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Thread: New Altec lover

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    Hostboard Member Petro's Avatar
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    New Altec lover

    Hello hope everybody is well tonight. My name is Steve I live in Southern New Jersey. I've been in Altec admirer for some time now and I've never bought a pair , while flipping through a million pairs of speakers. I finally gave up and purchased a pair of model 15. They needed Total Restoration, sanding, veneer repair, New L pads, soldering crossovers having woofers rebuilt at GPA, gluing phase plugs, building stands adding some heavy duty binding post and I also made a pair of pretty cheesy covers which I'll never use just wanted to try it.
    Today I just picked up a pair of A7. I got them for a song the cabinets are pretty much shot they actually nailed cheap plywood to the sides painted it black. There is some original wood under there so I'm going to try and carefully strip off the plywood and see if there's anything left but I highly doubt it. They came with beautiful nearly perfect 511b's. They also came with 808- 8A drivers, just ordered a new diaphragm for one of them. Also a pair of n801-8a crossovers which look to be in pretty good condition. They also came with a near-mint pair of JBL d130 drivers these are really nice except for a couple dents in the dust caps. I'm thinking of selling JBL and buying 416-8a just to have all Altec stuff. I just measured my friends Valencia because I'm looking to make a cabinet where I can put the horn on top of the cabinet and I figured the Valencia's without the top part would be perfect. But if anybody has a link to a better set-up where I could use the 15 inch drivers and put the horn on top of the cabinets I would really appreciate it. I searched around but couldn't find a whole lot.
    Just wanted you guys to know my brief Altec history. I'm not a speaker guy comparable to many of you, but if I can take it apart I can put it back together, and I can do some woodwork.

    Thanks so much for having me on this great and very informative forum. I'll leave you a couple pics please don't make fun of my cheesy covers it was my first attempt. Lol
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    Senior Hostboard Member gvasale's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Enjoy the ride.

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    Senior Hostboard Member bowtie427ss's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    I wouldn't sell those D130's until you hear them against 416's.

    IMNSHO&E, i prefer 416 in a large bass reflex box, period. My VOT's are loaded with JBL's and it had nothing to do with convenience.
    Not all vegetables make good leaders.

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    Hostboard Member Petro's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Thanks!!! Oh I'm going to definitely try the jbl's first. My first thought was to fix a7 to original and sell them, since my listening room is pretty small. After seeing the cabinets up close I thought maybe just sell off the parts. But seeing these big horns and 15" woofers sitting here, I'm not sure I can part with them. I will probably do my own smaller scale, better braced version of A7 cabinet with some smaller ports which means selling my model15 when I'm done to fund the next project.
    These parts are way too cool to get rid of

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    Senior Hostboard Member BillWojo's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Hi Steve, I'm fairly new here myself, from Burlington. Where in SJ do you live?
    I started with a set of 511b horns with 908 drivers sitting on some Klipsch Heresy's. Soon after I picked up a set of HeathKit AS101's that are basically Valencias in nicer cabinets and a slightly better crossover. As soon as I get some extra money I'm going to build a set of Model 19 crossovers for the AS101's.
    I'm really enjoying the Altec sound with my tube amps, they will only get better I'm sure.

    BillWojo

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    Junior Hostboard Member je2a3's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Quote Originally Posted by Petro View Post
    ...which means selling my model15 when I'm done to fund the next project...
    IME, it is easier to blend the 32 horn with a 12" or 15" Altec woofer for a smaller domestic listening environment than an 811 or 511. So before selling the Altec 15, I'd suggest comparing the sound of the 511 vs. the existing 32 horns in it - pull out the compression drivers and mount them on the 511s on top of the cabinet using the same crossover.

    Just my 2 cents...happy listening!

    JE

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    Hostboard Member Petro's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Quote Originally Posted by BillWojo View Post
    Hi Steve, I'm fairly new here myself, from Burlington. Where in SJ do you live?
    I started with a set of 511b horns with 908 drivers sitting on some Klipsch Heresy's. Soon after I picked up a set of HeathKit AS101's that are basically Valencias in nicer cabinets and a slightly better crossover. As soon as I get some extra money I'm going to build a set of Model 19 crossovers for the AS101's.
    I'm really enjoying the Altec sound with my tube amps, they will only get better I'm sure.

