Hi.
I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me" but i'm still
not impressed. There's some tears in the cones, though. They are
quite old and run down. I could possibly have them reconed.
But does anyone have any ideas either for speaker cabinets of the same
dimensions that would fit in the soffits, or for some sort of speaker
upgrade that would drop into the existing cabinet? Maybe there's a
good coaxial 12" out there that I could use? The JBL 2142H came up on
a quick google search. Freq response curve sucks, though.
I'm not opposed to DIY'ing something into the Urei box.
Ideas?
Thanks
Kurt

In article .com writes:

I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me"

So, what does your studio designer say? Hopefully, he'll say "OK,
I'll eat them and the cost of installing them and we can try something
else."

There's some tears in the cones, though. They are
quite old and run down.

That can make a difference, but you should still be able to tell
whether you liked them in concept, unless the cones are so badly torn
that they are no longer moving.

But does anyone have any ideas either for speaker cabinets of the same
dimensions that would fit in the soffits

You can fit anything smaller into the soffits with a little carpentry
work. But soffit mounted speakers should pretty much be a design
integrated with the rest of the room, not something you plug in like
free standing monitors. I think you need to work with your "studio
designer" on this one.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1103723307k@trad...

In article .com
writes:

I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me"

So, what does your studio designer say? Hopefully, he'll say "OK,
I'll eat them and the cost of installing them and we can try something
else."

There's some tears in the cones, though. They are
quite old and run down.

That can make a difference, but you should still be able to tell
whether you liked them in concept, unless the cones are so badly torn
that they are no longer moving.

But does anyone have any ideas either for speaker cabinets of the same
dimensions that would fit in the soffits

You can fit anything smaller into the soffits with a little carpentry
work. But soffit mounted speakers should pretty much be a design
integrated with the rest of the room, not something you plug in like
free standing monitors. I think you need to work with your "studio
designer" on this one.



Did you like them before they were soffited? IME 809s are not the best
sounding speakers of the line, but in the right room they should work fine,
if you like what Ureis do. I'd also think that ripped/compromised cones
would play havoc with the time align circuitry. Have you ever heard a pair
in good shape? If they are that run down, it's possible that the speakers
are just fatigued beyond usefulness. Are any replacements available through
your designer? You might want to check that out.

Don



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On 22 Dec 2004 00:38:45 -0800, "godcity" wrote:

Hi.
I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me" but i'm still
not impressed. There's some tears in the cones, though. snip

Well, DUH!

They are
quite old and run down. I could possibly have them reconed. snip

Of course.

But does anyone have any ideas either for speaker cabinets of the same
dimensions that would fit in the soffits, or for some sort of speaker
upgrade that would drop into the existing cabinet? Maybe there's a
good coaxial 12" out there that I could use? The JBL 2142H came up on
a quick google search. Freq response curve sucks, though.
I'm not opposed to DIY'ing something into the Urei box. snip

Have your UREIs (which are essentially an Altec 604 with improved
horn) reconed. Very few made for better control monitors. I remember
a "shootout" at an AES convention many years ago, with a pair of UREIs
driven by bi-amped Crowns duking it out agains some Magnaplanars using
some stupid foo-foo amps. The source was the Soundstream digital RTR
playing Leonard Maazel's "1812 Overture" that was then in release on
Telarc on LP. The result? The UREIs kicked that foo foo crap's ASS!

You don't have to "like" control mointors. They're supposed to tell
the truth. Inasmuch as "point sourcing" goes, you can't do much
better than these, although they're just a tad shy on top end off
axis. Perforated cones are a major problem in any bass reflex design.
Are they mounted in the correct UREI enclosures, I hope?

dB

godcity wrote:
I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me" but i'm still
not impressed. There's some tears in the cones, though. They are
quite old and run down. I could possibly have them reconed.
But does anyone have any ideas either for speaker cabinets of the same
dimensions that would fit in the soffits, or for some sort of speaker
upgrade that would drop into the existing cabinet? Maybe there's a
good coaxial 12" out there that I could use? The JBL 2142H came up on
a quick google search. Freq response curve sucks, though.
I'm not opposed to DIY'ing something into the Urei box.

