Altec 19

[wdecho]

Single Ended tube amps are some of the most simple builds there are for an amp. This is the first one I built (minus the fancy case) and it is a very cheap build and the sound is very, very good. I used a cake pan on a board for a chassis like $7 at Walmart. Easy schematic and few parts and plenty of directions and advice on their forum section. It has a pot and enough gain where a pre is not needed. Send me a message if you decide to build and I can help with the chokes for the PS section and other tips.

6EM7 Single-Ended Triode (SET) Vertical Amplifier

 

[dandee]

Vertical Amplifier

Now that is a work of art...

I can see thats not your first build... That looks like it took weeks to build....

I know now I cant just go on Ebay and buy anything of that quality.....

I'm not that good working with wood...... So... IF I decide to build it... it will have to be in a metal case.. and I can have a wooden case and or sides or front made.......

I am going to try to find a tube amp to try before I commit to all that work even though I have nothing but time.

Once i'm hooked I may build a few...I just was thinking back when I was in high school my dad had bought out this old tv and radio repair shop... The parts I had then... I had enough parts then to build 200 tube amplifiers... I never ever thought I could ever use that old stuff..............zzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[wdecho]

First let me state I know nothing about this amp except the same thing you can read about at Amazon. They usually have this amp ready to ship with Prime 2 day shipping but with Xmas sales I guess they have sold all they have in the States. It is about as cheap as you can find a SET tube amp and the reviews are good and you would have Amazon backup in case of any problem.

http://www.amazon.com/GemTune-Class...=UTF8&qid=1449663193&sr=8-9&keywords=tube+amp

I built my 6EM7 on a conventional case not the fancy up right shown. On their Forum there is a thread about when the amp was first designed. It is what is called a spud amp. Glories sound but it will cost to build what you can buy the amp at Amazon for but I am sure it has much better parts than the Chinese one. I am sure you could get some of your investment back selling it at a later date if you decide to build later.

 

[pfjellberg]

I have a pair in my living room...

I do listen to a pair of Altec Lansing 19 from the early 80s often. They are my only speakers I bought them dirt cheap, for like 1200 USD back then. I like them, but I don't have golden ears. Before the 19s I used a pair of Leak 600 or something. They were nice but the 19s are way better.
I consider the 19s to be something like a nice vintage car. They are good but why build a replica. They are BIG. If that is not a problem, buy a pair and simply ignore the "golden ears".
I like the 19s because they do voices well. They sound terrible on any streamed audio.
But today, with current drivers, how about something not as big? I don't think you can do it as a two-way, but what about a two-way with a sub? I believe that the wide range 15" the 19s uses is one reason they sound as they do. But do it a three-way and maybe you don't need the 350 liters cabinets.

 

[dandee]

I had thought of that.. but I was worried I would end up with something I didnt want to listen to...anytime you change the drivers ,,crossovers,, boxes you change the whole sound and that was the thinking behind a new set of altec 19s... they just not copies... they are all new altec 19 drivers crossovers and horn drivers... with real wood cabinets.. even better then the original ... Great Plains Audio still builds all the Original parts... you change the bass level.. the lower midrange would be affected... maybe for the better..?? ...and then I would be changing things every week for the next 2 years..
at least I knew how the speakers were going to sound before even ordering..The Original vintage altec 19s... sound 100% the same as mine...its the same parts......

BUT you are correct on the cabinets....even after I went to My Amish builder I was thinking... OMG.. how big are they going to be... but as for now i have room for them..

And if any of you Guys are married...?? Just to be honest...I was happy when my wife never flipped out of the cost of the parts ..and then when I ordered the cabinets and He told my wife how much it would cost to build them..I thought I would have hell to pay...

but she had already listened to them in the temp cabinets I have,, and I only got a few dirty looks...I had been waiting on her to cut loose.. Nothing... not a word...
but the cabinets will match all her pretty amish stuff... maybe thats why..lol...

