A 4414 is born!

[jackgiff]

I was sitting in my shop refoaming my fourth LE14A, when it suddenly hit me. Why not go ahead and build a 4414, since there are enough parts laying around. I have only one Lancer 99 cabinet so far, but mech986 (Bart) is going to send me another when he gets home from the road, and the pair of them will be given to my brewer, after being finished and reveneered.

I bought a pair of crossovers from an L80, and plan to use them for building Johns 4414's. They don't have any provision for using LPads, as does the 4412 crossover. They sound very well balanced at first go. I haven't measured them yet, because the cabinet is not tuned. I removed the port tube, and installed the midrange in it's place. The hole for the tweeter was enlarged with a sabre saw (kind of roughly, I might add). The cabinet is using the hole where the crossover/input connector plate was as a port. I need to get the cabinet to work and use their drill press and my fly cutter to move the port to the back of the chassis.

It sounds pretty good as is, but will surely improve when tuned. And if any adjustments are necessary to match the LE14A to the mid/hi stuff in place of the 127-H1, that will be a fun excercise.

Now I need to sell some more stuff to finance my hobby.

[briang]

I think that is pretty damn cool...:cheers:

[duaneage]

I want to try this with 2214 woofers.

[jackgiff]

The 104H-2 needs to be enclosed in an 80 cubic inch subenclosure, and since the S99 cabinet is getting pretty small for the LE14, I didn't want to give up that much space. Another DIY thread answered my query. Since the back panel is sunk 3/8 inch behind the sides, another back panel which is routed to fit the 3/8 depth could be glued and screwed on over the existing back, which could then mostly be cut away. This gives about 158 cubic inches inside the cabinet, allowing a net gain of about 78 cubic inches, rather than a loss of 80. And it only adds 3/8 inches to the cabinet depth. Besides 4412's are veneered on the back, as this one will now be.

The 4 inch port was removed from the front, and put on the rear directly behind the tweeter, since that spot gives more depth inside than anywhere else. And a new speaker input plate was also added, since the Lancer 99 xover went away. The new xover was screwed to the back, and another 2 inch thick layer of fibreglass was added, to fool the LE14 into thinking it was in a larger cabinet.

The new xovers, mids, and tweets all came from an L80 and should be tuned to each other, since the speaker connections are all keyed m/f to the xover wires. A dip at about 6 KHz makes me wonder if the phasing connections are correct, but I haven't opened the cabinet yet to see. Also wonder about the cabinet tuning, since the woofer goes quite low, but doesn't have much from 30-80 HZ. With the woofer/mid xover at 800 HZ, it appears the LE14A's response matches the 127H-1 from the L80 pretty nicely.

Bart (mech986) is going to sell me another S99 cabinet, and it will mirror image this one. They should make a nice pair of 4414's for my good friend John.

[Zilch]

The notch at ~6kHz may be a measurement artifact, Jack.

With clustered drivers, it's difficult to know where to aim the mic. Try moving it left to right and I believe you'll see the notch vary.

For better coherency, pull back to 2M and see if the situation isn't different. :dont-know

Looks like you'll want to pad down the tweeter a bit for better mid/high balance.... :yes:

[Robh3606]

Hello Jack

So your hooked eh??? If you get ambitious you may want to drop that LE-14 into a larger box. That set-up reminds me more of the L240ti than anything else. That may be a place to look for any network changes. Looks like you tweeter level is up a bit. I would drop it and try reversing phase. Zilch is right the notch could be an artifact but the level diferences certainly don't look that way.

http://manuals.harman.com/JBL/HOM/Technical%20Sheet/240Ti%20ts.pdf

Rob:)

[jackgiff]

Hello Jack

So your hooked eh??? If you get ambitious you may want to drop that LE-14 into a larger box.
http://manuals.harman.com/JBL/HOM/Technical%20Sheet/240Ti%20ts.pdf

Rob:)

Hi Rob,

Yeah, I am hooked. The LE14A is a remarkable speaker. Speaking of larger boxes, see my thread about Storms Santana cabinets. They have a two way installed in them, and a pair of L55 cabinets can be seen, which will become my 4414's.

I have always loved Altec, and Trusonic, but the JBL stuff is something else again. How can anyone NOT love JBL?

[jackgiff]

I searched my stock of veneer, and discovered there was enough walnut to veneer Johns 4414's, and since it would probably go with his furnishings better than rosewood, they became walnut. The cabinet I bought from mech986 (Bart) was finished in black paint, but since some room was gained by modifying the back panel, they needed veneering anyway.

The only thing left to finish is adding black cloth to the lower part of the one grille from Bart, and drilling the new mounting rails for neodymium magnets, rather than the old style clips used by JBL. The magnets, purchased from Parts Express, fit perfectly in the old clip holes. The grille from Bart didn't have any mounting provisions, so I had to build duplicates of the JBL stuff. Piece of cake.

Here are some pix.

[Robh3606]

Hello Jack

Hey those look nice!

Rob:)

[UreiCollector]

Nice work! The new veneer makes such a hugh improvement. Cheers!