Replacing Allen Speakers/Cabinets

[Horseshoe_or]

I searched the forum thinking this question had been asked before but didn't find anything. I want to replace my Allen speakers/cabinets with speakers/cabinets that have a smaller form factor. This is a home installation with 9 cabinets. It is an MDS organ. The cabinets take up a lot of room. Any suggestions?

[myorgan]

I searched the forum thinking this question had been asked before but didn't find anything. I want to replace my Allen speakers/cabinets with speakers/cabinets that have a smaller form factor. This is a home installation with 9 cabinets. It is an MDS organ. The cabinets take up a lot of room. Any suggestions?

Horseshoe,

Try reading through the following threads:

• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?20134
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?28100 John is always replacing speakers on his organs, so you might find something in this l-o-n-g thread!
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?15692

The trouble is, you'll need to read through the threads to get more information. In the last link I found some references to some speaker replacements for the Allen cabinets.

I hope this gives you a start.

Michael

[Bach-On]

You may need to mention the size of the room - since that may convey the kind of power that you need. Too, it might be helpful to know what kind of Allen speakers you currently have. I'm guessing that not all your speakers are the same. And knowing what kind of music you favor might clue folks into the power requirements of your speakers. The model number of MDS organ may tell the organ techs valuable information.

With that kind of information, some of the more experienced people here may be able to make suggestions.

I understand that many Allen speakers are rather large. But replacements may be costly. So getting a ballpark idea on your budget might also help.

Bach On

[AllenAnalog]

The model number of your MDS organ is crucial, as well as the number of audio amplifier channels and the quantity and model numbers of the existing speakers. 9 speakers are a lot for an organ in a home unless you have a large room. Did the original installation of this instrument have doubled speakers?

4 audio channels with doubled speakers and a separate subwoofer channel is my first thought about your setup since it has an odd number of speakers. If that is the case you could cut the speaker count by four for a smaller room. Once we know more details about your existing system and room, we can comment more intelligently.

[Horseshoe_or]

The room is 27' x 17'. The current organ has 9 channels with 9 100 watt amps. 6 cabinets for the solo stops, 2 for accompaniment, and a base cabinet. However, I am looking to replace it with and MDS 85 with 14 manual channels, amps and 2 base cabinets. I simply don't have room. The current organ is fine but if I were to acquire the 85, I would have to replace the 14 manual cabinets with something smaller and keep the 2 base cabinets. I am told that the current configuration was the minimum for the instrument.

- - - Updated - - -

No, I am the 3rd owner. No, it is was orginally configured with 8 manual channels/cabinets and one base cabinet. See more comments in my other post.

[Bach-On]

That is a good sized room. Depending on the ceiling height and a host of interior furniture questions, it could be a very fine home for your organ. But serious organs don't come in tiny packages.

I've been on and off this site over the last couple of years. And I've looked in many of the forum areas. I've read where people made their own speakers. But I've not seen a whole lot of discussion about replacing Allen or Rodgers speakers with commercial products by the big-name speaker companies - though I stand to be corrected, of course. Organs require a lot from speakers. And the frequency and dynamics range seems served best by organ speakers. The issue you face is the sheer quantity of speakers to handle all your channels. I seriously doubt that a bunch of Bose cubes for each channel will do it. Bookshelf style speakers may be overwhelmed by the sonic requirements for many channels. Allen makes their HR50 and HR100 models. They might serve your needs. But expect to pay big bucks for them new. And it would take quite some time to find enough of them on the used market to cover all your channels. I'd also suggest that not even the HR100 would give you really solid lows for the pedal stops.

Some sort of array of multiple drivers in a box might be possible. But I don't feel qualified to advise you what drivers to buy and how to best arrange and wire the setup. Too, you mention that space is a consideration even though your room is pretty large. But how much space CAN be used for your speakers? Obviously, an organ with more channels needs more speakers. And if you already have a problem housing the speakers for your current organ, I'm not sure I'd see buying an organ requiring even more channels and speakers as an ideal plan. If anything, you might need to consider moving to an instrument with fewer channels. A home organ often requires some compromise. Only you can judge the relative merits of the various trade-offs.

I doubt I've been much help. Maybe some of the organ techs can advise you. Good luck!

