Santana II Questions

[alancohen]

Something seems to be wrong on that crossover. I'm guessing the white wire is the +input from the amp and the green is the +output to the LF driver. It appears they are soldered to the same terminal point. That can't be right. It would bypass the whole crossover. I think the green wire should be connected to the center terminal. Am I mis-seeing?

[voice of the theater]

Earl's right. Do you have a better pic, or can you describe which wires go where?
It's hard to tell from the pic, but if L-Pad pins 1 & 2 are jumped, the L-pad is essentially defeated from it's primary purpose (maintaining constant impedance), and the impedance that the XO is seeing from the tweets is reduced. I would doubt that the L-pad was wired that way from the factory.

Does anyone have a pic of a factory Santana XO or a schematic?

All four Santana II crossovers/L Pads that I own are wired with a jumper on the L Pad--they were definitely wired with the jumper at the factory. I'll have to check to see if all other wiring is identical. I think Altec wired some of their other L Pads the same way for some of their other stock crossovers and I'm pretty sure it has been discussed here on the Altec Users Board before. Anyone care to chime in to confirm this? I'd love to see a schematic for the Santana II crossover as well if anyone has one to share.....

EDIT: Here's a link to another thread with a much better crossover photo (thanks Old Guy!) that I just found.....

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700...frequency.html

[voice of the theater]

I finally got around to recapping all four Santana II's. Some of the old caps were leaking so I'm sure they needed it. I used the Solen "fast caps" that Bill at GPA recommends and the speakers definitely sound better with new caps that are operating at the right values. Now that they're recapped I set the two new ones up on top of the newer 19's in my rec room (both pair were manufactured after Altec stopped putting the decals regarding wood veneer on the crossovers) and the two older Santana II's are now on top of the older 19's in my recording studio (both of these older pairs were manufactured back when Altec was still putting the decals regarding the veneer on the crossovers). So, this first photo looks like the old photo from last year in the first post of this thread except if you look closely this new photo has the new Santana II's (with no decals and newer style woofer frames) and the photo in post 1 of this thread has the older Santana II's with decals and older style woofer frame.

REC ROOM WITH NEWER SANTANA II's


RECORDING STUDIO WITH OLDER SANTANA II's




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Earl's right. Do you have a better pic, or can you describe which wires go where?
...........Does anyone have a pic of a factory Santana XO or a schematic?

I agree---you and Earl are right. There's no way to know for sure if running the L PAD full throttle is the same as bypassing the L Pad by disconnecting the two wires from it and soldering them together without a schematic or better idea of which wires go where. I forgot that the reason that people were able to answer the same question apparently off the top of their heads regarding the treble L Pad for my Model 19's and 14's is because there are schematics available for those. So I took some better pictures and drew a primitive drawing (sorry for the messy diagram and bad handwriting). Too bad I don't know the value of the inductor because that value is the only missing piece of this hand drawn "schematic". Here are a couple of better pics and my diagram. I hope this primitive drawing is useful/interesting to vintage Altec crossover buffs out there. With this new info, can anyone tell me if running the L-Pad all the way up on the Santana II's is the same as disconnecting the two wires from it and soldering them together? Thanks.

SANTANA II STOCK CROSSOVER


SANTANA II CROSSOVER WITH NEW SOLEN CAPS


SANTANA II CROSSOVER DIAGRAM


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[alancohen]

You have the amp wire and LF + connected together. This will bypass the entire crossover and feed full FR to the woofer. The green lead needs to be moved one terminal over to the other cap.

[Earl K]

You have the amp wire and LF + connected together. This will bypass the entire crossover and feed full FR to the woofer. The green lead needs to be moved one terminal over to the other cap.

I believe that VOT has drawn it correctly .

There are a few Altec networks ( especially with this woofer type ) than run the woofer full-range .



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SANTANA II CROSSOVER WITH NEW SOLEN CAPS


SANTANA II CROSSOVER DIAGRAM

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Thanks for the effort, VOT.

Yes you can safely bypass the LPad/POT ( which here, is simply wired up as a variable resistor ) .



PS : This is another somewhat strange Altec network ; with a 3- pole HF ( on a variable impedance load ) over a full-range LF .

[alancohen]

But if the woofer was intended to run full range, why would there be and inductor in the circuit?

Here's another Santana II and the LF+ is clearly connected to the other cap.

[voice of the theater]

I believe that VOT has drawn it correctly .

There are a few Altec networks ( especially with this woofer type ) than run the woofer full-range .



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Yes--the Model 15 has the exact same woofer as the Santana II and the Model 15 runs this woofer full range as well (with an 802-8G for h.f.). It really is a great woofer and sounds amazing running full range.....

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Thanks for the effort, VOT.

Yes you can safely bypass the LPad/POT ( which here, is simply wired up as a variable resistor ) .



PS : This is another somewhat strange Altec network ; with a 3- pole HF ( on a variable impedance load ) over a full-range LF .

Thanks Earl! After reading this post I just finished bypassing the L Pad on all four Santana II crossovers. Since I run them with it turned all the way up anyways, I'd rather not have those 30+ year old L Pads in the circuit unnecessarily.....

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But if the woofer was intended to run full range, why would there be and inductor in the circuit?

Here's another Santana II and the LF+ is clearly connected to the other cap.

Both of those crossovers in that pic have been modified. The woofer wire should be green for one thing and it's not connected where it should be. My early pair of Santana II's (manufactured in 1977) with the early style frame for this woofer (pictured in a post above) have a green woofer wire as shown in the photos of both crossovers (in the post above) and the diagram. Here are two photos of my newer Santana II crossovers with the newer style woofer frame which have a crossover date code of the 50th week of 1979 (December 1979) and a cabinet date code of 02/80 also have the green woofer wire and all of the crossover wiring of the 1980 Santana II's is identical to the crossover wiring of the 1977 Santana II's as you can see in the photos. As far as what does the inductor do in the circuit--Earl -- do you (or anyone else here) know what it does in this circuit?

[Old Guy]

My old eyes don't like non-straight line drawings- but I assume it's a 12 DB filter on the HF and the woof full range.

Isn't the inductor to ground from between the caps? It would be series with the woof as a low pass...

the original Santana/Biflex ran the Biflex full range albeit only 6DB on the tweet.

[Earl K]

My old eyes don't like non-straight line drawings- but I assume it's a 12 DB filter on the HF and the woof full range.

Isn't the inductor to ground from between the caps? It would be series with the woof as a low pass...

the original Santana/Biflex ran the Biflex full range albeit only 6DB on the tweet.

As far as what does the inductor do in the circuit--Earl -- do you (or anyone else here) know what it does in this circuit?

There are 2 caps in series to each other ( before running over to the tweeter / through the variable resistor ) / the inductor is joined into the HF circuit where the 2 caps join each other , the other end of that coil then goes to ground .

- That configuration equates to an 18db/per octave HP filter ( ie; 3-pole ) .

- The cap values are non-standard / so the type of "knee" ( at Fc ) will also be "custom" .

[Old Guy]

- That configuration equates to an 18db/per octave HP filter ( ie; 3-pole ) .

Knew I shoulda had that second coffee...