Last week I inquired GPA about reconing and recharging a pair of Altec 515B drivers. They replied that they no longer repair or recharge Altec products.
This is very sad news and a heads up to those who consider purchasing old Altec speakers in need of repair or recharging.
I suspect this decision has been made to increase sales of their own, ridiculously expensive drivers. So now I have to find modern alternatives (no GPA!!) to Altec.
EDIT; After feedback from two forum users who contacted Bill at GPA about this, it turns out GPA will still repair Altec speakers!
I wasn't able to edit the heading of the thread, so thought I would mention it here.
This is very sad news and a heads up to those who consider purchasing old Altec speakers in need of repair or recharging.
I suspect this decision has been made to increase sales of their own, ridiculously expensive drivers. So now I have to find modern alternatives (no GPA!!) to Altec.
EDIT; After feedback from two forum users who contacted Bill at GPA about this, it turns out GPA will still repair Altec speakers!
I wasn't able to edit the heading of the thread, so thought I would mention it here.
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Just to be clear, it was the bought out GPA and not where/who does it AFAIK, i.e. Bill Hanuschak @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/VintageAltecLansingGPA
I agree, that's been my experience as well. I also had a pair of GPA 416-8B with VERY different T/S specs. Also, the screws installing the terminals to the basket were way too long protruding into the terminal, blocking the passage for the speaker wire. Seems like they have poor QC at GPA.
Altec 416-8B sounded better to me compared to the GPA 416-8B.
It's beyond me how they are able to survive in todays market with so many manufacturers of high quality drivers, considering their very inflated prices.
Disappointing, I had planned to have a pair of 416-8Bs re-shot and reconed as spares.
Hopefully you are correct and someone will take the torch, there are a lot of us out here who would like to see this live on.
Is it worth buying a pair of 416-8B cone kits at this point for spares or are they poor quality?
Hopefully you are correct and someone will take the torch, there are a lot of us out here who would like to see this live on.
Is it worth buying a pair of 416-8B cone kits at this point for spares or are they poor quality?
Yes I had planned to buy another pair of Altec 416 and have them recharged, so I was very disappointed to learn this.
I would never buy old Altec alnico drivers without having them recharged. I have measured MANY old alnico drivers from different brands, and they all suffered from weakened magnets to a varying degree. I had a pair of 416-8B's that had a QES of 0.8, thats more than double what they were supposed to be. Needless to say, they will not perform as they should.
Regarding GPA recone kits, they will not be the same as the Altec cones. A quick look at their T/S specs confirms that they are quite different drivers compared to the Altec's. But I wouldn't say they are poor quality, just not at the level of the old Altec's. There are other aftermarket cones available as well.
The speaker Exchange used to sell the GPA kits, but have replaced it with this;
https://reconingspeakers.com/products-page/altec-416-8a-diy-aftermarket-recone-kit/ Maybe as good as GPA and probably much cheaper.
If I were in USA, I would start by getting as many cone samples as possible, from different manufacturers all over the World, also spiders, dustcaps, etc. , and build/test all possible combinations to find which closely matches original sound, and then be able to offer good aftermarket kits.
Also build/buy a good magnetizer.
Getting good diaphragms will be way more complicated, but I find it possible , with some effort and dedication.
There are a couple aftermarket ones available, maybe one of them can be tweaked for acceptable results.
Also build/buy a good magnetizer.
Getting good diaphragms will be way more complicated, but I find it possible , with some effort and dedication.
There are a couple aftermarket ones available, maybe one of them can be tweaked for acceptable results.
I have a feeling that Bill was not hands on as much in the past few years and that's why we have several reports of quality issues. My guess is that he was teaching someone to take over his skill set and possibly that person left leaving a big hole in the company.
Hopefully this gets resolved.
BillWojo
Hopefully this gets resolved.
BillWojo
I have used Radian diaphragms in my Altec 802 drivers that was years ago i believe there still available from parts express.
Interesting. Both my GPA 416-8B drivers measure close to spec and were more closely matched to each other than my FaitalPRO 15PR400 drivers that I was considering for the same project. I am the second owner (at the least) of these GPA drivers so they’ve been through the shipping manhandling process at least two times.
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