I rescued these from a cabinet at the curb in my neighborhood. 10"-11" woofer and horn tweeter in a sealed foam enclosure with an XO consisting of inductor, cap, and resistor. In great condition. Try drivers individually with real XO? Ported or sealed? Want to find out any info before I bust into the cab. Hoping Planet 10 Hifi will chime in. Thanks for any suggestions.
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I had a set of these years ago. The little horn is a Foster. I think the woofers were CTS. Good fun stuff to play with. Full range they are not, of course. It's a two way with simple crossover. Planet 10 Dave has probably owned a dozen of those. 🙂
This might be better in the multi-way forum.
This might be better in the multi-way forum.
Thanks for your reply. I started out in Full Range because Planet 10 Dave frequents this forum most. If it belongs in multi-way that's fine. I don't know how to move it.
Let's tag Dave so the he sees this.
@planet10 you've worked with these, right?
I thought the ones I had were 12", but I could be wrong. There were used in my fist OB speaker and they were terrible. Really not suited to that job at all - and also I didn't not at all understand OB crossovers at the time.
The Foster horns are decent, if used right. I threw mine at quite a few different projects. A friend of mine made a horizontal tweeter array out of a doxen them to sit on top of his big Altec Multi-cell horns. They sounded good! Measured well, too.
@planet10 you've worked with these, right?
I thought the ones I had were 12", but I could be wrong. There were used in my fist OB speaker and they were terrible. Really not suited to that job at all - and also I didn't not at all understand OB crossovers at the time.
The Foster horns are decent, if used right. I threw mine at quite a few different projects. A friend of mine made a horizontal tweeter array out of a doxen them to sit on top of his big Altec Multi-cell horns. They sounded good! Measured well, too.
Must be from a much later console than the various brands/models I scavenged as historically [mostly pre late '50's] they came with just a 2.2 uF? cap regardless of driver/horn size.
Regardless, the ~sealed foam box tells the tale, i.e. some form of ~aperiodic and short of measuring full T/S specs, personally would go 'old school' and find actual woofer Fs after some [re] break-in and choose the box size/tuning based on this chart and damp to 'taste' 😉 same as me and many DIYers did way back when: Altec '60s cab design
I was experimenting with 8" woofers (Dayton RS225-8 and Visaton w200S) in another thread but decided to use these vintage 12" Magnavox woofers with Michael Chua's recommended Pyle PDS442/Dayton H70E combo. Went with a 2.2 cf
ported box. (about as big as I could move around) Used an XO from an old Econowave thread on AudioKarma. Sound pretty good. Just got my Magnavox 9300 series 6BQ5 amp back from being modded with Dave Gillespie mods.
ported box. (about as big as I could move around) Used an XO from an old Econowave thread on AudioKarma. Sound pretty good. Just got my Magnavox 9300 series 6BQ5 amp back from being modded with Dave Gillespie mods.
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The Magnavox speakers i had thru here were all out of consoles.
That speaker box looks interesting. Can you do some more pictures? Definitly tweakable for better performance.
What do the back of the drivers (and the numbers on them) look like? I have seen the Foster horn Michael mentions, basically a clone of a popular Jensen.
I still have some of the smaller ones with the same driver.
dave
That speaker box looks interesting. Can you do some more pictures? Definitly tweakable for better performance.
What do the back of the drivers (and the numbers on them) look like? I have seen the Foster horn Michael mentions, basically a clone of a popular Jensen.
I still have some of the smaller ones with the same driver.
dave
Looks good! You might want to try the Foster horns, they are better than you might expect. Somewhere I have FRD and ZMA files for them.
