Altec 1593C

[ngccglp]

Hi

Are these amps any good? I checked out the specs and it shows a freq response of only up to 12k I think? Does this mean that the amp is really meant for speech only?

Thanks

[Audio_by_Goodwill]

I've got a pair of 1594A's that I'd let go fairly cheap. They're not perfect, and I haven't used them. I did connect a driver and a source to one and sound came out.

I've also got a single 1590A.... the cord has no plug and it's been shortened, so it was probably wired direct. I've never tried to power it up.

Let me know if you'd like pictures.

[whitebroncoii]

The 1500 series power amps were:
1593 = 50W
1594 = 100W
1590 = 200W

All three share almost identical circuits. Although there are small differences in the driver PC boards, the major differences are the number of output transistors and the size of the output transformer. I suggest that you only use the 1590 for mid-range, it struggles above 12kHz. The 1593 and 1594 sound very good. The frequency response is 50Hz - 12kHz at full power and is a function of the output transistors and the output transformer. At lower power the response is much better. This built-in roll-off of the HF at high power is very pleasing to the ear. 1593's are perfect for bi/tri amping 800, 900, 288, and 299 drivers.

<font color="#FFFFFF"><font size="1">[ October 16, 2008 02:44 PM: Message edited by: GaryZ ]</font></font>

<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ October 16, 2008 04:47 PM: Message edited by: GaryZ ]</font>

[Old Guy]

Originally posted by GaryZ:
This built-in roll-off of the HF at high power is very pleasing to the ear.
<font color="#FFFFFF"><font size="1">[ October 16, 2008 02:44 PM: Message edited by: GaryZ ]</font></font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would possibly explain why they sounded better tan anything else running the piezo banks.

They sounded a heckuva lot better than the Crowns and Fried Linears.

[Old Guy]

Most likely some filtering installed.

Not familiar with the 1593- I can tell you the 1594 isn't bad and goes fairly cheap, more power too.

Way back, I ran 1594's for supertweet amps.

In those days, we ran big banks of piezo tweets, which have a bad rep they don't deserve- most people just have no idea how to deal with them.

Piezos like more voltage , so we ran them on the 16 ohm tap. And a good transformer is almost an ideal bandpass filter.

Generally those old Altec amps exceeded specs. Sorry, this doesn't help you on the 1593, but I would seriously look at it's bigger brother.

If you don't like green (Sacrilege!) there is a black front version of the 1594 in the MI catalog