FWIW, Dunwoody, Roswell, Alpharetta is where most of the 'landed gentry' reside, so they appear to be more bargain priced for the area to get a quick sale than what they're worth since historically folks in those areas tend to overpay just because they can. Performance wise, they're tough to beat referenced to their contemporaries if one has the period correct electronics and mostly spin old vinyl, RTR tapes.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
As an A7-500WII owner for the last thirty-five years, I would like to add that I would pay $3000.00 for a pair of those in the same condition as mine, which these appear to be. The cabs/grills being the selling point for me. God forbid, if just one of my grills were to get damaged/pushed in, I'd still pay that price for the pair, rather than try to separate the grill (wood, not lattice) from the cab, sell the components, and transfer my comps to those cabs. Four would also be great, but the space is another story. AB, Nineteens are great, too, but my mags are the best pieces of furniture I've owned.
I think that a pair with few, if any, imperfections will command the big bucks. From the comments above buyers value that.
The attitude of the seller is also important, poor description, unhelpful shipping/pickup options etc, they all affect the prices in that list I posted earlier.
Then people will be patient too. I know that I'm after more 288Cs, but i want ones with no marks, nice decals and the older, larger Altec logo. I'll patiently sit and wait, like many folks who want a really nice set of Altecs.
I've never heard Magnificents before but they look almost identical to the 846a Valencias that I owned for two decades with the obvious exception that the Magnificents have larger (but very similar looking) cabinets. I loved those Valencias -- there was a reason they were my main speakers for close to twenty years. Now that I own Model 19's and Model 14's I would have to say that the Valencia's crossover and 806 h.f. driver didn't allow for the extended h.f. response that the 14's and 19's get with their 902-8a and 802-8g drivers and dual band crossovers. Also, back in the 60's (and early 70's) Altec didn't tune their cabinets to get much (if any) usable bass response down in the 30hz to 40 hz range like the 14's and 19's do. Of course, the Valencias had great sounding mid bass and midrange as do the 14's and 19's, and hopefully the size of the Magnificents cabinets allows for at least slightly better bass response than the Valencias. In other words, I'm sure the Magnificents are amazing sounding Altecs--I would think that the fact that they can command a $3,000 plus price tag can be related to their rarity/collectability but also if you've got the right gear and really want that authentic vintage 60's Atlec midrange magic, they're well worth $3,000 a pair for their performance as well as their collectability IMO....
My former main speakers (846a)
Last edited by voice of the theater; August 23rd, 2014 at 11:27 AM.
Being of "Sound" Mind
I would emphasize GM's words here as well as the numerous other times he's mentioned the importance of the use of period correct electronics to get the most out of these older systems.
He brightened my world long ago by driving home the importance in the relationship between amplifier output impedance and speaker system(load) impedance, including the speaker's inherent mechanical/acoustic damping characteristics. I have since learned the importance of impedance relationship through the entire signal chain.Performance wise, they're tough to beat referenced to their contemporaries if one has the period correct electronics and mostly spin old vinyl, RTR tapes.
On other forums they call it "synergy" and dedicate entire threads to the fairy dust without ever revealing a scientific explanation or measurements.
Not all vegetables make good leaders.
Funny thing is that I didn't intentionally run my Valencias with "period correct" gear but coincidentally, I was using a Dynaco PAS-3X (tube) pre-amp with them and a Dynaco Stereo 120 power amp at the time--both of which are at least close to period correct and the Valencias sounded amazing being powered with that gear. I realize, however, that close usually only counts in hand grenade wars and that a Dynaco Stereo 70 (tube) power amp would have been closer to being period correct. Makes total sense that Altec's speaker systems of that era were designed to sound great with the amps/gear of their era and as usual GM is right on the money.
By the way, does anyone know if the Maginificent's crossover is also similar to the 846a crossover?
EDIT: Just looked at the Ebay listing again and there is a photo of the Magnificent crossover--it's an N-500-G crossover so VERY different from the Valencia N-800-F. Also just read that the Magnificent uses a 511b horn as opposed to the Valencia's 811b horn (of course--given the 500 hz crossover point) so these are two VERY different speaker systems after all.....
EDIT#2 Magnificents have 802D h.f. drivers (which are very highly regarded drivers in the 802 line among vintage Altec aficionados IIRC) and Valencias had 806 drivers....
Last edited by voice of the theater; August 23rd, 2014 at 12:20 PM.
Being of "Sound" Mind
Yeah, sad isn't?Originally Posted by bowtie427ss
Anyway, glad I could 'peal back the veil of ignorance' a bit for you and others as TD likes to say. When I came to the early audio BBs, etc., horn systems in general were damned by the college youth that dominated them and even famous magazine reviewers that were well aware of the need for system 'synergy' trashed them as completely obsolete in the then current HIFI 'world' [true], presumably to pacify/pander to the then current crop of advertisers with their 'monkey coffins' and super high -nb/high DF, power SS electronics.
Any attempts by me and a few others to 'clear the smoke' were 'shouted down' with all manner of [foul] language/inuendos about heritage, etc., and on one BB I got immediately disconnected/banned, complete with my first computer virus to boot!
What a welcome [not] to the WWW!
Since I knew nothing about computers and the folks that built it were at a loss too, they had to learn about viruses or the need to protect against them, but to their credit, they learned ?post haste? and fixed my computer, etc., at no extra cost except loss of time, aggravation, etc. and just generally wished I?d bothered to learn about programming, so I could combat the a$$h0l3.
Oh well, the 'nail that stands proud gets hammered down', so when horn subjects came up I tended to either abstain or spout the 'party line' since in the scheme of things it wasn't worth fighting over and I didn?t have to listen to their misaligned, poorly implemented horn designs.
One day on the Basslist though, I'd finally had enough of horn bashing in general, so 'crossed swords' with some highly regarded and way more educated in the 'physics of the situation' European DIYers over several aspects of [mid] bass horn design and was being ~politely told that I was clueless when some 'nobody' named Tom Danley weighed in talking their language and eventually converted them to 'our' way of thinking about lots of things audio design related.
Now, thanks to TD, Dr. Geddes, the late JMLC and ?Zilch? along with the folks doing the flat pack, etc., econo-horn horn kits, horn/WG systems have a good size niche in DIY audio and the way things are heating up, two and three way Unity/Synergy kits could become a reality in the near future now that powerful digital signal processor prices have plummeted in recent years.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
Well when you consider nice pairs of Magnificents sell for anywhere around $2500-$3500 depending on condition I think you did pretty good..
BTW- Welcome to the Altec Users Board ! The cabinet looks to be in real nice shape..The only problem as you already know is the grill, which won't be easily replaced.The drivers inside look pretty clean as well..
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