Altec A5 versus A7 Voice of the Theater (VOTT) Systems: comparing Frank Sinatra's classic "Chicago"

Thank you ,very nice .I have some 811 I play with . is that a t-35 or t-350 I see . thanks

We want to add some information to our viewers on the specifics of each speaker.
A5
825 cabinets - Added 2'x2" bracing to the cabinets to improve structural integrity. Stiffened the short horn by gluing 3/4"x1" wood strips behind them.
1005B Altec multicell horns, Altec throat adaptors
Altec mounting brackets
288-16G compression drivers
16 ohm diaphragms from Great Plains Audio
515-8G Woofers
1285B crossovers set to 500Hz, recapped using Jantzen Superior Z series.

A7
825 cabinets - Added 2'x2" bracing to the cabinets to improve structural integrity. Stiffened the short horn by gluing 3/4"x1" wood strips behind them.
511B Altec sector horns
808-8A Compression drivers
8 ohm aluminum diaphragms from Great Plains Audio, replacing the original symbiotiks
416-8A Woofers
Original N809A crossovers replaced with Jean Hiraga's 16/8 crossovers from Sound Practices article. I know its wrong but the results are good. More can done in the future for sure.

Would be interested to hear about your experiences with amplifier matching with Altec's in a future episode. My first and only foray into horns is with Altec 19's... and while searches on audio forums would have you believe they are SET amp friendly, I have not found that to be the case. I'd love to hear a deep dive on Altec speakers that are SET friendly, if there is such a thing.

Fantastic job guys! Loved hearing the two speaker systems through exactly the same set up. I tried to match up amp, pre-amp, DAC and sub woofer to get the most out of my La Scala home built speakers. I wasn't in the position to test different boxes as my wife would no doubt object to the cost and mess (the sound system is in our living/dinning/kitchen room). As you mention, there is a lot of knowledge out there on the Internet and I tried to use it as best as I could. I can switch my pre-amp (Schiit Freya) from solid state to tube, and you do notice a boost in mid's and I think sound stage as well. Looking at what you've got in that room....well its very impressive! Thanks for the listen, sounded great!

Keep it comin'......

i find my JBL c56 work best in a bigger room and standing far back from themor the horns are a little harsh maybe?...i love all your gear....subscribed too

That A7 sounded fantastic. So much more natural and well balanced. I could hear a ton of reverb on Frank's voice that didn't come through on the first speaker at all. I think Frank Sinatra mostly recorded at Capitol Records in Hollywood and I believe they used two-way JBL monitors in those days. Thank you guys for the sound comparison. It was so much fun and brought back such good memories.

That's not Chicago music, come on. Marshall Jefferson is Chicargo Music.

Wow

For many years the A 7 with a sub woffer was the main stay of my out door show sound system. I also improved the bracing in the bass cabinets. By my estimation neither the long side and back panels were stiff enough or the folds of the mid bass horn. I also manipulated the enclosure tuning to better match the woffer I was using. Its paramerers were close to those of the 416 series but it had a different resonate frequency and could handle a lot more continuis power. The system was run tri amped with crown and phase linear solid state power amps and crossed over with Furman active cross overs set at 100 Hz second order for subs to bass and 1khz second order for bass to Hf horn. I know the Hf cross over is higher than what Altec traditionally used but I felt the system had a fuller warmer sound on axis and I am aware that in the extreme off axis area a slight dip in the mid range would be noticed. Even with the slight dip overall the system was one of the best sounding in my area and was efficient enough to handle relatively large areas with a miniscule (by most standards of the 90's) 1900 watts. I wish I kept that system on the road unfortunately I slowly switched to the then hot EAW KF 850 power hogs almost 8 kw to do what the Voice of the Theatre did with 1900 Watts.

What about ribbon tweeters

I much perfer the A7s!

I am a novice at this. I have a question if the sides of the woofer are cut off by the bass horn does that interfer with the sound dispersion?

You lose the advantage of the Electrovoice t350 if you don't cross it over at 3500 hz as this is where it gets its grip.
Crossed over at 15000hz renders it useless and at that point you might as well just send them to me😅

Have you heard of the Peet Riggle crossovers? He’s out of Washington state.

Listening with Klipsch headphones. Was wondering if you could clarify, the A5's were played first? With the larger horn and the additional EV tweeter? If that's correct, I could really hear a difference. The T350 made it much brighter. I have the ST 350 (next gen after T350) which I think is a bit smoother.