Bach On

[Horseshoe_or]

I have looked at many commercially available speakers/cabinets. The problem is matching the hz range of the current speakers. The Allen speakers are 30hz to 20Khz. The top end is no problem it is finding a match to the bottom end. I don't know if 30hz is really necessary but that is the specs I am working with. I called Bose and their tech folks have no idea the the hz range of any of their speakers.

[Bach-On]

I stand to be corrected, but I don't think there are many sounds in the manuals for most organs that go higher than 15K Hertz. It's possible that a 1 foot stop might be higher, though I'm doubtful.

And it is well known that the Low C in the pedals for a 16 foot stop weighs in around 32 Hertz. If you have a 32 foot stop, you're looking at a low C around 16 Hertz. Not many commercial speakers can do that. A few of the high dollar sub-woofers probably can @ $2,000 to $2,500 a piece. So think of it like this:

Pedals from 16 or 32 Hertz up to about 360 Hertz for sounds relegated to your your pedal board. That would include 4 foot stops, though some forms of Mixtures might take it higher. And that is not to mention partials and overtones that give those sounds their subtle distinctions. If you pull 32 foot stops out, a good two way speaker with a 10 inch or larger woofer can handle the lows. And a tweeter or a horn can probably handle the highs.

Let's move to the manuals. I think the a 16 foot low C on the manuals is down to 64 Hertz. (or is it 128 Hertz). Either way, nearly any 6 inch woofer or larger than produce that "low" frequency, though it probably won't have the authority of a larger woofer. . Then pitch frequencies double for every octave up the 61 notes of the manuals. 8 foot stops would be twice that high. 4 foot stops would double again. And two foot stops would double yet again. If you have a 1 foot or a mixture you might need to think double those frequencies to be able to cover them all. That's a pretty wide range for any single driver to handle. A three-way speaker with at least a six inch driver might do it. The question is can it do it continuously? Most organ speakers can. A few bookshelf sized speakers might. But others might not be able to do so for very long. Even full-sized floor standing models might have trouble handling full organ continuously.

Then you have the amp power to consider.

I know that those large Allen Speakers are large. I've got 6 of the older HC12s in our church organ. Those 15 inch woofers require a fairly big cabinet. Some of Allen's HR series is just about as large. The simple truth seems to be that you have an organ that "requires" a lot of durable speakers. I tried some of those Bose double cubes on our home organ. I didn't care for the sound. And they can't do the lower sounds. So you'll need something that can cover that range. Did I mention cost?

I don't know how your room is setup. I know my wife would be on the war path with too many speakers in areas frequented by guests. Is there an area where a sheer cloth drape could be used to hide the speakers?

I read where one guy used a mixer to mix all the channels from his organ to go to two larger speakers. He also had speakers for the bass sounds. To me, that is a terrible way to go. Part of the benefit of having so many channels is to keep the variety of sounds from overwhelming just a few speakers. A mixer would negate all that.

I have experimented with a small pair of bookshelf speakers for some of the lighter sounds on our church organ. I bought a used SVS speaker pair for around $125. Many audiophiles swear by the Kliipsch bookshelf speakers. New, you're probably looking at $450 or more for a pair. Maybe you can find some used ones. But good floor standing speakers are going to push you into $500-600 for a pair (or perhaps even more). And then you fall back to the issue of how well can they reproduce the sounds from your organ?

Bottom line: the speakers are the last thing to handle the sounds before they go through the air to your ears. Is this the best place to scrimp? Probably not. But if you have to come up with smaller speakers, you're probably going to have to experiment. Tastes vary.

Bach On

[AllenAnalog]

I don't mean to come across as being rude here but your dilemma puzzles me. You have a very large room for your instrument, much larger than most of us. You already have a large instrument with more speakers and audio channels than most of us have in our home installations. Those two things should make for a grand and glorious sound because of the combination of the available watts, distribution of stops into more channels, size and capability of the full-range Allen organ-specific speakers and the cubic volume that this all speaks into.

And now you are talking about acquiring an even larger instrument with even more audio channels and amps but want to throttle the whole thing back to squeeze what would be inadequate speakers, in my opinion, into a small space. What's the point? I think you would go from a grand and glorious sound to a tinny and throttled sound that would be much less than satisfying.

