Altec Lansing

Hello everyone.
Over the past week, there appears to be more than just a bit of interest in Altec Lansing. You know, the real ones.

We have had a member selling some. (there was more in that thread after they were sold than before) A member building a system I thought may have been modelled on an Altec, enquiries about cabinets, same raving, and why not! Even a mod got entangled in a hijack. No names.

So how about a thread for Altec Lansing? It can cover anything you want in the way of their speaker range. Cabinets, mods, pictures, data sheets. Even experiences. It could include the MM stuff (they are good for what they are) It doesn't have to compete with Lansing Heratage, however it could compliment it.

For those not fortunate enough to have heard these speakers, most of us that have, even in the long distant past, do not forget the sound. And many will try to emulate it.

So how about it? Show us your Altecs, share the pleasure and the dramas. Lets show the current manufactures some real magnets, cones and horns.

Geoff
 
that's fun ...

... I'm just listening to my mono Voice.

I love the sound.

I have 416 bass, 808 HF driver with a radian replacement diaphragm.

Clicke here and scroll down for a pic:
http://www.mother-of-tone.com/mother.htm

I operate this Voice with a 6dB crossover, just a coil and a cap. Many of the more proficient Altec owners have complex crossies, but I happen to enjoy the simpler sound ;)

Take a look at the spruce horn. This is the biggest improvement to the Voice that I can ever imagine.

I have a 2nd pair of original voices with aluminium horns and I keep the alu horns there, just to switch back and forth and realize how good the spruce horn sounds in comparison.

Fun ...

Charles :)
 
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OK Geoff, I'll play.

Here is a system that I've posted before in this forum. It's the reference system at the "Revue du Son" magazine in Paris. And I helped built it. The system is owned by Mr. Jean Hiraga. These are my favorite speakers of all time. Never heard any other speaker of any size, shape, technology or vintage that sounds more like real live music than these.

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Not truly an A7, because of the 15 cell Altec horn on top. The horn is driven by a big 1950's vintage Westrex compression driver. The British version of the Altec 288 - AFAIK. The 15" woofer is now a Westrex basket with EV cone. When I ran them I think it was Altec 515s in the box. Tweeter is JBL2404. .

About 20 years ago I rebuilt these boxes for Mr. Hiraga as a trade for borrowing them for awhile. I used them as an "Audiophile P.A." for jazz and other stuff. Simple passive filter - I didn’t use a tweeter on the road. Never seemed to need it.

The bass box was stock A7 or A5 in not very thick plywood. I recovered all the walls with Nantex plywood - the hardest, densest damn wood I've ever seen! Almost impossible to cut, drill, sand. Internal bracing was added from the same Nantex and I tarred the back of the bass horn flare. 100% wool felt for damping. Vent was reduced in size.

Why do I love them so much? Because they sound so "real." They have no box sound at all, and with tons of dynamics. Imaging is superb – mind blowing. Amazing really, what is on even the most humble CD. These speakers put it right out there for you.

I've heard a few systems (sometimes the same day) with more micro detail, more highs, more lows - even a bigger image than these. But nothing sounds more true to life. It's really like the musicians are right there, and there, and over there. Not “almost”, not “close your eyes and imagine” - they are right there. You can point to them. And they simply sound real.

These speakers also show any change in the signal path. Amps, CD player, preamp, turntable, etc. But they always sounded great, not matter what amp I drove them with.

If I had mine own dedicated listening room, this is what I would have. No doubt about it. Funny thing is, it took me a long time to convince Hiraga and the rest of the crew how good they really are. But 20 years later they are still going strong. Makes me happy. :D
 
panomaniac, you play so well! Looking at those 15 cells, and thinking about the ability of the 511, I can almost hear them. That's what I was getting at earlier. You just don't forget that sound. I have only heard one Altec horn in the last 20 years, a dual concentric 15" with the 3000 type horn, which I thought was a 515. Your reference to the 515 could have been the 604. And I could be wrong.

I found that above the stage in a venue not far from here, probably used for movies. The owner didn't know it was there, let alone what it was. And not far away was a Williamson amp. I just had to fire it up didn't I, then the owner renegged on giving it to me.

Prior to that, it was Barcelonas, Valencias, Santanas and A7s, being compared to Tannoys, Bard Monitors and a few JBLs. I chose the bass driver from the Barcelona, the 411, as a starting point for my first real system. I had outgrown Peerless, SEAS, Philips, and a few others.