1. Have you ever heard 809s that actually worked? They are very colored,
but they are very forward sounding. I can't stand them for monitoring
but they are great for playback for the customer.

2. If your 809s have damaged cones, they will sound bad, and whether or not
you like the 809 sound, you will not be happy. You can get replacement
cones for these; Steve at Cardinal Sound and Motion Picture in Baltimore
can rebuild these, I think. Then they will sound like they are supposed to.
But you need to know if you like the way they are supposed to sound before
you invest the money there.

3. If you don't like the way they are supposed to sound, reconing them is a
bad plan. However, the Radian drivers that I used to like to retrofit in
these aren't being made any more, nor are the Gauss drivers that some folks
have used. I don't honestly know of any coaxials with an Fs as low as the
original drivers now. But, you might be able to get some existing coaxials
like the B&Cs rebuilt with modified spiders. It would definitely be a
project and not a drop-in job, and probably expensive to do the amount of
cut-and-try engineering to voice them well.

4. Don't forget new diaphragms and new crossover caps while they are open.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article .com writes:

I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me"

Are these the ones with 2 15" drivers? If so, I seem to remeber that
Tannoy made an alternative in their DMT series although I suspect
they'll be expensive and hard to find.

Cheers.

James.

In article .com,
godcity wrote:

Hi.
I've got some Urei 809's soffit mounted in my control room. I went to
all the trouble of soffit mounting them only to learn that i don't
really care for them. my studio designer said "trust me" but i'm still
not impressed. There's some tears in the cones, though. They are
quite old and run down. I could possibly have them reconed.



Tears???

Fix the drivers and then comment on what you hear. Like saying I hate
driving that car with a flat tire.

I lived with 809's for quite a while and was very successful with them
and found them very easy to live with. I'd highly recommend them to
anyone, especially soffit mounted.

Get em fixed before you go looking elsewhere.





David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com

In article , James Perrett
wrote:

Are these the ones with 2 15" drivers? If so, I seem to remeber that
Tannoy made an alternative in their DMT series although I suspect
they'll be expensive and hard to find.

Cheers.

James.



You're thinking about the much larger brother of the 809, the 813. The
mains in my control room are 813C's.

There also was a model 815 but it wasn't as common, it had 3 15"
drivers. A beastie fer sure.




David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com

to answer everyone's questions....

a) i don't fault the designer. i already owned the speakers before
building this studio. they came along for a few hundred so i grabbed
them. i told him i was thinking about changing and he said that i
would like them much better once they were soffit mounted.
b) the designer designed MDF speaker boxes much larger than the 809's.
then i did some internal carpentry inside the MDF and put a bunch of
705 in there, mounted the 809's in their original inside of my
carpentry and did the sheetrock flush to the edge of the 809 cabinets.
i can cut out the sheet rock and redo the framing inside the MDF boxes.
but that is a lot of labor and requires moving the console. wondering
if there's an easier short term solution.

c) the speakers have some small tears at the radiused section at the
end of the voice coil where it connects to the gasket. the tapered
part of the coil is intact.

d) this is the only pair of 809's i've ever heard. they sound sort of
ns10ish to me. very forward, but slightly cloudy top and fairly rolled
off bottom. somewhat fatiguing to listen to.
thanks for the input.
kurt

On 23 Dec 2004 23:22:22 -0800, "godcity" wrote:

c) the speakers have some small tears at the radiused section at the
end of the voice coil where it connects to the gasket. the tapered
part of the coil is intact. snip

No wonder these sound bad...they're fried!

d) this is the only pair of 809's i've ever heard. they sound sort of
ns10ish to me. very forward, but slightly cloudy top and fairly rolled
off bottom. somewhat fatiguing to listen to. snip

Doesn't sound right.

dB

godcity wrote:
to answer everyone's questions....

a) i don't fault the designer. i already owned the speakers before
building this studio. they came along for a few hundred so i grabbed
them. i told him i was thinking about changing and he said that i
would like them much better once they were soffit mounted.

