I've never heard a 605 to compare it to the 604/E/G/K of which I am familiar. However, I do know that there was a severe market backlash to Altec from the studio industry when it was introduced as the replacement for the 604C. In around 1962, Altec went on a cost cutting exercise that saw the introduction of the 605 and 806. Where the 604 could roughly be described as a 515 bass driver with a 802 coaxially mounted, the 605 was roughly a 416 with an 806. However, instead of selling this speaker as a lower cost altenative to the 604, Altec marketed it as a "new and improved" design to supercede the 604. Thus it was given the 605 moniker and the 604 went out of production.
This single act, more than any other, opened the door for JBL to compete in the professional market against Altec Lansing. Studios balked at this product, considering it noticably inferior to the 604. In particular, Capitol, a long time Altec customer, turned to JBL to supply studio monitors. They were impressed enough that they later standarized on JBL monitors for all of their studios. Soon JBL was supplying monitors to the industry at large. Eventually, Altec realized the error of their ways and re-introduced the 604 as the 604E SuperDuplex (the 605 had been given the longstanding Duplex brand name). However, by then it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle and JBL would come to dominate the studio market in subsequent years.
In summary, the 605A was not an intrinsically bad speaker. It was Altec's marketing blunder that, more than anything, gave it a bad reputation. Nonetheless, it was considered to be significantly different in sound from the 604 that it replaced.
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