joining the 20th century

[althepal1]

i'm hoping to avoid frying stuff with a rusty brain. i've been away from audio since '81. i am trying to learn if i'm about to cook some new to me crossovers and drivers. i bought a BGW 750D (200wRMS@8/side) to drive a JBL2226H (8 ohm) in a JBL cube with a Altec 299 (8 ohm) crossed at 500hz though an Altec N501 (rated at 100w capacity). can anyone offer some guidance?

[Mr. Widget]

Welcome to the LH Forum.

The parts you mention are potentially somewhat compatible. Hooked up properly and not driving the amp excessively, you should be able to play around with these parts and not fear damaging them.

Now, turning these parts into a well rounded system that you’ll enjoy listening too will take care and some experimentation. I doubt that crossover network will be the ideal network for those components, but it’ll get you started. What horn will you be using on your 299 drivers? To crossover as low as 500Hz, you need a very large horn. Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s Altec and JBL offered a lot of 15” woofer and compression driver systems that crossed over at 500Hz using horns that were far too small to sound good at that low of a frequency. I think this is partly why many people think of horn systems as being shouty and too harsh sounding. Well designed modern horn based systems typically do not sound like horns. If your 299 drivers are up to spec, they can sound very, very good, but implementation is everything.


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[althepal1]

thanks for replying. i'm Very new at forums and such. any thoughts on horns? i used JBLs (?#) and Community way back when but neither seems to be found any more.

[RMC]

Hi althepal1,

Don't under estimate the BGW amp's power (200 w 8 ohms).

The 750D is somewhat more powerful than you indicated, according to Specs table below taken from the Owner's Manual. It doesn't mean a large difference in terms of db output but still worth knowing for speaker protection for example.

The D/E version is actually rated 250/400/800W, with dynamic power output even higher as shown.

The B/C version was rated 225/360/720 and one B/C unit was factory measured at 262+/440+/886W also shown below. Unfortunately, I don't have such a factory test for a 750D unit.

However, a D version might actually do over 275/450/900 W...

In case you need or want a pdf copy of the original owner's manual let me know. Some good stuff in there. Regards,

Richard


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[Mr. Widget]

any thoughts on horns? I am not personally familiar with the Altec 299 drivers... by all accounts they are very good, but to get the most out of them you’ll need to get a compatible horn with a low cut off frequency, you will also likely want a UHF driver to achieve a better top end.


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