If you don't like them up against a wall, you probably won't like them
soffit-mounted either. They are very forward. On the other hand, your
clients might like them even if you hate them, which is a reason to keep
them anyway.

b) the designer designed MDF speaker boxes much larger than the 809's.
then i did some internal carpentry inside the MDF and put a bunch of
705 in there, mounted the 809's in their original inside of my
carpentry and did the sheetrock flush to the edge of the 809 cabinets.
i can cut out the sheet rock and redo the framing inside the MDF boxes.
but that is a lot of labor and requires moving the console. wondering
if there's an easier short term solution.

To get the Urei cabinets out, or something else?

c) the speakers have some small tears at the radiused section at the
end of the voice coil where it connects to the gasket. the tapered
part of the coil is intact.

This makes them useless. Your low end is going to be totally screwed up.
Get them fixed before you make any decision.

d) this is the only pair of 809's i've ever heard. they sound sort of
ns10ish to me. very forward, but slightly cloudy top and fairly rolled
off bottom. somewhat fatiguing to listen to.

If you put Radian diaphragms in there instead of the probably worn-out
diaphragms in there, and new caps in the crossover, the top end will tighten
up. If you fix the cones, the bottom end will not be rolled-off. But, they
will still sound very forward and with some upper midrange honk.

They do not sound like they have been properly maintained and it is time to
get a complete overhaul, I suspect.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article . com writes:

a) i don't fault the designer. i already owned the speakers before
building this studio. they came along for a few hundred so i grabbed
them. i told him i was thinking about changing and he said that i
would like them much better once they were soffit mounted.

Better than what? Better than they sound sitting on a table? Or better
than what you were thinking about replacing them with? In either case,
they didn't, so blame the designer. G

c) the speakers have some small tears at the radiused section at the
end of the voice coil where it connects to the gasket. the tapered
part of the coil is intact.

That's the worst kind of "torn cone." If there were some rips on the
flat portion, that's no big deal. They can be ignored if small or
patched if large. But if the suspension compromised, then the speaker
isn't working like the piston it was designed to be. Reconing is the
solution and it might make a big difference. Probably it would be best
to get advice from someone who works on speakers who can actually look
at and feel yours rather than asking a bunch of random and blind
on-line folks whether this is your problem or not.

d) this is the only pair of 809's i've ever heard. they sound sort of
ns10ish to me. very forward, but slightly cloudy top and fairly rolled
off bottom. somewhat fatiguing to listen to.

I can see that this is a fair description. The soffit mounting largely
affects the low end response and that's not what's making you tired.
It's possible that you just don't like them, or that you have some
mid-high frequency reflections going on that are changing the way the
fatiguing-range of the speakers sound in your room. Can you
temporarily put something else up in roughly the same place, like
right in front of the UREIs, and see how that sounds in the room?
Maybe move those trial speakers around to see how things change. You
may get some idea as to what's going on in the room that you can't
tell from the fixed speakers.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Have your UREIs (which are essentially an Altec 604 with improved
horn)

And with higher current handling capability & MUCH better crossovers. OTOH,
there was something to be said about the original (silver painted) 604 cabinet.
Not as much low end, less boomy, sweet.


Inasmuch as "point sourcing" goes, you can't do much
better than these,

Yes, but I always had a bit of a problem with the degree to which the UREI horn
flare masked the 15". I felt there was some disturbance in the low end, but
it's been so long since I mixed on them I can't remember at what frequencies.
Scott Fraser

1. Have you ever heard 809s that actually worked? They are very colored,
but they are very forward sounding. I can't stand them for monitoring
but they are great for playback for the customer. BRBR

I thought they were much worse than the 813's, which are themselves an acquired
taste.

