My Voice of the Theater Speakers Featured on Sound & Vision

[Deleted member 133]

I've since come to my senses and replaced my A7s with some RadioShack Minimus 7s I found on Ebay. Awesome. Just awesome!

I'm still struggling though to blend the 4" woofers in the Minimus 7s with the four JBL 18" subs. So far I've had to set the sub to woofer crossover to 300Hz......

You obviously need to upgrade your subs!

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

You obviously need to upgrade your subs!

Yes, quite obviously.

 

[Dentman]

Great article, congrats.
Question; why did you choose to go so far in modifying those A7's in the first place? Was it simply because it's what you had and wanted to see what could be achieved with them? Or did you just know they had lots to offer with much tweaking?
Would you do it again this way from the start, or would you start off with diffrent speakers this time around?

 

[Bote]

Great set up! May i ask if that box is in anyway similar to the w box used to house woofers used in mobile disco rigs? It seems to me the shape and design is similar. Reason i asked is i used to own 4 of them w boxes way back. If it is at all similar i never knew it was a great design.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The A-7 series was mis-used in a lot of applications, disco probably among them, but the biggest offender was its use as a PA speaker, for which it was not suited. It was designed in the 1950s as a motion picture speaker for behind-screen use, and it was also heavily used as a recording studio monitor out in the actual studio area where the musicians played.

Here is an image of Universal Recording in 1957 where you can see an A-7 at the right of the frame:

 

[Bote]

T

The A-7 series was mis-used in a lot of applications, disco probably among them, but the biggest offender was its use as a PA speaker, for which it was not suited. It was designed in the 1950s as a motion picture speaker for behind-screen use, and it was also heavily used as a recording studio monitor out in the actual studio area where the musicians played.

Here is an image of Universal Recording in 1957 where you can see an A-7 at the right of the frame:

Thanks. So it is at least a little similar in terms of use if not the design. I used 15 inch jbls before and the power was really awesome. One can feel the bass thump from one end of a basketball court to the other.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Bass was not the A-7s strong point for a variety of reasons. It only goes down to 60Hz before response takes a dive. But huge bass extension was not the goal of the speaker's design.

 

[Wardsweb]

I ran a pair of modified A7's for years. The 511B horns with the 802-8G drivers in my main speakers came from my A7's.