Funny you should mention that. I popped them open and found some curiosities. 3-4 things I noticed right away.
1. The horns top brace has been removed. I can clearly see the old glue binding where it was removed...why? More cubic volume?
2. The ports on these cabinets extend into the box. Seems like 99% of all the 846A's I've seen have ports around the horn.
3. I see a super very faint (and professionally done) coverup of the original area the attenuator on the rear of the cabinets. Whoever did this either worked at the factory and was able to perfectly match the rear paint/finish, or they were ordered this way?
4. My crossover is clearly different than all the other crossover's I've seen on 846A's, which appeared to be mounted to the above mentioned attenuator's backside on the rear panel. The crossovers are in a black metal box (haven't attempted to remove) with no markings aside from the usual LF, HF, +/- connections. Very curious. Wondering if they could be very early N-800-D's?
Makes me scratch my head. I bought these from a little old lady who said her husband was the original owner, purchased new around 1966-67 - speaker date codes support this, but there's some oddities for sure. I find it strange as I'm positive these are factory Altec cabinets, authentic, etc., but clearly there's been some customization done to them at some point, or maybe they were purchased this way. I'm still learning how customizable these were from the factory back then.
Thanks for your knowledge. All that being said, these things sing! Very very happy with them as-is.
p.s. I took this pic right after rotating the woofers 180 to alleviate any tar pooling over last 50 years.
IMG_1575.jpg - Google Drive
EDIT: realize this is a topic slide, apologies, I'll start a thread.
Bookmarks