My "New" 4345 Clones

[Triumph Don]

Let me be the first, ah, I TOLD YA SO! Horn thing, you know. Your tweaking has just started and with a cat like you it will never end. Enjoy the ride, and get rid of the bottom feeder thing on your avitar. You will need cash for some upgrades soon, very soon, so i will make your life less complicated and spacious and come pick up one of your pairs of L7's, OK?

[hjames]

Yeah, uh-huh!! The birthday present that keeps on giving!

I can tell you are gonna have GREAT fun with them!
Congratulations AGAIN ...

Enjoy your Sunday -

H O R N S ...!

After two weeks with the 4345s sitting in the van, the forecast was for 50º yesterday. No one home. Looked like a good time to rearrange the living room.
...
O.M.G.!
...
Right out-of-the-box, I'd say they're probably the best speakers I've ever heard. Ever. Very sweet sound.
...
Did I say they were huge?

[Fred Sanford]

It's only just begun...

je

[JBLRaiser]

Thanks!

[hjames]

It's only just begun...

je

Okay, Phil KNOWS its coming, so


I'll play devil's advocate ...

[BMWCCA]

Okay, Phil KNOWS its coming, so

Believe me, you're not missing anything.

Still have to find a spot for the old 030's, and try and find a place for the old TV without resorting to buying a new flat-screen wall-hanging. And my wife decided she couldn't live without some 30" African drum in a cast-iron frame with a 36" glass top turning it into a table. Doesn't she understand you can't just jam big stuff like that in a tiny room?

[hjames]

Believe me, you're not missing anything.

Still have to find a spot for the old 030's, and try and find a place for the old TV without resorting to buying a new flat-screen wall-hanging. And my wife decided she couldn't live without some 30" African drum in a cast-iron frame with a 36" glass top turning it into a table. Doesn't she understand you can't just jam big stuff like that in a tiny room?

No sympathy - WE found places for OUR African Drum collection!
(and for my old camera collection)
You just need taller rooms and higher shelves!

[Fred Sanford]

No sympathy - WE found places for OUR African Drum collection!
(and for my old camera collection)
You just need taller rooms and higher shelves!

Didn't know you collect old camera stuff, I've been sending all my stuff to a friend in NY as I uncover it. You missed a nice Voigtlander Baby Bessa a little while back. There's still more flash/filter stuff here, and maybe another stereo camera...I'll look around.

Surprisingly, no African drums here, though - weird. I'm slacking.

je

[hjames]

Didn't know you collect old camera stuff, I've been sending all my stuff to a friend in NY as I uncover it. You missed a nice Voigtlander Baby Bessa a little while back. There's still more flash/filter stuff here, and maybe another stereo camera...I'll look around.

Surprisingly, no African drums here, though - weird. I'm slacking.

je

That's already - I had been waiting years for Dad's old cameras, and when he was downsizing in prep for a move to a smaller house, he threw it all in the trash! I didn't find out until a couple weeks later ... lost an original leather SX-70 we gave him when they were new and a box camera like the one on my shelf - I found that on ebay a few months later to replace it ...

The Djembes and Talking drum are from "the House of Musical Traditions" in Takoma Park, MD - a VERY cool shop on the edge of DC ...
The big one throws a VERY nice low note in that room!

[BMWCCA]

Ran a quick sweep using the octave generator on a Neutrik MR-1. My ears insisted the low-end was too strong and the mids slightly deficient. Running the sweep with my ears and my wife's (neither of us calibrated) it seems I cut too much of the bass. Are recordings just this bass-heavy, or does it come from too many years of listening to a D130? When the Ashly is set to unity the octave tones roll off at the bottom pretty much (again, to our ears) like the JBL curve. It crosses over into the the mid-bass very smoothly, though if you mute either the LF or the HF you can see the roll-off at the crossover point is ridiculously gradual and both extend WELL into the range of the other. That was at "6" on the Ashly "response" dial. Moving it up to 7 had it roll-off quicker in both directions but the extension of each speaker into ranges far beyond either side of 290Hz was still eye-opening. Not sure yet which sounds better beyond just the sweep and we've not used a dB meter on anything yet. Seems to be some peakiness at 2k and again at 4k but that could be the room.

Is four-way maybe a bit of overkill? Where the 2405 is crossed, I'm sure it's adding some extension to the 2425J but that horn and driver combo seem quite capable of an incredible range on their own. The UHF is mostly operating in a range I can barely even hear anymore. The 2245H can play up higher than I'd ever expected, too. Seems like you could lose the mid-bass driver and not miss too much. But Heather would know; she's been-there, done-that.

I took the horns down -1 on the L-pads, everything else is flat. Then bumped them back up half-a-notch, but playing with those based on different source material is a losing proposition. I'm not using the EQ in the Soundcraftsmen since I don't have the 1/3-octave Pro-EQ-44 in this system yet and the DX4200 is only octave band. Still playing around without changing everything in the system.

