Re: Living History?
I built one of those straight horns in the late Seventies. The PA shop for which I was an apprentice cabinet builder was commissioned to build a mate for one removed from the Ohio Theatre in Lima, Ohio. I don't remember why the customer wanted another of those monsters or where it ended up.
It's hard to see in the images, but the horn design had a radial flare that was composed of pie-shaped wedges of a dense cardboard-like sheet product. We made paper templates that tracked the flare across its axial points and used layers of 1/4" plywood over curved forms -- the same way we built copies of JBL 4560s and 4550s. I do remember the cross brace in front of the drivers; it was an odd dimension like a 2x3 or something like that. It stuck in my mind that it was not typical dimensional lumber.
I think we loaded it with JBL 2220s or maybe EV EVM 15Ls. I'm not sure what drivers were used, but it sounded pretty good to my young ears. It's hard to say why it had to be so goddamned big.
Coincidentally, the same guy I worked for had some of the RCA W-bins, too. It was the only way you could squeeze any thump out of the Crown DC300As and 100 watt EVM woofers he used back in 1978 - 1979. We used to recone drivers as often as most people change their socks.
And that's enough for now about the Olden Days.
I built one of those straight horns in the late Seventies. The PA shop for which I was an apprentice cabinet builder was commissioned to build a mate for one removed from the Ohio Theatre in Lima, Ohio. I don't remember why the customer wanted another of those monsters or where it ended up.
It's hard to see in the images, but the horn design had a radial flare that was composed of pie-shaped wedges of a dense cardboard-like sheet product. We made paper templates that tracked the flare across its axial points and used layers of 1/4" plywood over curved forms -- the same way we built copies of JBL 4560s and 4550s. I do remember the cross brace in front of the drivers; it was an odd dimension like a 2x3 or something like that. It stuck in my mind that it was not typical dimensional lumber.
I think we loaded it with JBL 2220s or maybe EV EVM 15Ls. I'm not sure what drivers were used, but it sounded pretty good to my young ears. It's hard to say why it had to be so goddamned big.
Coincidentally, the same guy I worked for had some of the RCA W-bins, too. It was the only way you could squeeze any thump out of the Crown DC300As and 100 watt EVM woofers he used back in 1978 - 1979. We used to recone drivers as often as most people change their socks.
And that's enough for now about the Olden Days.