I just found a build schematic for the A7 cabinet. I'm thinking of doing a half-scale version with "close-as-online-offers" drivers at half the size.

The A7 sounded crystal clear.

Nice to discover this channel.. Hi Tom.. I’ve been reading your informative posts and had exchanges with you over at High Eff AA for the last 20 something years, but I haven’t been active in AA for a decade now.. Just subbed..

Great job gents.

Maybe 50 years ago I stumbled across a dark mahogany cabinet similar to A7's with the 511 horn with living room grill cloth. The crossovers were labeled Hollywood Sound Products, or something like that, The speakers allegedly were built for and came out of the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and were originally installed for the movie Windjammer in Cinemiracle back in the 1950's. I had 1 of them in my bedroom at parent's house. ( Talk about over the top speakers for a bedroom!). When I later sold it my brother hooked them up to the ear piece output from a cheap transistor radio (the kind that would fit in a shirt pocket) and got reasonably loud and clean sound out of it. Love those old Altec's !

Is that A5 with stock crossover other than the EV supertweeter? Upper-midrange sounds bit forward.

I wonder if there would be any difference if they were placed on the floor versus on carts with casters. The carts probably decouple them.

Not sure if T530 have been time phased aligned where they are mounted, are they?

A guy here had a pair of A7s we played gigs all over the place with them. For PA now I've got modern JBL's with neo magnets-they sound good too. Thanks for the info!

The horn on the LF is tuned to mid bass 200hz to project voice into the cinema. A 50w tube amp fills the whole theater.

A7 for me, thanks. I do recall my first conscious encounter with A7s as a teenager, in the front room of TEAM Electronics in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. They had just arrived, and I suspect they were a special order as there was little space for them in their listening room where Dahlquist DQ-10s had the place of honor, flanked by newcomer Polk 10s. The salesman honored us undeservedly by putting on Baba O'Reilly, my first encounter with Who's Next, though I was already slavishly devoted to Tommy despite the profound shortcomings of my pathetic Radio Shack compact system. Cheers!

I have A5's with 416Bs, 311/90s with 291-16Bs with a 288 diaphragm. Running with Marchand active crossover. Phil Marchand developed a special card to simulate the Hiraga filter and I was running with it for years and was happy until I watched your video where you pulled your Hiraga filter out so I tried that....OMG what was missing all those years! The sad part is that we are downsizing and the Altec just won't fit (damn it!). I might just bring them to see the neighbors jaws drop! Anyway thanks for some great vids!

Your storage area has some very cool stuff laying around. It could be defined as a Horn guys hidden treasure trove. I saw JBL 2404s on a back shelf during the Frank rendition of Chicago. Were the EV 350 playing during the A5 demo? Curious what is yours and Quinn’s (sp?) take on the 2404? I know they hood their dispersion pattern pretty decently into the upper regions, even though they use a plastic diaphragm.

Grand speakers, very nice.

Can I get the brand of the crossovers for the A5? Thanks in advance. Was it John Araga?

If you guys ever get a chance to try out an MR594 (or the MR594II) on your A5, give them a good listen. When you walk anywhere within their coverage, you'll find that they are VERY consistent. I was putting Altec A5 into cinemas until the very end (and then some...into the 2000s, for sure) but I would definitely use the Mantaray horns (even the larger MR94 on the 828 cabinet).

In the video you talk about installing the Hiraga type crossover on the A7s and say that it sounds great. Could you post your parts list for your crossovers and where you sourced them?
Then I notice in a comment below someone saying that in one of your videos you remove the Hiraga crossover and like the sound better. I'm curious to hear your current thoughts.
One thought I have is that the Hiraga crossover was not designed for the A7, it was designed for the A5, with a completely different horn. IMHO it was designed to address a performance parameter in the A5 system that is not present in an identical way in the A7. It will change the sound of an A7, and you might prefer it, but that is a change, not necessarily an improvement. Maybe I'm just trying to avoid having to upgrade my stock crossovers in my A7s. The sound very good.

I can actually hear what they sound like this time, but mine have mantaray horns

Both speakers sound good; I could not hear a difference. Midrange great on both: "Old Blue Eyes" never sounded better!

Marvelous! But they won't fit it my house! I'm loving this channel guys. thanks!