Scott Fraser

thanks for all the advice. the room sounds good and mackie hr824's on
pedestals in front of the UREI's sound as expected. i think that
reconing the 809's speakers, replacing the diaphragms, and recapping
the crossover is the cheapest and easiest place to start. and if i
still don't like them, at least then they'll have some resale value.
"new england speaker" in stoneham, mass is close by. while they are a
bit grumpy, they've done a good job repairing guitar speakers for me in
the past. anyone have experience with them pertaining to studio
monitors?
thanks
kurt

PS.
When I recap the crossovers, any suggestions for a brand and model cap?
Thanks,
Kurt

godcity wrote:
PS.
When I recap the crossovers, any suggestions for a brand and model cap?

As I recall, the values are all low enough that you can use mylars for
everything. The Panasonic ones from Digi-Key seem fine enough to me,
although plenty of people will tell you to spend the money for Solens or
something.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article , ScotFraser
wrote:

1. Have you ever heard 809s that actually worked? They are very colored,
but they are very forward sounding. I can't stand them for monitoring
but they are great for playback for the customer. BRBR

I thought they were much worse than the 813's, which are themselves an
acquired
taste.

Scott Fraser


I've owned and lived with both of these guys, first the 809's, then the
813, for a couple decades. Unlike Scot above, I found the 809's much
easier to live with. If I were to create a small home control room
today it's probably what I would put in them. But of course they don't
have the low bottom end and sheer kick of it's big brother.

In fact, when I moved into my current control room, which was designed
around the 813 box, I half seriously said I wanted to swap the big guys
out for my old 809's.

It was a while later when I learned that the mic preamp in the Klark
Teknik analyzer that my control room monitor guy used to calibrate the
room was off. When we used the GML pre instead to cal the room
everything got right fast.

It is a well designed, great control room that I did not create but I
get to work in. I would not want anything to do with *any* large
monitor in a crappily designed control room.




David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com

Unlike Scot above, I found the 809's much
easier to live with. BRBR

FWIW, the control rooms where I experienced 809s had them soffit mounted, not a
favorite of mine with any speaker. One had very poorly implemented subwoofers
in conjunction with the 809s & they were hilariously awful.
Scott Fraser

(ScotFraser) writes:

Unlike Scot above, I found the 809's much
easier to live with. BRBR

FWIW, the control rooms where I experienced 809s had them soffit mounted, not a
favorite of mine with any speaker. One had very poorly implemented subwoofers
in conjunction with the 809s & they were hilariously awful.

Hi Scot -

Interesting comment -- not liking soffit mounting. In the rooms you've
heard, how have the soffits been built? What in particular did you not
like?

They are a pain to get right, but once done, seems that one can cure many
inherent problems of "drivers in boxes" with soffits. I've had good luck
so far; that's why I'm curious about your experiences (so that I can avoid
trouble in the future -- one never knows when any stream of luck might
run out! g).

Thanks in advance,

Frank

--

these 809's are soffit mounted to each side of the control room glass
at ear level. they are not tipped down. the control room is a
"reflection free zone" design with the walls containing the speakers at
30 degree angles to the mix position. the mix position is such that if
a isosceles triangle is drawn from tweeter to tweeter, the third
intersection is behind my head and my ears are along the plane of the
two legs of the triangle.
should be a good strategy. no?
anyway, i've ordered some caps to rebuild the crossovers, and i've
dropped off the speakers to be reconed. i'll check them out after
that. if i still don't like them, then i'll try some radian
diaphragms. then maybe a room eq.
thanks for the help everyone.
kurt

In article .com,
godcity wrote:

anyway, i've ordered some caps to rebuild the crossovers, and i've
dropped off the speakers to be reconed. i'll check them out after
that. if i still don't like them, then i'll try some radian
diaphragms. then maybe a room eq.
thanks for the help everyone.
kurt



Let us know how it turns out.




David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com