I thought I'd just start a new thread as my questions will be running the gamut. Summary - having bought 2 Altec 9440A's, while researching those I unknowingly caught Altec fever and purchased a pair of A7 in Atlanta without having a clue what was in them and also as ignorant as one can be on horns or any Altec speaker. The seller just told me his father bought them new, bowtie427ss pinpointed them to a pair of 1959 A7's that had been inverted.
Getting the back off wasn't too easy, turned out there was a sheet of veneer over a few screws on one of them, looks as tho they may have put veneer over all the screws in the other. On the one off so far, the HF driver was the 802D, the LF driver the 803B and then 811B horns. Both have the N-800-D network divider, one of them also had a N-1600-C - popular opinion is they at one time toyed with 3 way.
All caught up now.
The LF drivers. Only got the one out of the cabinet, was assuming the other was the same since supposedly bought new but I noticed something different about them today. The one I got out has your typical dust cover on it. Straightening out what I'm pretty sure was screwed up wiring and flipping the cabs to see how they sound this way, I noticed the dust cover on what I assumed was another 803B in the speaker I haven't yet got the back off of yet is completely different than the one I did get out. You can't tell from the picture but the inner circle is just a screen, I can see down inside the coil. My 1st thought was maybe it's been re-coned but if it has been, if not done by the factory someone highly skilled did it as it sure looks original. Have to wonder if they used different dust caps on the 803B, if a different series, at some point maybe this was a replacement driver ?
Any info is appreciated as always - tho it looks like it's pushed in in the pic, it's not, probably be hard to since it's just screen
C2AmHho.jpg
Ignorant as I am, pretty sure the wiring was not right. They had the woofer connected to the N-1600-C and the HF driver on that speaker was just loosely wrapped and taped around terminal 4 while on the other speaker with just the N-800-D the wire was soldered on terminal 2. Guessing they were experimenting with the one speaker and when they tired of that, just left everything as it was. I need to clean off the horrific soldering on both N-800-D's but for now I just want to experiment with how they sound flipped over as it seems they were originally, just setting the horn on top for now.
Finishing up with the 2nd one now, will give it a listen for a while, difference in dust caps was bugging me tho.
As if I don't have enough to research and learn already, am going to wait until they are home but let's just say this may not be the only Altec speakers I own here in a couple of days.
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