It is amazing what this system will bring out in good recordings . . . and bad ones. Lizz Wright is one of my favorite young vocalist but her current producer, the vaunted Craig Street, has really stepped in it on her latest album. It sounds like a bad car stereo as it rolls down your street (hey, maybe that's what his name means?) and the fuzziness in the recording (certain tracks are far worse than others) isn't any better with these speakers. In fact on some cuts it's even more irritating. At least it vindicates the L7s! She sounds like she's singing through Derrek Trucks' guitar amp, if you know what I mean! He helped Norah Jones with a Grammy for her Come Away With Me, but notice how much better her recordings became when she dumped him, especially Not Too Late.

Four Play and Bill Evan's Quintessence sound as you'd expect them to: Exquisite! And this is on my living-room Sony carousel DVD player. Excuse me, I've got to go dial back the LF on the Ashly again. And this is at the lowest listening level I can handle, with no EQ!

What's playing now? David Sanborn's Upfront. I grew up swimming on a team with his younger sister. Never met David that I can recall, but I have a decent-enough collection of his CDs that never really got enough play. They sound pretty compelling now though.

I haven't stopped listening to music since I woke up this morning.

[hjames]

I haven't stopped listening to music since I woke up this morning.

he he he what a hoot -
You'll see ... ALL of your albums require these new ears.

Have you done Fourplay yet - or "Cousin Dupree" from Steely Dan - hell, any of the newer Steely Dan (even Aja) ought to be a revelation ...

Have you tried any of your Cello pieces?

[SMKSoundPro]

Always try Steely Dan! I use the opening drums and cymbals from "True Companion" of their greatest hits album. Second to the last track of LIVE Bodhistava(?). Its the nicest opening riff that builds to a gently weeping guitar and rhythm section.

That's where the 2405's shine!!!

Lisa and first danced to Fourplay. Sounds like you're doing fine!

Keep us posted as I am really interested in what you hear in the 4345's as compared to the others. I am running the 4345's with a pair of Yamaha P2100 and P2200 amps, and you're right, I had to back the amp input attenuators down to twelve o'clock to open up the gain structure from the preamp. I gave them some smiley face EQ from the DBX 2231, and then just hit the EQ Bypass button and adjusted the electronic xover and the L-Pads. Matt just stood there as I was tweaking l-pads and giving me the thumbs up or down sign.

I also wondered if the tens were working, so squelched them with their specific l-pad and heard quite a whole in the music. Narrow but definitely a whole. I agree that the 2122 seems overkill!

Thanks for posting and finally getting them out of the "7 passenger chariot of romance" and in the living room!

Can you please post some pictures of the handmade wooden 2308 lenses? I would like to try my hand at making some out of exotic hardwoods.

Keep listening!!!

"Once you go (JBL) BLUE (baffles) you never go black!!!"

(ie. L200b's, L100, 4311, 4312, 4411, L110, L56... etc.)
(NO derogatory offense of any persons, things, or plants, living or dead, intended!)

[BMWCCA]

Always try Steely Dan!

I didn't want to wear the family out on it. They hear it enough as-is. And it's hard to play it anything other than LOUD! I still have yet to try Fred Sanford's demo/test disc.

Keep us posted as I am really interested in what you hear in the 4345's as compared to the others.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with other big monitors, other than casually hearing how full Heather's house sounded, and our L7 shootout at Fred's with his 4333's. Probably makes me the least likely person here on this site who's heard 4345's to make that comparison.

I also wondered if the tens were working, so squelched them with their specific l-pad and heard quite a whole in the music. Narrow but definitely a whole. I agree that the 2122 seems overkill!

Strange, isn't it??

Can you please post some pictures of the handmade wooden 2308 lenses? I would like to try my hand at making some out of exotic hardwoods.

Well, there are plenty of good shots on the web and from these boxes' previous owners so I'll start with those. Click on the thumbnail below to take you to NewZenith's shot of "my" lens, and then click on that image to enlarge it to humongous size!

[Robh3606]

What is the phase on the woofer?? When I run a 24db network on the 4344 I have to reverse the phase. The original is a 12db network with a 24dB L/R they should be in phase.

Is four-way maybe a bit of overkill? Where the 2405 is crossed, I'm sure it's adding some extension to the 2425J but that horn and driver combo seem quite capable of an incredible range on their own. The UHF is mostly operating in a range I can barely even hear anymore. The 2245H can play up higher than I'd ever expected, too. Seems like you could lose the mid-bass driver and not miss too much. But Heather would know; she's been-there, done-that.

Try doing an A/B with two systems one with a 2425 operating alone and one with the 2405. You may not casually notice the difference but put them in the same room and it's obvious how much better the 2405 covers the 10-20K range.

You could loose the 10 but then you would be missing one of the reasons why they sound as good as they do.

Rob

[hjames]

What is the phase on the woofer?? When I run a 24db network on the 4344 I have to reverse the phase. The original is a 12db network with a 24dB L/R they should be in phase.

You could loose the 10 but then you would be missing one of the reasons why they sound as good as they do.

Rob

I'm running my 15s reversed - tho I had mistakenly run then in phase before.
Out of phase you'll get a sharper cutoff between the woofer and the 10 inch - with a biamp rig it should be easy enough to power down the bottom amp, switch connectors, then power it up again ...
You are on Banana jacks already, right? (thought I remember you mention dual pomona plugs)