Anybody need 411's?

[voice of the theater]

I sent both to GPA for a rebuild.

When they came back I measured again. First thing I had to do was re-bend the cone leads because they hit the frame at full excursion. GPA dicked this up. Sorry, fact.

Mine were the first recones GPA had done on these. Bill told me this.

These did NOT measure like orig 411's. They measured more like 416's.



Ron

Hey Ron, I have been concerned about your sunken cone stories in the past and the many other
stories since about woofers coming back different. Your not alone.
The reconing process seems to relate more to reupholstering a chair than producing a precision
electrical device. I hope I never have to send a driver out.

I have had great results with GPA recones. I think with any repair/manufacturing facility, no matter how good they are (or how good their track record is), there are always going to be exceptions to every rule. No manufacturer/repair facility can bat 1,000. In this case, Ron mentioned it was the first time they had done a recone on this particular speaker type. Understandable how this might have been an exception to their usual track record. I think any other stories/mishaps that have occurred are similar exceptions to the rule. There will always be a rare/occasional defect with any manufacturing or repair facility, but I would stack GPA's quality/track record against the best of them. It's hard to beat replacement parts manufactured with actual Altec tooling and installed by former Altec employees. If I buy another blown Altec woofer (like the 421 I had in a P.A. cab that they did a great job reconing for me last year) or need a h. f. diaphragm etc., I wouldn't hesitate to send a driver out to GPA for installation/repair etc. Understandably, when someone sends something to them for repair, and it comes back working great, most people don't really see a point in posting about it on a forum like this. Of course, in the rare exception where something goes wrong, then people will post for advice etc. so you end up reading about the exceptions on forums like these and not the vast majority of times when things come back working/sounding great.....