Edit: Just had another look at those horns, and laughed at my plastic TLs. Terry is right, BIG is better.
 

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Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
Paid Member
Re: that's fun ...

Charles said:
... I'm just listening to my mono Voice.

I love the sound.

I have 416 bass, 808 HF driver with a radian replacement diaphragm.

Clicke here and scroll down for a pic:
http://www.mother-of-tone.com/mother.htm

I operate this Voice with a 6dB crossover, just a coil and a cap. Many of the more proficient Altec owners have complex crossies, but I happen to enjoy the simpler sound ;)

Take a look at the spruce horn. This is the biggest improvement to the Voice that I can ever imagine.

I have a 2nd pair of original voices with aluminium horns and I keep the alu horns there, just to switch back and forth and realize how good the spruce horn sounds in comparison.

Fun ...

Charles :)


Charles,can you share dimensions of your spruce horn?
I like your non-scientific approach in this case ;)
 
Nice pics Pano. Ahhh... the memories...

As a former Altec employee (1978-1982) I have a real fondness for the Altec sound and their products. This was my first job right out of high school. I worked on the speaker/driver production lines and could do every phase of building drivers - which is why I eventually became a lead person. I guess this is where I got my initial speaker building bug from, and have been building speakers ever since. This is, without a doubt the most rewarding (and fun) job I've ever had. I learned so much, not only about building, but about design and testing. A lot of my friends there were techs, so I was able to learn from them.

We built all the pro/commercial drivers as well as the amplifiers at the Anaheim plant and most of the speaker cabinets and consumer products/speakers were built at the Oklahoma facility.

One of my fondest memories was repairing over 100 of Pink Floyd's speakers (model 421A - yes!, still remember the model). This was done during the Wall tour when they were at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The drivers were somehow damgaged when the "Wall" fell down. Next day, pallets of 421A's entered the facility :D

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.



-Ken
 
Re: Re: that's fun ...

Zen Mod said:



Charles,can you share dimensions of your spruce horn?
I like your non-scientific approach in this case ;)


Geoff H said:
Yes Charles, please do. It looks to be a driver mounted in the corner of 3 walls, same effect as placing a speaker in the corner of a room.

That is an interesting site of yours. We have similar test gear! Ears.

Geoff.

We have only 40cm boards in our local DIY store, so the size was fixed :)

Here is a pdf file of what I wanted it to look like first place:
http://www.altmann.haan.de/z_pics/horn_400mm.pdf

Yes, I wanted it to be square, and after I had sawed the pieces, I found out that you need to cut the borders at very special angle to make it all fit.

That was too much work for the afternoon, so it became kind of a triangular horn.

Here's another pic of the actual outcome:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


The driver is attached to the wood block at the end of the horn ...

I lacquered the complete horn with colophony dissolved in turpentine.

What happened to the other side piece ?

I now use it as a base for soldering ;)

Charles :)
 
Greets!

When it's working, the Altec User's Forum is the place to be for all things Altec-Lansing (the original): http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=3729, but it's been down for days now and the owner hasn't responded to my email, so.............

Anyway, the early 'new' VOT components were manufactured by Great Plains Audio by ex-Altec personnel/OEM tooling, so should sound the same as any later ceramic motored speakers. It's my understanding that they're made in Chi-Town now, so don't have a clue about these. Frankly, I doubt they've sold any since you can buy used and have them refurbed for less $$.

A5, A7, 1208, etc., series all used the same basic 825 (plywood) or 828 (MDF) cab depending on the year manufactured, though recently I found out there were some mixed plywood/MDF cabs built during the transition, so the differences were all in the component compliment, with a A5 having the 515 series woofer/large format horn, A7 = 416 series woofer/small format horn, and 1208, etc., series = 421 M.I. series woofer/small format horn. Then there's the same bass cab combos except with the later Mantaray series large/small format horns.

All that's left of my system are a pair of dual 515B 'sub' ~20 ft^3 cabs with mildly tweaked 511A/802D horns perched on top:

GM
 

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I found a pair of Heathkit AS-101s (a copy of the model 846A Altec Valencia) for $30 at a thrift store. Blown tweeters, but a trip to Great Plains Audio solved that problem. I feel about them the way Panomaniac feels about his Altecs. Such reality and magic about them, regardless of their shortcomings.

