Those 14's in CA may go cheap without woofers. Of course, if I bought them I'd have to hunt down the original woofers for them. I know people like to think that if you throw in a pair of 414's instead of the stock woofers you'd be upgrading them, but I don't necessarily agree--even if, as a "stand alone" woofer, the 414's may be superior. The Model 14's are an amazing speaker SYSTEM. Those crossovers (with high frequency compensation and mid and high pots like the Model 19 crossovers)/cabinet tuning etc. are customized for the stock woofer. The pair of 14's I have with the stock 13 1/2 inch frame woofers sound amazing. Those stock woofers (in conjunction with the crossovers etc.) play really smoothly and clean right up to the 1500 hz crossover point and really deliver clean powerful DEEP bass (due in part to the cabinet tuning no doubt). Bill at GPA (who has recone kits for them--although fortunately mine are not in need of a recone) and Todd both speak very highly of that (three inch voice coil) woofer (I've quoted a previous post by Todd from an old thread at L.H. forums regarding those woofers in one of my previous posts here). I guess if you really want to re-invent the wheel you could re-design the crossover and re-tune the cabs to accommodate 414's, but I consider the original 14's to be a masterpiece of design--and based on how fantastic they sound I'll bet a lot of research went into that system. I'd be skeptical that a "reinvented design" of them would match the originals unless someone really had a lot of time and resources and measurement/listening/crossover design/cabinet tuning skills. There may be people reading this who think they could easily blow away the original design but I'll bet if they had two pair-- one original and one with 414's--they'd find it pretty difficult to match the incredibly smooth response and crystal clear well balanced sound of the original classic design when doing A/B tests (and would probably be pulling their hair out in the process--the original Model 14 system is that good!). I really think Altec hit a home run with that system. I see those original Model 14 woofers on ebay/CL every once in a while--I'd grab the 14's if I was in CA if the bidding doesn't get crazy.......
Hmmmmm, those 9842's are a six hour drive from me. I've driven that far for Altecs before. If only the seller hadn't stated "I haven't used them in 5 years so sold AS IS offered with no reserve!" Just sounds like an excuse to me. What would it take him--10 minutes to hook them up and listen to them and then he could advertise that they're currently working great. I'm thinking this is his version of saying they're "untested" as has been discussed in a different thread here recently (I couldn't agree more with that discussion by the way--even though I may not have chimed in on it). If I were going to buy them of course I'd bring my amp and listen to them first, but a 12 hour round trip for "untested" speakers (and a seller) that I'm very suspicious of--hmmmm. I'd be more likely to buy them if he was honest and said for example that a diaphragm was blown etc. so I knew upfront what's wrong with them rather than him trying to tell me they're "untested" and I have to guess how much it would cost me to do the necessary repairs/restoration to get them working again......
Interesting Ebay finds OG--thanks for sharing.
Originally Posted by Altec Best
Bookmarks