Oh Golly Gee

Re: Oh Golly Gee

Mark DeArman said:
I put this on AV install nightmares on facebook also. We rented a venue to host some slide shows for our Pacific NW camera clubs. See attached photo for the mains left/right setup we got. No HF, No LF. It was pretty bad. I felt sorry for the presenters. Yikes.

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And somebody got paid to do that install-----------------------

My guess is that it was done many years ago (judging from the vintage of the cabinet), and at least it has made sound for a couple of decades.

That is a good thing.

Now what it sounds like (probably just fine for vocal-which was the intended original design) and coverage wise- is a different story.
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Ivan Beaver said:
And somebody got paid to do that install-----------------------

My guess is that it was done many years ago (judging from the vintage of the cabinet), and at least it has made sound for a couple of decades.

That is a good thing.

Now what it sounds like (probably just fine for vocal-which was the intended original design) and coverage wise- is a different story.
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I have a saying about bad monitors (or speakers in general): "They're really feedback resistant, because they completely lack any frequency response."
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Max Warasila said:
I just feel bad for JR.
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Why... It doesn't bother me to see speakers still in service that are older than many of the posters here. :-)

The aluminum extrusions are iconic Peavey, but it looks like somebody may have removed the logo.

Those speakers predate my employment there and I quit almost 15 years ago, so I am not a spokesman or apologist. I manly speak up to counter ignorant claims. Several manufacturers made column speakers for fixed sound reinforcement and those apparently worked well enough, long enough to still be in service.

I have seen some very old soldiers hanging from dive bar ceilings down on bourbon street... I rather see an old Peavey box than some cheesy hifi speakers mis-applied.

JR
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Someone on facebook mentioned there was supposed to be a horn in there. Looking at the photo it looks like it is just four 10s or 12s. I would assume there was a xover in there around 900Hz since there was absolutely NO HF. I have listened to some of our old McCauley 15" drivers with the aluminum dust cap at a local bar, and although they are terrible sounding full range, you can at least make out what is being said. These drivers should have been much lighter, smaller size and smaller VC. Was there supposed to be a HF unit to go with these?
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Mark DeArman said:
Someone on facebook mentioned there was supposed to be a horn in there. Looking at the photo it looks like it is just four 10s or 12s. I would assume there was a xover in there around 900Hz since there was absolutely NO HF. I have listened to some of our old McCauley 15" drivers with the aluminum dust cap at a local bar, and although they are terrible sounding full range, you can at least make out what is being said. These drivers should have been much lighter, smaller size and smaller VC. Was there supposed to be a HF unit to go with these?
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I repeat I was not there then, and am not defending the sound of those vs modern speakers. Just impressed to see them still in service.

As far as I can gather from a Peavey history those look like a 4x12" column from early '70s. There was a 2x15" model with a horn, and in the mid '70s Peavey sold stand alone tweeter units.

JR
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

John Roberts said:
I repeat I was not there then, and am not defending the sound of those vs modern speakers.
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Haha, no defense needed. It was an INSTALL nightmare, I'm not ragging on column speakers or the manufacture! You could make pretty much any speaker sound 'good enough' for what we needed. But as I suspected, missing the HF unit, and with a LPF on these boxes, this install had no hope.
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Mark DeArman said:
Haha, no defense needed. It was an INSTALL nightmare, I'm not ragging on column speakers or the manufacture! You could make pretty much any speaker sound 'good enough' for what we needed. But as I suspected, missing the HF unit, and with a LPF on these boxes, this install had no hope.
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There were similar column speakers made by other companies. IIRC Bozak made some column speakers back in the day. When I was discussing a small portable PA project with Hartley in the context if using multiple same sized drivers, he mentioned his old Peavey column speakers that were apparently a successful product for him at the time.

(Note: I did not use a bunch of same size mid-range speakers like one successful competitor. My version used a proper woof and tweet.)

JR
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Mark DeArman said:
Haha, no defense needed. It was an INSTALL nightmare, I'm not ragging on column speakers or the manufacture! You could make pretty much any speaker sound 'good enough' for what we needed. But as I suspected, missing the HF unit, and with a LPF on these boxes, this install had no hope.
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I highly doubt there is anything missing.

There is no room for a horn or tweeters in that cabinet-as far as I can tell. I have some old Peavey catalogs from that era and the ones with tweeters were taller and there was space for it.

I have never seen a Peavey 4x12 (or 4x10) that had a horn in it.

yes some had 3 or 4 piezo tweeters-but even in that case there was no lowpass on the woofers.

They are basically guitar speakers-so had a decent HF response on their own. The tweeters just added some sparkle.

Typically there was never a crossover-sometimes a series resistor on the piezos to help keep the extreme HF impedance from dropping to low and harming the amps of the day.
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Ivan Beaver said:
I highly doubt there is anything missing.

There is no room for a horn or tweeters in that cabinet-as far as I can tell. I have some old Peavey catalogs from that era and the ones with tweeters were taller and there was space for it.

I have never seen a Peavey 4x12 (or 4x10) that had a horn in it.

yes some had 3 or 4 piezo tweeters-but even in that case there was no lowpass on the woofers.

They are basically guitar speakers-so had a decent HF response on their own. The tweeters just added some sparkle.

Typically there was never a crossover-sometimes a series resistor on the piezos to help keep the extreme HF impedance from dropping to low and harming the amps of the day.
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While this is probably TMI from looking at product lists I think there was an EV driver option... FWIW

JR
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Gene Hardage said:
LAWD! Raise your hand if you ever sang through one of Hartley's original BIG KNOB boards! This item looks like 10's or 12's sans piezos.
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Here is one that I made my desk out of.
With some HIGHLY modified Kustom speakers for computer monitors. I only have a 2400 watt/ch amp on them right now---------
 

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Re: Oh Golly Gee

Mike Pyle said:
Are you copying a JTR design there Ivan? :p
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I have wanted to do this to a pair of 4x12" Kustoms since around 1997. I saw a pair in a Church I was working in and fell back in love with the look.

They are not cheap to come by-and I found a pair that would be great to modify. I have a blue pair with matching head that I want to keep original-in my collection.

Those are some reconed lab 12s in the bottom and a B&C large coax for the mid/high.

The amplitude and phase response is VERY good with a passive network I designed.

They stun everybody who hears them.
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Nice Ivan

Did you put all that stuff in so it can be removed without trace - or did you brutally glue them walls in...?


Years ago I had complete VOX-pa-system - a four-channel 100W transistor amp with spring reverb and two 4x12 boxes with serial numbers 19 & 21 - I ended selling it to someone after he made me an offer that was way too high to resist...

It sounded horrible anyways so it was good riddance then.

I had a plan to put modern stuff inside using plywood panels mounted on original speaker bolts - so it would be fully reversible. Then I planned to do the same with the amp - put in some 600W with small digital reverb - finally use an old shure 55 with some high quality capsel inside ( I´ve built few of those )

Then I would have fun playing it to people and hearing them say : "Oh well - they don´t make them as good now as they used to back in good old days."


Of course YOU could put SBH-10 in some old columns to drop jaws ...
 
Re: Oh Golly Gee

Even better, how about if DSL offered custom roll and pleated sparkle tolex as an optional finish for select models, it would at least be cool at trade shows. Long ago when visiting the Kustom factory(when it was in Chanute) one of the techs had a red sparkle roll and pleated (crt) oscilloscope on his test bench.
 
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