Me <--- i am just keeping quiet....Sure i have my own money...can I spend it on what i want?? MAYBE.. ZZZZZZZZZ i dont wana hear you guys saying you just bought what you wanted and never talked to your wife... I would have a hard time thinking that could be true.!

 

[GM]

I usually agree with GM, but in this case, only kinda, sorta.
The horns are not that bad, just put some Dynamat or other damping material on them back in the cabinet where it won't show. As for the crossover, yeah, you could do better, but IMO this is one of the few times that the stock Altec filter works nicely. If it ain't broke....

Hmm, how so? I did say technically superior, which has been proven in numerous individual measurements of modern waveguides and even the technically flawed, yet still better performing overall Mantaray series, so don't see how it can be open for debate.

Now whether they perform enough better overall to be considered superior by the individual is much too system [especially when including the room], personal hearing acuity [hence preference] dependent for any us to pass judgement on what any other should/would prefer, so I never intentionally make any sweeping judgement calls, only personal opinion/experience and any relevant facts if available.

For sure, I'm no fan of the 811 except when used in the A7-8, 820, and 9844 and even then only if driven with period correct electronics, much preferring the 511 overall by comparison in other alignments [preferably stacked duals] and the 311-90 puts both these up for sale WRT reproducing the voice/critical mids BW, though in each case it's an 'apples n' oranges' comparison since each is optimized for a different BW and electronics that very few of us use nowadays, so are somewhat compromised in most apps.

Specific to the M19, the high XO point reduces the 811 to mostly a WG, short circuiting much of its ability to 'ring', 'honk', so a good thing, but forces the woofer to play way too high for my tastes [not to mention from a good engineering POV], which is an even worse thing overall, though what's left of the Altec community that 'bleeds green' claim it the best 'HIFI' Altec speaker ever, so you have the numbers on your side.

Agreed, Altec was hounded for years by installers, retailers to upgrade the XOs [among other things] for use with modern electronics, but Ling's gutting of the company forced them to 'cheapen up' just about everywhere, leaving development with barely enough to keep prosound from going completely under, though it wasn't long before they too were ~locked out of their prime market after losing the THX contract at the 11th hour [so I was told at the time] to an alleged inferior design; which to my ears was true enough based on the three manufacturer demo set up at a local theater and it didn't even have either of Altec's 'A' cinema system prototypes, which AFAIK were only demo'd once for the 'powers that be'. At least the 'small', supposedly overall sonically inferior cinema system was granted THX certification.

GM

 

[GM]

I think the damping material on the back side of the horn may help..

on the other hand i plan on trying a good little tube amp..

Historically, one damped the horn bells, damping the horn body doesn't help much unless you either heavily coat it with Aquaplas or similar or build a sealed box for it and fill it with sand or other suitably massive material. I think the most massive done to date was to fill them with some sort of lead? shot used to dampen metal tube frames of certain types of manufacturing equipment and high end audio racks.

For the M19 and other horn woofer combos, just something to dampen eigenmodes, spurious reflections between the two is sufficient. Don't know if Altec bothered or not over time, but IIRC I saw a typical [for Altec] 1" fiberglass insulation pad in the open gap between the two cab pieces when the first pair to arrive in Atlanta were being assembled/demo'd at the distributor.

WRT to tubes and SETs in particular, they have a certain synergy with vintage horns simply because they were designed as a system, but unless one uses the period correct woofers tuned to actual driver Fs, then not so much and unfortunately any 416 after the original 803B/416A were increasingly modified to meet the ever changing needs of prosound apps, so unless something's changed at GPA that I'm not aware of, they only have the ability to recone/build new to what Altec was offering when it closed its doors for good, i.e. heavily compromised performance to work merely OK in both older alignments and then current ones and why some folks have opted for building new cabs based on actual driver specs or at least re-tuning the M19's cab to better integrate with the room and/or to actual driver Fs.

