Technical debate

[RonSSS]

That's quite clear, thanks!

Ron

[martyh45]

Scotty,
I would like to see Altec back as a producer of quality equipment, not necessarily as a marketing behemoth. As far as building a giant again, I think there was a chance that the Altec name and reputation could have been used to great advantage in the home theatre market if the name hadn?t been dragged through the mud beforehand. I?m sure there is some marketing genius out there who could put together a campaign to salvage the brand (look at Marantz) but who knows how much an effort like that would cost.

Convergence,
The pro market isn?t the only way into the car market. You need a well recognized name, a reputation for quality and an ability to deliver parts. Infinity and Bose are two examples of companies that parlayed a home audio business into successful car deals. Bose is particularly amazing, as far as I am concerned they have never produced a quality product, still, their reputation is enviable.

Ron,
Here is a good article about the design of a high Xmax low distortion woofer by JBL. http://www.audioheritage.org/html/pr...ogy/1500al.htm Even after all of these years, underhung alnico motors are the way to go when quality is the goal. The bit about the shorting rings being a JBL innovation to deal with the problems of ferrite magnets is a bit confusing. Shorting rings were used by Altec years before the switch to ferrite.


Marty

[bowtie427ss]

PAS built a couple significant duplexes. Urei used them for a while after they could no longer depend on the QC of the 604's they were receiving.

These came to me with Renkus ssd1800 HF drivers, and i've left them alone, but the mounting system allows any 2 bolt 1 inch driver to easily be used.

Here's a link to the spec sheet:

http://www.pas-toc.com/pdf/drivers/CXL-1580C-DATA.pdf

[Steve Schell]

Hi guys,

The history of the coaxial speaker has a lot of twists and turns. The earliest references I've found to a two way self contained coaxial speaker unit are L.G. Bostwick's U.S. Patent #1,907,723 and H.C. Harrison's U.S. Patent #2,077,170. The former was shown in the page on the LH website linked to by Old Guy, and the latter can be viewed here:

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=US...EBAJ&dq=207717 0

RCA and Western Electric each produced coaxial two way horn systems in the late 1930s; they were both used at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Freddyi recently posted some pictures of them for me over on the Audio Asylum:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hu...es/119278.html

The W.E. systems combined a Jensen 18" field coil woofer with a W.E. 555 mounted on the rear of the Jensen and firing through its center pole. The drivers in the RCA were mounted back to back, though on a common axis.

The Altec Lansing 601 field coil Duplex driver was introduced in 1943, the idea for it apparently having been suggested to Altec by Art Crawford in 1941.

Bob Stephens was producing a 15" field coil coaxial driver by the mid 1940s. Like the Altec 601, the Tru-sonic E-52 mounted the high frequency driver on the rear of the woofer, the h.f. path proceeding through the woofer center pole into a multicellular horn. Unlike the 601, both voice coil gaps shared a common magnetic circuit (like the later Stephens coaxials like 206AXA).He claimed in a late 1940s catalog that his driver had been the first to market, and that several examples from his first run were installed at the Burbank, CA airport.

About the time the Altec 601 debuted, a very interesting coaxial driver appeared in Germany as part of the System Eckmiller monitoring equipment. In this driver a tweeter was nested in front of the woofer pole, the two voice coils sharing a common magnet circuit. Details of this fascinating Eckmiller 015 driver can be seen here:

http://klangfilm.free.fr/index.php?l...tle=&dir=&num=

The Jensen Type H and Tannoy Dual Concentric coaxial units appeared in 1947. By this time Altec had produced 4,000 604s and had introduced the 604B. From this point on there was a proliferation of coaxials from many different makers, the Altec 604 likely having done the majority of the work of establishing and popularizing the concept.

[Steve Schell]

The Klangfilm site link doesn't take you all the way to the 015. Click on "Pictures", then scroll down to Category 2.4. Drivers, and click on the first box "Eckmiller 015 field coil."

[scott fitlin]

Originally posted by CONVERGENCE:
It's one big Marketing nightmare. Plantronics owns the name "Altec". Their sales revenues were
300 million $ last year.That includes both divisions.
One lucrative market is anything that has to do with the automobile. JBL made 2 billion dollar with Mercedez Benz with their auto speakers.

To atrack a Car maker like Toyota or Nissan you got to have a prestigious line of speakers out there ;in Cinemas Touring Etc. GPA has 2 flagships
VOTT and the 604. Recording studios seem to like the Big REd . And the Motion Picture industry
with Dolby have no objections for Megaplex using
A-4 speakers.

Fix installations like football stadiums is a big niche for the 817 and the M94 horn.

Touring is the only gap . Line array are popular because they are neat. Still quite huge considering
you need 12 cabinets to make an array.

Hopefully things will work out .

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hi Convergence, all valid points. well stated.

But, even though Cineplex may have no objection to an A4 system, where does one go to buy a brand new, factory made A4 system?

Concerts, HT, and Automobile markets represent exposure in the real world. And when people hear something they like, and look at the name, or ask, whatever is the case, they then find out thats Altec. Then, they proceed to seek out the products for themselves to buy. But, without this, your stuck in the mud.

Automobile and iPod speakers, are extrememly lucrative markets, and you besides being financially succesful, it keeps the JBL name in the minds of the average consumers. HT would have or should have been a stronghold for Altec as well, it makes sense to me. If the company were still around, I could see them having headed in this direction.

All in all, it is marketing, and keeping your brand name in the marketplace, but its a long road back to being ontop!

[scott fitlin]

BTW, the above post is not meant to bash, just to state that I feel that without a companies products and name being in the markets its hard to really get a foothold.

[MikeInNH]

I think it's almost too late for the Altec name to make it back into the Pro market. It's already in the home/computer market. Making the leap to the car market isn't too difficult.

But it will need MAJOR marketing (which requires a LOT of money) to make any inward movement in any market.

What I'd like to see is some Altec Devote millionaire come along and buy ALL the Altec names and merge them into one label. Then start reproducing and marketing the name again. It will problaby be a 3-5 year effort. And it would have to be done for love...because it sure won't be profitable. Even if Altec returns to the arena as one of the leaders it's very unlikely it'll dethrone JBL.

[scott fitlin]

Originally posted by MIkeInNH:
Even if Altec returns to the arena as one of the leaders it's very unlikely it'll dethrone JBL.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unforunately, I kind of agree.

But, the simple truth is the JBL name is everywhere.

I used to think why on earth did they go after the computer speaker, and Best Buy junk markets, a`la Bose?

Now I know, high visibilty in the marketplace. Same for the auto sound market.

As for the pro and touring industries and even cinemas, well, I thinks its over in those markets, and would be near impossible to recapture. Too many names out there now, that are making products, L`Acoustics, JBL, Meyer, McCauley, and the list goes on and on.

[LICORNE]

In order to get started . Plantronics together with GPA and investment Bankers would have to get together. Perhaps a large contract from the state
of California and Oklahoma would be required
to launch the companny. I'm thinking of a New stadium or important performance venue.

Government owned venues can be operated on a private public partnership.

I'm a Keynes type . I believe in some goverment intervention in the Economie.

That would suffice to launch Altec back on the Market place and create new jobs which would generate
revenues for the states.

Convergence

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