My cabinet dimensions are 30" h, 15" t, 11 1/2" d. Approximately 2.2 cf. My ports are 2" id by 4" long. Attached is a pic
of bracing and lining. I used cheap "found in the neighborhood" plywood and Duratexed it all. Everything is done by guesswork but cab dimensions are based on what I had available and (after triple hernia surgery) what I could move around. To quote Monty Python "I'm not dead yet" The woofers are alnico and have cloth surrounds unlike the earlier Magnavox that had the paper accordion surrounds built into the cone. I ran them in on FM C&W to loosen them up before installing them and also put two coats of thinned Modpodge on the woofers. I found the Foster horns to be bright and strident and was going to offer them to others. I don't like bright. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here's the Econowave XO I used. Thanks!
of bracing and lining. I used cheap "found in the neighborhood" plywood and Duratexed it all. Everything is done by guesswork but cab dimensions are based on what I had available and (after triple hernia surgery) what I could move around. To quote Monty Python "I'm not dead yet" The woofers are alnico and have cloth surrounds unlike the earlier Magnavox that had the paper accordion surrounds built into the cone. I ran them in on FM C&W to loosen them up before installing them and also put two coats of thinned Modpodge on the woofers. I found the Foster horns to be bright and strident and was going to offer them to others. I don't like bright. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here's the Econowave XO I used. Thanks!
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I'm a sucker for the looks of a simple large woofer + horn on top, so I give you high marks on that front!
That and for putting to use perfectly serviceable old gear. 👍
That and for putting to use perfectly serviceable old gear. 👍
Here is the impulse response of an old Foster horn that I pulled from a Magnavox console. You should be able to import it into REW, ARTA or HOLM to have a look.
You'll see that it drops like a stone under 900Hz. What you might not be able to see is distortion, which is mostly 2nd order and very high under 2 kHz.
You'll see that it drops like a stone under 900Hz. What you might not be able to see is distortion, which is mostly 2nd order and very high under 2 kHz.
Thanks so much for the specs. Sadly, I'm not able to figure our measuring/simulating programs. Almost 70 and that
ship has already sailed. But, I am able to copy other's designs. I compared the Foster horns with the Pyles that Michael
Chua recommended and I think I'll stick with the Pyles. I'm enjoying these with the 12" Magnavox woofers. If you or anyone else would like the Fosters to play with, let me know. I'll box 'em up and ship. Thanks again for your thoughfulness.
ship has already sailed. But, I am able to copy other's designs. I compared the Foster horns with the Pyles that Michael
Chua recommended and I think I'll stick with the Pyles. I'm enjoying these with the 12" Magnavox woofers. If you or anyone else would like the Fosters to play with, let me know. I'll box 'em up and ship. Thanks again for your thoughfulness.
Magnavox brochures and advertizing usually mentioned their consoles having "One thousand cycle horns", obviously having that as a crossover frequency.
I never liked those horns - metallic, tinny, harsh sounding.
Yes, they don't play well that low. Above 2kHz they are much better. No blue ribbon winner, but much better.
I also owned/burned up more than a dozen of the 4x10.5" Japanese made Foster horns distributed through Radio Shack in the 1970s, but older Magnavox horns were made in the USA by Heppner, the tooling later bought by Klipsch.
The Heppner part number included a 575 in them, and may be considerably deeper, 11" compared to 7.75", so have a lower cutoff frequency than the later Foster.
Wish I had known the diaphragms could be replaced back then..
Ewww!
I tossed out a bunch of those lousy Magnavox horns for recycling.
Never could stand them.
The customer thanked me once they heard their console stereos with decent tweeters.
I tossed out a bunch of those lousy Magnavox horns for recycling.
Never could stand them.
The customer thanked me once they heard their console stereos with decent tweeters.
I had a friend used a row of them on top of his multicell ex-cinema rig as tweeters. They sounded pretty good and did a nice job of imitating the coverage of the big horns. They were crossed high, north of 6K IIRC. So they do have some uses. 🙂
Yeah, but those horns RING! (metal horns)
They ring like a prostitute's doorbell if you even tap on them.
Hold one in your hand by the driver, and try tapping a screwdriver handle on them.
They ring like a prostitute's doorbell if you even tap on them.
Hold one in your hand by the driver, and try tapping a screwdriver handle on them.
They do ring, which might be a lot of what makes them sound so awful down in the 1.5K-3K octave. Up above that, maybe not so much? I should look at the impulse response to see. They never will be stellar, that's for sure. I've seen a few of the Heppners, but have owned only the Fosters.