Kilimanjaro field coils

**johnsonad** · June 1st, 2011, 04:26 AM

There was a little discussion about these speakers in another post. I?m very interested in their 416WVL as a drop in replacement in my Model 19 speakers. I?m curious if anyone had any experience with these speakers or has heard anything about them? Also, with the goal of keeping the stock Model 19 enclosure and crossover (if possible) would you guys recommend trying this? It's a lot of coin to drop (for me at least) but could be worth it.

Regards,

Aaron

A416WVL | Kilimanjaro-Series | Wolf von Langa

**Altec Best** · June 1st, 2011, 11:05 AM

IIRC They are close to $3000 a piece ! Or the 604 ?Well anyway, throw in another $100-$200 or so for the shipping.IMHO those drivers are beautiful but they would be best suited to their own enclosure (Custom) with a matching field coil HF driver to get the full potential of those wonderful drivers.When you could buy Brand New 416 B-C's from Bill at GPA for $600 for a pair, kinda puts them into perspective.

OTOH if you have very deep pockets then Why Not ?

**johnsonad** · June 1st, 2011, 11:31 AM

Well they were a little over 2k yesterday.... I emailed Wolf to find out the actual price. Either way you are right, the are expensive and my pockets aren't that deep. My 19's sound great but wouldn't mind getting a little more out of them and custom enclosures are not an option at the moment.

**Altec Best** · June 2nd, 2011, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by johnsonad

Well they were a little over 2k yesterday.... I emailed Wolf to find out the actual price. Either way you are right, the are expensive and my pockets aren't that deep. My 19's sound great but wouldn't mind getting a little more out of them and custom enclosures are not an option at the moment.

Yup, I think it was the 604 that was close to $3G's then. But Anyway have you upgraded the Crossovers in your 19's yet ? If not, it is a must, and should be the next thing on your list ! It was the single biggest thing that I have done to get the biggest improvement to mine. For about $110 in (Parts+Shipping) (Caps & Resistors) + add a little extra for new wire 14 AWG stranded I used.

You may find that is all they need :-)

**johnsonad** · June 2nd, 2011, 01:40 PM

I've done the crossovers, went overboard with North Creek inductors and all the trimmings. They didn't last long after break in and I'm one of the few who prefers the stock crossover. The FC speakers really are expensive and I'm 99.9% sure they will not make it into my 19's. I would like a little more out of them but without changing the horn and the overall design, it's better to leave them alone.

Damping the horns and increasing the bracing did make a noticeable difference and I'm thankful to everyone who recommended doing it. I would have liked for the new crossovers to have worked out but as of now they are collecting dust in the corner....

**Altec Best** · June 2nd, 2011, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by johnsonad

I've done the crossovers, went overboard with North Creek inductors and all the trimmings. They didn't last long after break in and I'm one of the few who prefers the stock crossover. The FC speakers really are expensive and I'm 99.9% sure they will not make it into my 19's. I would like a little more out of them but without changing the horn and the overall design, it's better to leave them alone.

Damping the horns and increasing the bracing did make a noticeable difference and I'm thankful to everyone who recommended doing it. I would have liked for the new crossovers to have worked out but as of now they are collecting dust in the corner....

Well you should leave the stock inductors anyway,they are part of the voicing and a lot of Folks here say the same thing that when they replaced the inductors they lost some of the magic so back in they went. I'm using stock crossovers just replaced the caps & resistors and did the ground bypass.Changed all the wires to larger AWG stranded and cleaned the L-pads that's all I needed to do.My 19's were in Mint condition when I got them,only thing missing was the foams,not a scratch on them.Pretty amazing considering their size and weight.The crossovers I bought a donor pair from the bay and rebuilt them,to keep my originals all original. :-)

But WRT the horn Dampening. I replaced the foams in mine that helped too.If you look close at the pic you can see they touch the bell in 2 places and help keep the front of the horn from resonating.Which does help to remove the tinniness in the HF.All the drivers measured to Factory spec so that's really all I had to do.Original Caps were all out and 4 of the 8 resistors were out.So I just replaced all caps with Solen Fast Caps,Dayton resistors except for the 3.9 ohm resistors had to get them from Madisound.But essentially they are stock with all stock spec'd values.Leave the original Inductors in there.They very rarely go bad so a waste of money IMO.Good Luck with it.