New Heathkit AS101 owner - First post.

[voice of the theater]

.......And neither of them are as important as what these 811b horns are doing to vocals and acoustic brass and woodwinds. I'm tickled....... FWIW, the full-range speakers, with a bit of HF attenuation, have an almost dead flat frequency plot from like 80-20K. And they sound pretty nice for what they are, but they do not have nearly the presence of these Heathkits, which I'm willing to bet have a far less sexy response curve. My point is I really don't care much for the numbers; I care about what I hear.

Well, you hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Vintage Altecs like your AS 101's are well known and highly acclaimed for their "midrange magic". While they also shine with clean powerful bass and great crystal clear high end as well, there's something indescribably lifelike about the midrange that they produce. I remember when I first bought my Valencias (my first Altecs with horns), I couldn't believe how lifelike brass, strings, vocals, guitars, etc. sounded. Like you could reach out and touch them...... I'm sure there are speakers that have better "numbers" than many of the classic vintage Altecs (as far as measurements), but very few that I've heard can come close to their clean, lifelike, effortless sound. FWIW, I never did the Zilch upgrades (802-8G/Model 19 crossover) to my Valencias or AS 101's--they sounded so great and have such a unique sound that I was leery of defacing a "work of art" and trying to turn them into something else. Since you had asked about what mods can be done to AS 101's, I felt it was important to mention Zilch's mods as a possibile option after you've done the caps, L Pads, and possible cabinet tuning mods....

[cradeldorf]

I started with As101's too, The Altec slide Is a slippery slope, Have a great journey I did. Kicking back and enjoying some great sound now.

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700...ant-gloat.html

[Alien_Shore]

Welcome to AUB, Alan.
You certainly chose an excellent speaker to get started with (as CD says down the slippery slope!)
Recapping those XOs is a no-brainer, you'll hear vast improvement with that. Another thing to check is the diaphragms in your HF comp drivers. Depending on how they've been treated over the many years, they may be in good shape or possibly torn up. Another thing to check is the strength of the magnets on your drivers...the old Alnico drivers can lose quite a bit of their zip again depending on what they've been through.

[alancohen]

Thanks, Mike. That brings up an interesting question. I got these speakers from a guy that buys and sells estates. They came from a house that has been closed up for 20+ years. I guess the original owner passed away and his house was closed up until recently when it was sold.

So these speakers haven't had a hard life of use, but sometimes non-use can be worse for some things. There doesn't seem to be any mold or corrosion anywhere. But it would probably be a good idea to remove all the drivers and give them a good look over.

How would I check the magnets? Would they loose their zing more from use, or non-use? Maybe sending them off to Bill for a recharge wouldn't be a bad idea. I know he does that for free with a diaphragm replacement or re-cone, but do you know what he charges a-la-carte? I've read that while GPAs replacement diaphragms are good, they are not exactly the same and might not have that exact "Altec sound". Myth?

I'm in NJ and haven't worked since Sandy paid her visit. As of this morning, my office still had no power. If that's the case tomorrow, I'll pull the drivers and post pics of what I find.

[cradeldorf]

Thank god they survived the storm!!! If they sound good I wouldn't bother messing with them....well of course I'd mess with them but watch that slope.
I'll be posting an update on my obsession in a few minutes.

[Cal Weldon]

Hi Alan,

Not mentioned yet is the flipping your drivers 180? to help relieve the downward stress of having sat that way for how ever many years.

Also, I noticed you have wired your L-Pad as a series resistor. Doing that will alter what your XO does. You'll want to correct that. Here is how:
https://www.google.ca/search?sourcei...iring+an+L-pad

And yes I know Altec does it that way also. For the life of me I can't ever sort out why. It makes no sense to have an L-Pad and not use it as one.

[voice of the theater]

Hi Alan,

Not mentioned yet is the flipping your drivers 180? to help relieve the downward stress of having sat that way for how ever many years.

Excellent suggestion--I've done that with all of my vintage Altecs--glad you thought to mention it!

Also, I noticed you have wired your L-Pad as a series resistor. Doing that will alter what your XO does. You'll want to correct that. Here is how:
https://www.google.ca/search?sourcei...iring+an+L-pad

And yes I know Altec does it that way also. For the life of me I can't ever sort out why. It makes no sense to have an L-Pad and not use it as one.

Alan, your crossovers/L Pads are currently wired the way Altec crossovers and the AS 101 crossover are designed to be wired. Keep in mind those crossovers are designed to work with your specific drivers and that re-wiring them as mentioned in the Google search will alter what your crossover was specifically designed to do. In other words, you wouldn't be "correcting" the wiring of your crossover by doing so, you'd instead be "altering" the design of your crossover. I personally wouldn't recommend doing so......

EDIT: In the interest of experimentation, IMHO there is no harm in trying out rewiring the L Pad to see what it sounds like. If you do decide to pursue this avenue, I would recommend rewiring one L-Pad and do an A/B comparison between the two speakers to see if the one with the original wiring scheme sounds/operates "better" or "worse" to your ears than the speaker with the re-wired L-Pad before deciding to re-wire both....

[mah]

FWIW a clean pair of Altec-Heath crossovers on Oz Ebay.

Altec crossover Heathkit AS-101 | eBay

[alancohen]

Now I'm working on inverting the LF drivers as recommended and after I removed the 4 mounting bolts the driver is not budging...I mean like it was glued in. Is there something I'm missing? FWIW, the surround looks good and I don't hear any rubbing in the VC.

Also, I took the back of the 806As. Should I keep going and or clean off the oxidation?

DSCF0668.jpg

One more question. It seems my allotted 1mB of images files is full. I don't see anywhere in the attachment manager where I can delete them. How can I upload more pics?

[robertbartsch]

I bought a pair of these new in 1974. I can still remember soldering the crossovers and installing drivers. I think I paid about $600 or so, if memory serves me well.

...like a dope, I sold them in 1999. I missed them so much, however, I bought a pair of Velencias that have the same guts,,, You should consider installing casters on the cabs...