That said, unless one can get a pair of original 416-8B that is known to be never abused original, then I recommend just buying new if AlNiCo is still an option since any re-cone will likely be the same, or worse if a cut rate clone kit was used.

WRT the 416-8C, these don't sim nor perform the same as the 8B, so unless one can get them cheap, best overall based on many others experiences to just buy new.

On another note, folks often whine about GPA's high prices, but when inflation adjusted to the [somewhat reduced] prices I paid way back when, GPA's are at/below them [some only pennies off the few '60s - mid '70s invoices I still have!], so all things considered, quite a bargain to my way of thinking, especially since AFAIK only mega buck GOTO and a few other esoteric boutique manufacturers offer ~ the same specs and/or better performance [as in ~like the early woofers designed for a wide BW, high output impedance app].

GM

 

[Pano]

Yes, I remember that we have opposite opinions of the 811 and 511 horns. I find the 811 much better and easier to use. I never could get the 511 to sound right.

Do agree about making the woofer work too high, but M19 fans don't seem to complain, so why worry?

 

[Russellc]

Yes, I remember that we have opposite opinions of the 811 and 511 horns. I find the 811 much better and easier to use. I never could get the 511 to sound right.

Do agree about making the woofer work too high, but M19 fans don't seem to complain, so why worry?

I had just the opposite finding! Could never get the 811 to sound right. When I first got into altec I went around and bought a bunch of woofers, compression drivers, horn, well just the 811 and 511. I tried then every which way and finally settled on the 418 8C woofer, sold all the rest, including 515 and so on.

Stuck with the 802 8G compression driver, sold all the other 808, 802, 902 various compression drivers. With horns, the 811 I got rid of first, and boiled the rest down to a set of 511 that must have been manufactured late, they had from the factory the rubbery like stuff in certain areas ( which many modified there 511 by sawing these places in and filling the cut with some similar rubbery stuff.

The other change, which I also saw horn modifiers perform, these later 511 horns had was the little support piece way back in the throat left out. You can feel the place in the casting where it was to go. Many knocked this little piece out.

Lot of differences of opinion on this stuff, Altec is no exception! Its all good.

Russellc

 

[Lynn Olson]

Agreed, Altec was hounded for years by installers, retailers to upgrade the crossovers [among other things] for use with modern electronics, but Ling's gutting of the company forced them to 'cheapen up' just about everywhere, leaving development with barely enough to keep prosound from going completely under, though it wasn't long before they too were ~locked out of their prime market after losing the THX contract at the 11th hour [so I was told at the time] to an alleged inferior design; which to my ears was true enough based on the three manufacturer demo set up at a local theater and it didn't even have either of Altec's 'A' cinema system prototypes, which AFAIK were only demo'd once for the 'powers that be'. At least the 'small', supposedly overall sonically inferior cinema system was granted THX certification.

GM

Thanks for the bit of history, GM. That's pretty much the same story I heard, and the reason the "other" company is used in theaters today. It's unfortunate the Wall Street insanity of the Eighties destroyed Altec, because that really was the sound of 70mm mag-track movies.

 

[Russellc]

I had just the opposite finding! Could never get the 811 to sound right. When I first got into altec I went around and bought a bunch of woofers, compression drivers, horn, well just the 811 and 511. I tried then every which way and finally settled on the 418 8C woofer, sold all the rest, including 515 and so on.

Stuck with the 802 8G compression driver, sold all the other 808, 802, 902 various compression drivers. With horns, the 811 I got rid of first, and boiled the rest down to a set of 511 that must have been manufactured late, they had from the factory the rubbery like stuff in certain areas ( which many modified there 511 by sawing these places in and filling the cut with some similar rubbery stuff.

The other change, which I also saw horn modifiers perform, these later 511 horns had was the little support piece way back in the throat left out. You can feel the place in the casting where it was to go. Many knocked this little piece out.