Take a look at Hammon's installation. It is possible to hide a large number of speakers in a tasteful way to fit in a room and still be on speaking terms with the significant other.

http://www.organforum.com/forums/album.php?albumid=326

[toodles]

For reference:

The pedal frequencies and manual frequencies are identical for the same note, same pitch register. A manual 16' stop low C is approx 32 Hz, as is a pedal 16' stop low C. The pedals' 32 notes are just the same notes as the bottom 32 notes of the manuals.

The top C of a 1 ft stop is approximately 16 Hz, but this pitch is, to my knowledge, never a fundamental of a pipe, because the pipes would be so small as to be virtually impossible to manufacture and keep in tune: the length of the lowest C pipe of a 1 ft. rank is 12 inches, each octave cuts that in half, so the top C is 3/4 of an inch. You'd almost need a micrometer adjustment to tune that. The top of a 2 ft rank is the highest common fundamental pitch of any pipe that I am aware of, although you might find an unbroken Tierce at 1-3/5 pitch. However, lower pitch pipes have harmonics in this range, so the speaker need adequate response to around 15 kHz--above that, and many (probably most) people can't really hear it.

So the frequency range of the speakers needed for an organ is quite stringent. And it is the low frequencies that are the hardest to obtain and even harder to obtain in a small package.

For your organ, some of the channels will not carry the lowest notes, and those channels can probably have smaller speakers. Allen made the HC-13 speaker which is the same as the HC-15, except with a 12 inch woofer instead of 15 inch. These should be OK to use for those channels that do not carry 16 ft pedal stops. I don't believe these are currently being made, so you would have to find used models. The HR-100 (current production) might work for you as well in a similar size but you would have to revoice the organ to use these speakers. http://www.allenorgan.com/www/produc...ers/hr100.html

Larry (AnalogAllen) made an excellent point: you have an excellent large instrument in quite a good size space, and are looking to get a larger instrument--why compromise on the sound?

You might con

[Horseshoe_or]

I don't mean to come across as being rude here but your dilemma puzzles me. You have a very large room for your instrument, much larger than most of us. You already have a large instrument with more speakers and audio channels than most of us have in our home installations. Those two things should make for a grand and glorious sound because of the combination of the available watts, distribution of stops into more channels, size and capability of the full-range Allen organ-specific speakers and the cubic volume that this all speaks into.

And now you are talking about acquiring an even larger instrument with even more audio channels and amps but want to throttle the whole thing back to squeeze what would be inadequate speakers, in my opinion, into a small space. What's the point? I think you would go from a grand and glorious sound to a tinny and throttled sound that would be much less than satisfying.

Take a look at Hammon's installation. It is possible to hide a large number of speakers in a tasteful way to fit in a room and still be on speaking terms with the significant other.

http://www.organforum.com/forums/album.php?albumid=326

Thanks for your input. There are things you don't know. The space is also my dinning room and chapel. It is not all organ I have a number of sound modules being played from the organ that also have speakers. The organ I am considering is a classical instrument where the present organ is a theater organ. The only reason I am considering a change is that I prefer a classical instrument. The space available for speakers is full. I would have to find a way for the replacement organ's speakers to fit into the same space as the current organ. That is why there would be a need for speakers in a smaller form factor. It may not be possible and I may just continue on with what I have but I wanted to see if there were options.

- - - Updated - - -

For reference:

The pedal frequencies and manual frequencies are identical for the same note, same pitch register. A manual 16' stop low C is approx 32 Hz, as is a pedal 16' stop low C. The pedals' 32 notes are just the same notes as the bottom 32 notes of the manuals.

The top C of a 1 ft stop is approximately 16 Hz, but this pitch is, to my knowledge, never a fundamental of a pipe, because the pipes would be so small as to be virtually impossible to manufacture and keep in tune: the length of the lowest C pipe of a 1 ft. rank is 12 inches, each octave cuts that in half, so the top C is 3/4 of an inch. You'd almost need a micrometer adjustment to tune that. The top of a 2 ft rank is the highest common fundamental pitch of any pipe that I am aware of, although you might find an unbroken Tierce at 1-3/5 pitch. However, lower pitch pipes have harmonics in this range, so the speaker need adequate response to around 15 kHz--above that, and many (probably most) people can't really hear it.

So the frequency range of the speakers needed for an organ is quite stringent. And it is the low frequencies that are the hardest to obtain and even harder to obtain in a small package.