    BillWojo
    Hello Bill, I live on Long Beach Island. Yes, year round. Lol. I've been looking at Heath kit designs. I like them alot. I'm sort of a tinkerer, I will easily build a cabinet from a mix of other people's ideas that I like, and add my own ideas and if it doesn't work. Well then I bust it up and start over. It would be strange if I liked the first attempt.

    Quote Originally Posted by je2a3 View Post
    IME, it is easier to blend the 32 horn with a 12" or 15" Altec woofer for a smaller domestic listening environment than an 811 or 511. So before selling the Altec 15, I'd suggest comparing the sound of the 511 vs. the existing 32 horns in it - pull out the compression drivers and mount them on the 511s on top of the cabinet using the same crossover.

    Just my 2 cents...happy listening!

    JE
    Thanks!!! I love that idea. I had 2 pairs of model 15's a series 2 and these, I tested the drivers in both and liked the 902-8a's best so that's what is in mine. Sent the series2 to a friend. I'm going away for 10 days, as soon as I get back I will do that. Try the 511's with both sets of drivers.
    Thanks again for the idea.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Oh btw I forgot to mention I run an older Viva 300b with a Rega turntable and ortofon cartridge. Only tubes and vinyl in my house

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    Senior Hostboard Member bowtie427ss's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    I tested the drivers in both and liked the 902-8a's best so that's what is in mine.
    Some points for you to ponder:

    a) 902 has a 7/8 diameter aperture, 511 has a 1 inch throat. Billwojo started a thread here that will give more details and you can see what he did to address the non-matching throat size.

    b) 902 performs best above 1.2khz, Altec did not use it below that, and for good reason.

    c) for lower XO points(800hz, 500hz) the 800 series drivers are audibly superior.

    d) if you are going to use them, re-cap the N801's.

    FWIW, my current daily drivers are 9849 monitors set up for near field listening, 414-8C woofers, the ones that use the one piece stepped return pot as found on the 416-8B, horns are cast 32's with 23746 one piece cast pot compression drivers with original low mileage 23744 "light" diaphragms, networks re-capped with Dayton 5% poly's. I tried a film bypass cap, and ended up removing it.
    Last edited by bowtie427ss; October 15th, 2016 at 07:18 AM.
    Not all vegetables make good leaders.

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    Hostboard Member Petro's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    Thanks for that my xover and cap knowledge is not where it should be, and I need to learn about them. The 902's are in my 15's and sound great. But I'd like to re cap those crossovers as the present caps look tired.
    The 808's are definitely going with the a7 project no matter what I do with the cabinets. And I may look to put new caps in those.

    Anyone use the plugs for the a7's? They have the xover wired to the plug and have nice thick wire running from the 808 to plugs in the back. And also another plug I guess for linking many speakers together. I see lots of restorations and no one seems to use them. These are in such great shape I'd like to get a nice nylon sleeve for them and use them.
    Thanks you guys are awesome and a great help!!

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    Hostboard Member Petro's Avatar
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    Re: New Altec lover

    OK I don't want to start a new thread for this but I need some advise. My a7 cabinets are beyond saving. I pulled out the center piece to see how they braced the woofers, and pretty much researched this forum and all over the internet. I'm going to use 3/4" MDF on the cabinets and step up the bracing, and use 1/4" ply for the curves and put some on upper and lower so I can stain and poly that area and paint the rest of the cabinets for a little different look.
    Problem is I wanted to shrink down the cabinets a bit. If i drop the cabinet down to 36" tall and 26.5" wide . The numbers seem to add up fine, but if I try to take 4" off the depth I run into the bottom of the woofer surround not having any slope to it. I don't want to move the woofer back anymore than 1"if at all, so taking 3" off the surrounds is pretty much the rate of the slope. So that brings me to making the whole surround the original size height and depth wise and just taking a couple inches off each side. Which means the bottom of the cabinet will be much smaller. At 25" not counting exterior walls and 19" high. And I will shrink down the port.
    Does anyone think I am ruining a good thing? Or just being silly doing this?
    I have at least 2 friends that love and want a7's but are too big for them as well. I think if I can make this work, I could build and sell a couple more pairs to them.
    Please let me know any thoughts or opinions or if any of you have tried something similar
    Thank you

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