One year aniversary with my Altec 604B!!

[sanhanul]

It was a year ago when I started my Altec life with 604. I can tell I have learned a lot about audio for the time being. it didn't sound right at all. It was harsh , noisy and there were no bass, no hight. It was a total disaster. And it reminded of many audiophiles who tried Altec and left disappointed. It seemed there were no way for me to make it sound right.

I thought the best thing I could do was to get rid of it. But who's gonna buy the trash. Also curiosity arose about the reason why Altec people talks about Altec as they talk about the God.
Anyway, I bought JR149 to listen to the music for a while and decided to do something with 604.

Before, I used to opened up everything I got, speakers, amplifiers, CD players, Lp players, tuners..everything which were in my hand just to see what is inside. I became very lazy with audio at that time and wanted plug and play.

so,
I opend the cabinet. And I found the left and right speaker cables from networks to HF and LF sections were connected differently. I din't know what was the right connection but I just made left and right speaker same. And using reference test CD, I checked balance and phase. (I hadn't used that CD for long time and almost forgot about it)
It was strange because after I changed the cable connection, the sound color had changed a lot, less harsh, more base which I didn't expect and never happened at all with other speakers. I became excited. I tried all kind of music sources and found it was excellent in piano and vocal. But in string and orchestral music, it was still too harsh and noisy. Kind of good with Jazz but it lacked punch, dynamic with Queen.

I thought it might be mis-matched amplifier and tried several amplifiers such as 300B single, 2a3 single, Fisher x202b , Mcintosh 230a integrated, Marantz 140 , Melody 2a3pp integrated, Maihak V73 and 74, Langevin 130A with pre amplifier Fisher 400cx and Audio Labor.
I tried changing speaker cables, intercables which is one of the audiophile's old habit but which I always laughed at and gave up long time ago. I had to run to audio repair shops to fix hum problem, left and right balance etc. (604 is too sensitive in this fact)

But I couldn't get much improved sound by all these effort. At least not as much as making right connection of the cable. And one day a friend visited with his friend who is a trumpet player in a orchestra. We used to call my friend as a musium because he had everything from Jensen, Altec, Telefunken, Tannoy, Garrard, Rogers, Thorens, Micro seiki, and some modern Hi-end speakers. And he finally settled with Rogers 3/5 15ohm and Quad II set and sold out everything eles. After that he never changed his system and become missionary for the 3/5 speakers. He strongly believed that there are many better speakers in the world but in the small room condition we are in the 3/5 is the best option we can take. Many of his friend agreed and also settled with 3/5 and Quad system and one of them was the trumpeter.
And what happened? The trumpeter was amaged by the sound of Altec. He told me and my friend this was the best sound he had ever heard. I was little bit suprised. They visited before when I had different system. I was proud of my system and expected the same reponse at that time but he was silent. In this case silence means he doesn't agree with the sound and he doesn't want to offend the system owner. It was that bad at that time and now he is amazed? what is this? I knew there must be difference between live music and reproduced sound but I also believed that I was a critical listener and my system had value that plays music like a music.
Anyway I was a lot encouraged with his mention.

Several more months has passed but there were no major changes . And Altec stated changing by itself. The bass started comming alive. And the harshness become much less. Yes it was on burn-in process. And I found my 400cx didn't sound right. The high section was blurr and not enough. And I also found that the Langevin amplifier didn't sound right.(it all happened by the help of Altec) I changed 400cx to Audio labor and the high section came back. I check the schmatic of Langevin 130 and found that resistors for feedback has changed to 210 Kohm from 68 Kohm and input transformer was removed. I put the imput transformer back and changed feedback resistor to original spec. I also changed and adjusted my analog system such as step up transformer and tonearm.

Now I can listen to the music day and night without taking test CD out again and again. My altec sings really well. It is soft and sweet, clear and deep. This is the best system I ever have had and I feel I was going wrong direction before I met Altec. Altec taught me how crucial the basic is such as right cable connection and normal amplifier which is overhauled correctly. Also it needs time for burn-in. If not, Altec will scream saying, Hey, something is wrong, go and figure it out.

I also want to thank you for the Altec board people who gave a lot of advice and encouraged me to go on.

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