For your organ, some of the channels will not carry the lowest notes, and those channels can probably have smaller speakers. Allen made the HC-13 speaker which is the same as the HC-15, except with a 12 inch woofer instead of 15 inch. These should be OK to use for those channels that do not carry 16 ft pedal stops. I don't believe these are currently being made, so you would have to find used models. The HR-100 (current production) might work for you as well in a similar size but you would have to revoice the organ to use these speakers. http://www.allenorgan.com/www/produc...ers/hr100.html

Larry (AnalogAllen) made an excellent point: you have an excellent large instrument in quite a good size space, and are looking to get a larger instrument--why compromise on the sound?

You might con

Thanks Larry. I am not interested in compromising on the sound. I am simply asking if there are speakers available in a smaller form factor that would work. Bose has done some wonderful engineering in getting smaller speakers to sound like big ones. Unfortunately, they will not tell me their hz range. Perhaps there are good quality speakers that can handle the range so I am asking if anyone knows about them.

[Admin]

Powered bookshelf speakers from Definitive Tech, Polk, and others are routinely recommended as suitable organ speakers on the Hauptwerk forum. Powered bookshelves have the advantage that the amplifier can be matched to the speaker characteristics. Thing is, you'll not find bookshelves that can reproduce pedals properly. If you go a smaller speaker route, you'll need an appropriate sub-woofer for that.

[Bach-On]

I suggest you get one or two speakers like you're considering. Try them out with your current organ. Then try out the speakers you have been using. I suspect that's the only way to audition whether or not the speakers will suit you.

If you haven't done so, you probably need to price those HR-100s? They are not going to be cheap. And shipping to your local Allen dealer is in addition. I agree that the HR-100 cannot adequately handle a strong pedal line for an organ. The 100s are pretty efficient speakers. Some like them. Some do not.

Bach On

[toodles]

Sometimes the only thing that you can't afford is additional space. If the OP is considering Bose speakers then price probably isn't a main consideration. Personally, I would not recommend Bose for this (or any) application even though they don't publish performance specification. But I am prejudiced against Bose.

Check the voicing chart/channel assignment for your organ and the one you are considering as a replacement. Those channels that carry the 16 (and 32) ft pedal voices need a good system with strong bass performance, and you probably won't find anything smaller than the Allen speakers for those, but that's probably just one or two channels. For the other channels carrying 8 ft and higher manual stops, a much smaller speaker is possible, and would be acceptable if you don't mind the bottom octave of the 16 ft manual flue stops getting a little weak.

This is one of the least expensive, high quality bookshelf monitors I know of, but it is a kit and you have to assemble it yourself. It is NOT hard to do: http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-...-pair--300-640

Note that these are priced per pair, and they should suffice nicely for manual voices. You will have to revoice the organ a little but that would be required with any change in speakers. Note especially that these speakers are NOT as efficient as the Allen speakers, and you will have to turn up the gain on the channels using such speakers.

[radagast]

Thanks for your input. There are things you don't know. The space is also my dinning room and chapel. It is not all organ I have a number of sound modules being played from the organ that also have speakers. The organ I am considering is a classical instrument where the present organ is a theater organ. The only reason I am considering a change is that I prefer a classical instrument. The space available for speakers is full. I would have to find a way for the replacement organ's speakers to fit into the same space as the current organ. That is why there would be a need for speakers in a smaller form factor. It may not be possible and I may just continue on with what I have but I wanted to see if there were options.

- - - Updated - - -


Thanks Larry. I am not interested in compromising on the sound. I am simply asking if there are speakers available in a smaller form factor that would work. Bose has done some wonderful engineering in getting smaller speakers to sound like big ones. Unfortunately, they will not tell me their hz range. Perhaps there are good quality speakers that can handle the range so I am asking if anyone knows about them.

Oh boy, here we go. I've had several Bose products over the years. I still have a Wave Radio. I don't know what Bose speakers you are interested in, but I can tell you some general facts about their speakers. First they use cheaply priced components. Second, they are very good at using acoustic tricks to make their speakers sound better than they actually are, when tested on equipment. If you are thinking about using a Bose Satellite system with a subwoofer and the really small treble speakers, then you will lose a lot of midrange which is a bad idea with an organ. That system, in particular, emphasizes bass frequencies and high treble at the expense of midrange. So the average listener thinks they sound great, because many people like to boost the highs and lows and think that is good sound. Maybe they have improved over the years, but I would make sure you can return them for a full refund if they don't work well with the organ.