Lot of differences of opinion on this stuff, Altec is no exception! Its all good.

Russellc

That should be 416 8C, NOT 418 8C....fat fingers!

Russellc

 

[GM]

......but M19 fans don't seem to complain, so why worry?

 

[GM]

......a set of 511 that must have been manufactured late, they had from the factory the rubbery like stuff in certain areas .........had was the little support piece way back in the throat left out.

Lot of differences of opinion on this stuff, Altec is no exception! Its all good.

Lucky you! Never seen any 'in the flesh', but learned of them after Altec disappeared and often wondered if my sawed off/gooped ones were the inspiration since I'd shown them off at the distributor's many years before.

What really set mine apart though was using an alum. washer as the gasket/spacer [ultimately sealed with wax paper gaskets] and align honed the horn-spacer-driver throat assembly with a three bar brake master cylinder hone, which audibly smoothed out, extended its HF response.

Right on!

GM

 

[GM]

Thanks for the bit of history, GM.

You're welcome! Yeah, really sad, though Altec 'sat on their laurals' way too long, doing too little too late, making them ripe for a takeover, so had nobody to blame but themselves. Amazing considering how/why they were formed in the first place.

GM

 

[Russellc]

You must try a SET tube amp with your 19's. Big horns were made for SET amps. I have 3 now and they all sound great with the last one I built putting out all of 1 watt and it sounds fantastic with plenty of everything with efficient horns to drive.

Something I wanted to try is a SET 45 amp driving into a Pass F4 Something about a 25 watt 45 SET driving Altecs interests me greatly. It is said the F4 adds nothing and takes away nothing from the SET 45...just now you have 25 watts.

Russellc to

 

[GM]

That should be 416 8C...

Yeah, I wondered about that......... BTW, did you try the 8B or 416A? The pair of 8Cs I did Onkens for didn't sound as good to me and the owner as an old pair of 8Bs, which didn't sound as good as an old pair of As, so we did a deal and he sold the 8Cs.

GM

 

[croweproductions]

Did you say 3/8" wall OP? I hope that was a typo!

I built Onkens, but if I were to do it again, I would look into building narrower, deeper, taller transmission lines for the 416, with a port on the back.

Also, I would build a sealed box for the 811 and fill it with sand or grain. Have it sit on top, as the angle needs tweaking for best soundstage.

Also, move the 416 to the top as close to the horn if your listening distance is under 12'

Granite plinths greatly help bass as well.

All your components including crossovers have great potential.

 

[Perplexed1ne]

Would you be willing to share your thinking about 416 enclosures? It would be very helpful to better understand your reasoning and the experiences which lead you to them. Thanx.

 

[croweproductions]

Would you be willing to share your thinking about 416 enclosures? It would be very helpful to better understand your reasoning and the experiences which lead you to them. Thanx.

Something like this for the 416:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/altec/dream.html

My onkens go down to 37hz, but I think OP could probably achieve the same thing in a smaller, less visually dominant box such as a TL. Plus, I read somewhere in a direct comparison that it sounded better.

The model 19 cabs look kinda 70's IMO. It's a lot of work to build them, when something could be made to look a lot more visually appealing (high WAF) with less work. But if he's been dreaming for a pair, all the power to him!

 

[Perplexed1ne]

I know that article. Love the pic's of the builders ham'n it up.

Over the past several months I have been finding and collecting enclosure builds for the 416 (mostly B's). It is an enormously adaptable driver. And, it seems to defy the contemporary T/S rules. I have not found anyone who has actually shown their work for a TL enclosure using the MK tables.

When people talk about the "best" it is rare that they specify the room, all the electronics, and the seating distance from the enclosure. I can follow enough of the engineering to understand the conclusions when the thinking/rationale is laid out 10th grade algebra style.

I have my drivers, I have all kinds of good sheet goods. I will probably pull the trigger on a build in the coming months.

Thanks