He says only 4 inch coil...the 594 driver has a 4 inch coil.
Altec 594b & 594-8C
He says only 4 inch coil...the 594 driver has a 4 inch coil.
Altec 594b & 594-8C
Last edited by Old Guy; September 24th, 2017 at 05:05 PM.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
Now that's an Altec I have never heard of. Cool!Originally Posted by Old Guy
So tell me more about the Altec 594 driver. Was this a low production driver, or did it ever go into official production?
With the 2" throat, I assume it was meant to compete against the JBL 2440/2441/etc. What did Altec use for horns though?
The JBL was an Alnico driver based on the Western Electric 594. So were the Altec 594 b/c and the Emilar 2 inch designed by Ex-Altec employee Jonas Renkus. They are all brothers, or at least cousins. Most of the Altec went to the military. A few have gotten into civilian hands. Emilar morphed sideways into Radian...even today 2 inch Radians accept JBL diaphragms.
Altec brass thought the 594c was unnecessary.
If Altec had put the 594 in production in the 60's they may not have been bankrupt in the 80's. The 70's explosion in sound reinforcement was won by JBL.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
Yeah, really hard to develop new components in a fast expanding market while being financially gutted.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
I know it's different in SR, but for HiFi apps, the 288 is, IMO, the perfect HF driver. It has most of the HF of a 802/902, with killer mids also.
The JBL 2" drivers really need a tweeter to sound good. If I was going with a 3 way system, I would see using a 224x driver. For a 2 way, the Altec large format driver rules.
True. But some really bad decisions were made by management. I have mellowed a bit, as they were under serious constraints.Yeah, really hard to develop new components in a fast expanding market while being financially gutted.
GM
But they thought since they owned the theater market they did not need to improve.
George Lucas and JBL thought differently.
JBL courted Lucas. In the early days a system could not THX spec without a 2 inch driver.
End of the line for Altec. The fact that they moved to Oklahoma and didn't ship systems for months during all this was the final coffin nail.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
So were the JBL THX rated systems a 3 way setup?
OK, not the vibes I got from the local distributor, but they tended to be a 'law unto themselves' since the cost of THX theater certification was too much, so AFAIK there was ever only one in the greater metro Atlanta area and don't recall it staying in business all that long.
Don't recall anyone mentioning a THX 2" min. driver spec, but certainly fills in a lot of blanks to explain some other stuff re the ill conceived 511E, 9848 monitor and A9 cinema speakers that went nowhere.
Today, as big, populous as we are now, there's only three 70 mm Dolby cinemas AFAIK, with a few others that do temporary installs for the big blockbuster movies, so all things considered, THX, Dolby certification still isn't a big deal to the paying public.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
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