I have plans to build new cabinets for them - something along the lines of 46" tall, 21" wide and perhaps 22" deep. Ported, tuned to ... er, can't remember offhand, but somewhere around 35hz. They should be magnificent when completed. :)

The 15" woofers are 416-8As and the tweeters are 806s paired with 811 horns.
 
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not exactly Altec material,but more addendum to Westrex history....
here are few pictures of ancient compression drivers ,mounted originally on 811b horns ; scan of picture (from old cinema handbook) of huge Iskra two way cinema box can be seen clickin' on my www button and lookin' for cinema monoblocks page.......

pictures will tell you everything;interesting is that I didn't found anything on web related to this drivers......

I still have pair of 811B....mebbe one day I'll make pic or two for our pleasure ;)

unfortunately,several years ago I didn't succeed in ,say,scavenging pair of 515s......guy responsible for trade never return even truckload of goodies given from my side,as my part of trade ;(

never mind......I have more than few opportunities to hear A7 ,even if just in PA environment; but- reading all Altec related info I can get during the years lead finally to my today's music recreating approach;

illustration of that can be seen on last pic after this post ;)

sorry for off topic :devilr:
 

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Hi Gents. As Zen Mod said, this will be a great thread. Actually, it will become whatever you collectively want.

My interest in sound repro started when I was 9 years old. My father traded his Pye Black Box for a pair of Wharfedales, a Pioneer SMB131?
a Labcraft t/t and a Revox G36 in 1964. Ausie readers will realise he had probably been to Encel Electronics.

I started bringing home old console style radio-grams, and getting them to work. Most of these had a 8 to 12 inch ElectroDynamic Speakers on an open back enclosure. For younger readers, these speakers had no permanent magnet. The magnetic field was created from a huge winding which doubled as the HT choke. Better units had a hum bucking coil, fed from the heater supply, to cancel 100 cycle ripple in the field. And they sounded pretty good, and some sounded better than others.

Most of these radios were of similar design, using 6V6 se amps, so the question was why. Been looking for answers since.

A friend of mine started a speaker building business, and then bought a shop to sell his goods asked me down to hear some new stock he had along side his own models. I think it was the Altec Model 19 he demoed first. Well I thought it was nice, but didn't grab me. I had built several 3 way systems based on several European drivers, but soon got bored with them. But the bigger models should be in next week. I had already wandered the Hi-Fi streets in search of something better, and was beginning to feel it was a hyped up industry set up to extract as much money from you in the search.

In the meantime, I had another listen to the Tannoy Monitors, as they seemed to be my preference. Back at my friends shop, I listened to a pair Santanas. Now we were getting somewhere. Was it just coincidental that Carlos is still one of my favorite musos, or was some one playing games. Danny from Rank Industries arrived,
and had a bit of a chat. Next, a pair of Barcelonas were brought to life, and I could buy the drivers separately.

A week later, I was the proud owner of a pair of these.
 

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Zen Mod, wasn't Westrex Western Electrics? And Western Electrics a division of the Altec Corporation or LTV?

I don't think your off topic. Talk about University and JBL if you wish, they're all related. Just because Ling and JB drew a line in the sand doesn't mean we have to.

Edit:

Hi Cal, I like your interpretation of a HT 5.1. Is the other truck tied up in a traffic jam?

Geoff
 
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Geoff,
Yes Western Electric gave birth to Altec "All Technical Products." It was called Westrex in the U.K.

I've had my eye on the Altec 411. The "Solid State" driver. Less efficient than the other drivers, but maybe more low end in a reasonable size box.

I think Cal has bragging right as "Speaker King" :)

And Ken (KEC) has the best bragging rights of all. He actually worked at Altec and built drivers! Hooray! You rule, Ken! :worship:

Hey Cal. So you want to do 511 mids and 811 highs? That's an odd idea. Might sound pretty cool! Let us know how it works out.

As for the sound of the Altec 1505 multicells - they are amazing. All the good qualities you find in the smaller horns, with none of the bad. And they sound - well... BIG. Guess they go a long way to imparting that "this is real" sound. They just don't sound like a speaker at all. They sound like music.

GM. Those 20 foot double 515 cabs ought to be fantastic. I used to listen to a similar setup. The Onken W cabinet with dual 515s. Very impressive. Big super clean bass.