they use paper accordians, but mostly you have to replace the entire cone assembly. unless you can do a simple fix. but most of us just send them in for factory repair. you also should keep resale value in mind. i may be wrong.
Greetings to all
I want to know what type of surround Altec originally had on 604B, 604C, 416, 515B and 603. To be more specific, was it paper edge accordion, cloth edge accordion or any other type.
Also, which of these had the bakelite spiders?
Regards,
Last edited by hififan; February 25th, 2016 at 02:13 PM. Reason: asked additional information
they use paper accordians, but mostly you have to replace the entire cone assembly. unless you can do a simple fix. but most of us just send them in for factory repair. you also should keep resale value in mind. i may be wrong.
Sonic Barbarian
604B used a one piece paper cone and hinge assembly. Every 416 uses an accordion cloth hinge, 515B and beyond use an accordion cloth hinge, 604C and beyond use an accordion hinge. 603 would have a paper hinge, pretty sure early ones will be dry while later versions were doped.
All of the "accordion" hinges are cloth. They MUST be doped to make them airtight.
The paper hinges are 1 or 2 small rolls, about as much as you could hope to squeeze out of the cone material. Some paper hinges were doped making them a bit more difficult to discern at a glance or distance.
The one oddball situation would be 413's and early 411's which used a single roll, doped, large, cloth hinge. 413 would be discontinued and later 411's would get a foam roll hinge.
I don't know of any "Bakelite spiders", that is mis-information. Altec made knobs and duplex horns from Bakelite, however.
515, 604, 604B, early 603, and 803A AFAIK, all used a phenolic resin damper(spider). Not a hard and fast rule, but generally an Altec with a paper hinge had a phenolic damper. I "think" some of the early bi-flex drivers also used a phenolic damper, but don't quote me on that.
EDIT: I really wanted to be able to make a simple statement to the effect of "if it had a two piece basket/split rim, then it had a one piece paper cone and hinge assembly with a phenolic spider"
But, i have learned that with Altec there are exceptions to almost every rule, and you have to be very careful about making blanket statements about it.
Last edited by bowtie427ss; February 26th, 2016 at 09:14 AM.
Not all vegetables make good leaders.
Thanks Bowtie for the very comprehensive reply.
I meant phenolic when I said Bakelite, just did some online search and learnt that Bakelite is a brand name while phenolic resin is the correct material name.
Regards,
Just my own personal spin on Bakelite. Historically, i have found pieces and parts which are molded to final shape to be the common reference for Bakelite. Whereas parts that are cut or die stamped from sheet stock are more commonly referred to as "phenolic". Perhaps it's just my particular geographic area where the job market has largely been in the aerospace industry, and i am likely biased to a regional interpretation established by a large corporation or two.
Not all vegetables make good leaders.
Right, Bakelite is the precursor of modern molded structural plastics whereas phenolic is layers of impregnated paper or cloth of various types bonded together at high pressure, temperature. You want 'nasty'; the latter's decades old manufacturing plant I visited back in the '60s, which of course predated EPA, etc., was truly a horrible working environment.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
The 803, and generally the 'Utah' and grey wrinkle frame versions of the 803A also had the paper hinge, the green 803A tended to have the doped paper hinge, and the 803B had the accordion cloth, sometimes red in colour. The 803B became the 416A 'overnight' to address the duplication of the model designation 803B in both the LF driver range and the multi cell horn range.
As bowtie correctly said, there are always exceptions. I've got pictures of doped paper hinge surrounds on 604Cs and a 604D, but also cloth accordion on a 604C, which probably was a recone. Also, this may have been Altec labelling 604s in green baskets 604C then after dropping the 604 for the 605A going 'oh wait, we have a few left, studios hate the 605, then lets get those 604s back out and call them 604Ds'.
To add to confusion now, you can buy off flea pay quite good looking repros of the paper hinge cone, for that authentic repair to an early Altec, as I don't see many paper hinge units without a crack of some kind in that surround. Given they are 50-60 years old, I'd have a few cracks in my skin too....
Not sure of the quality of those repro kits, but at $300-400 a pair they would want to be decent.
These popped up in a search.As bowtie correctly said, there are always exceptions. I've got pictures of doped paper hinge surrounds on 604Cs and a 604D, but also cloth accordion on a 604C, which probably was a recone. Also, this may have been Altec labelling 604s in green baskets 604C then after dropping the 604 for the 605A going 'oh wait, we have a few left, studios hate the 605, then lets get those 604s back out and call them 604Ds'.
Note that the cone number doesn't jive with what we'd expect to see in there.
Alec 6 4D 15 inch Coaxial Loudspeakers
Not all vegetables make good leaders.
I remember some discussion on here about those 6 digit numbers, seem to recall it was for a 604c. Forget the outcome though
Originally Posted by bowtie427ss
Bookmarks