I should have remembered that too.Originally Posted by bowtie427ss
ouch.
ouch.
Moments like this where I wish still had the 26 755A's pulled from a downtown hotel that was demolished in Columbus back in the late 70's.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
I try to sort through the 755A variants here:
Junkyard Jukebox: WE/Altec 755A: You pays your money and takes your choice
The KS spec label on that silver gray hammertone Altec produced 755 signifies something like "8 inch speaker with xxx frequency response." Any speaker that meets the spec would qualify. That same number is used on 755Cs for the Bell System. I have also seen Jensens with a KS decal in the past and I'm wondering if that is the same KS number as well.
Those WE wall cabs are beautiful but a total waste of what is one of the best full range speakers ever produced.
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As forMy junky 1998 Volvo is a faithful reproduction of a 2012 BMW 750 except that it is not a BMW and it is not a 2012. Both have four wheels so they are pretty close though.755 EX driver is a faithful reproduction of the 755a in every way but two: Its nominal impedance is 8 instead of 4 ohms, and, instead of a permanent magnet, the Line Magnetic 755 EX uses a field coil
How can a field coil unit be a faithful reproduction of an AlNiCo driver?
The 755A has a very flat impedance curve, thanks to low vc inductance I think...I'd need to see the 755EX curves to know how they compare.
I'll be putting up a selection of 755A sweeps soon.
Also, the cone paper in the original 755A was dual thickness very rigid stuff. Later 755 A and C/Es were slightly different, not as stiff. Several attempts were made to reproduce the original recipe in Japan and they failed.
The Chinese speaker looks like a cool unit but it has nothing to do with the original 755A
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent --Wittgenstein
Very much looking forward to seeing that!
- Mike
We've discussed odd Altec variants...so made me chuckle to read-"Some silver Altecs have the old style decal pictured above
on the gray wrinkle unit. It seems Altec never threw anything away.... "
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
I was thinking of those same discussions when I wrote that!
I have seen a lot of variants in old ALTEC but a new one would never surprise me. Particularly on the internal OEM stuff, sometimes it seems like they were trying to clear out the warehouse.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent --Wittgenstein
Waste not, want not.
These speakers couldn't have been that expensive to make - since they were only selling for $30 each when new. If they sound that great, it still seems astonishing to me that no one has bothered to make modern clones. (At reasonable cost, that is.) Either that, or there really are better sounding 8" speakers these days...
W.
The ferrite 755C probably wouldn't be too expensive to remanufacture, but it is also nothing special. The 755A is the magic version.
The Alnico 755A used a chunky 3 lb.+ cast donut of alnico...I'd guess the magnets would cost well over $100 in quantity, maybe a lot more than $100 in any reasonable quantity relative to demand. Raw Alnico V is over $30 a pound these days from what I've read recently.
The cone of a 755A is also deceptively complex. Supposedly high silk content fiber mix, variable thickness, with a center compliance....would probably be expensive to tool up to make these too, if appropriate machines still exist.
Reproducing complete 755As and spare 755A cones has been tried in Japan in the past, with disastrous results.
According to my Japanese expert friends from Western Sound Inc., the 755C cone is different in a number of ways from the original run WE 755A cones and sounds nowhere near as good. These guys have worked with 1000s of 755As and repair them all the time. They demonstrated to me how the later cones are softer and less rigid than the original A cones. Put a C cone on an A and it sounds like a C, they say.
The 755A is a speaker that is more than the sum of its visible parts. Yes, there is a lot of hype about it, but much of it is justified...even though the totally crazy prices are hard to swallow. I never heard anything else like a 755A.
They were a lot more fun when they were $5 to $100, instead of $1000 -$3000 each, though!
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent --Wittgenstein
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