but don’t know him at all. Doug however is an age old friend of mine.

I am glad you are here. You have lots of interesting stuff.

Barry.

Thanks for the welcome, Barry. I've never met Professor Jones, but have read a great many of his articles and dealer communications. He must be a real kick to be around!

Most of my interactions with Danley have been through Mike Hedden, Joel Moak, and seeing Ivan and Tom post on the SAC (Syn-Aud-Con) forum. Following some of those discussions is the proverbial drink from the Stanley Spadowski firehose!

Brad

[RMC]

RE "might also have a look at similarly inspired JBL 4660a..."

Yup, agreed.

RE "And they still have, as I recall, Vari-intense indoor speakers"

Pdf below shows EV's version similar to the 4660

EV EVC-1122-VI_Vari-intense_indoor_Datasheet_51_en_27960471307.pdf

[sguttag]

I still use the EVI-28 in cinema applications (for surrounds) when I have very wide (or perhaps very long) cinemas or balconies to avoid deafening people near the speaker while getting good coverage across the room. The Varintense horn (and how the LF shading is done too) allows for the even coverage...including with low ceiling heights.

[RMC]

Hi Sguttag,

Nice to hear such feedback from an actual user. This ain't over yet...

RE "I think I have more info about the Vari-intense/Variplex horns but I'd need to dig in my stuff to see..."

I did look into my paper audio files last night and found some more Vari-intense horn material. Coming shortly...

Richard

[RMC]

While on Altec Lansing subject I take the opportunity to show other SR systems from their DTS Series, like the DTS-200 shown in my previous post. They're not necessarily Vari-intense loaded, and don't seem to hear much about them in LH Forum.

1rst pic Altec ad in Systems Contractor News Magazine with some indications of target market

2nd & 3rd pics from the DTS Series Brochure

4th pic is the clearest one I have showing inside the bass horn up to Duplex woofer

Others on the way...

Richard

[RMC]

This is a 3-part post re Vari-intense speakers

First pic Altec add in Systems Contractor News Magazine, Aug. 1997

[RMC]

This time the 9864A/9894A. These being sort of "flagship" models in the series

They're pretty much the same except for HF horn coverage pattern

Note the use of versions of Altec's 515 and 299 drivers at bottom left of spec sheet

Also the bass horn with reflex porting extends LF to 50hz not really lower than that. As seen inside spec sheet the low range response shape is similar to say JBL 2220 in 4550 or 4560 boxes

Others coming...

Richard

[RMC]

Altec Vari-intense Brochure (partly pictured)

[RMC]

DTS Spec Sheets on-hand for the larger systems

Then Data sheets I have for the smaller ones

Note on third pic the Petal-shaped horn on the DTS-99

One more pic to come

Richard