Differences between 604-8k's....And Thanx for the A5 advice!

[dooey263]

Hello all......

First off, just want to thank everyone for the advice I received on my double-walled A5 project. The speakers are completed, and sound better than I had ever even dreamed. The combination of 3/4" mdf inner, 2"x2" hard maple stringers, and 3/4" oak ply outer (with about 50 lbs of bookmatched crotch white oak trim) has made a cab that is hearty,heavy,and manly!!!!!!. The bass with the 515b is perfect, so articulate, even at the lowest volume. I drive them with a PP Mullard el34 amp, and they sound great, haven't even ventured into DHT territory yet!

They sound so good I've decided to toss my home theatre SS setup, and go all tube and all Altec. I found a pair of 604-8k's, all original, amazingly, 20 miles from my home. I intend to use them for the rear channels. I have read as much as can find about them, and have found most say the ones made before the move to OKC were best. My question is... how can I tell? Is there a way to identify the difference by looking at the speaker or crossover?

Thanx for all your continuing help. I couldn't achieve sonic bliss without the help from the Altec community.

[Old Guy]

I disagree the ones before OKC are better.

Altec had quality control issues prior to the move. And after. Money was a serious problem for Altec.

If you want qulity, skip the K's. Go with Great Plains improved versions or the original alnico's.

[bowtie427ss]

I disagree the ones before OKC are better.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have to fully agree with this.

Although my experience and exposure to all things Altec is certainly limited in contrast to many others on this board, i'd go as far as to say that some questionable stuff came from Aneheim during the Larry Ling years, maybe a toss up between then and the sparkomatic tenure.

I have yet to find a product of OKC that fails to impress, or with QC/manufacturing issues.

[dooey263]

Thanx for that...

I suppose the quality thing is sort of a non issue when you figure these speakers are 20+ years old now and still work fine with no rubs or wheezes....

I think my concern is more the sound, if in fact the later OKC speakers are a little too mid bass weighted.

I have plenty of quality vintage drivers, but it sure would be nice to have a set in their original cabs. Heck, those double walled A5's took me a year of spare time to build. If I would have had any idea how much work they ended up being, I probably would think twice about doing it again...Did I just say that? When I listen to them it was so worth it! Definitely a labour of love.

And it doesn't end there. My dinky 14' x 20' room just doesn't give those monsters room to really reach their potential,so we're going to put a 32'x 48' "Great Room" on the back of the house.DIY of course.That should give them room to breathe.....and explain why I want duplexes for the surround.

Cheers.... Scott

[Old Guy]

Originally posted by Dooey:
Thanx for that...


I think my concern is more the sound, if in fact the later OKC speakers are a little too mid bass weighted.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Scott- let me apologise for what your "friends" are telling you. Quit listening. Someone is feeding you bologna.

All the K models sound about the same. The OKC models use the exact same parts as the California ones. NO DIFFERENCE!

Did I mention no difference?


Great Plains units sound Better than the K's. There are magnet improvements made with John Hilliard's help. So do the earlier Alnico's.

But please drop the OKC versus California thing. Repeating wrong info will not make it true.

[bowtie427ss]

As with most negative publicity, i'd be willing to bet that most of the stories about QC problems and "bad product" have over time been blown way out of proportion.

Having owned dozens of components, some from every vintage and manufacturing location, i've never encountered a problem that wasn't the result of use or abuse.

I know there are a few matters of fact with regard to questionable product, but even those seem to be rather limited and isolated, and never clearly accounted AFAIK.

I've read more than once of the issue with 604's being rejected by Urei, but i don't think i've ever read any account of exactly what the issue was, and/or why it couldn't be resolved.

Did they(Urei) just put a bum rap on Altec in order to void a contract?

[GM]

Originally posted by bowtie427ss:
As with most negative publicity, i'd be willing to bet that most of the stories about QC problems and "bad product" have over time been blown way out of proportion.

I've read more than once of the issue with 604's being rejected by Urei, but i don't think i've ever read any account of exactly what the issue was, and/or why it couldn't be resolved.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not IMO unless most of the poor QA products were shipped to Hotlanta and why by the mid '70s I'd pretty much had my 'fill' of Altec and I was late to this particular 'party' as the local bands had long since switched to JBL, EV, etc., for their A7s, etc.. FWIW, the distributor had to special order the last pair of 515Bs I bought in '84 IIRC because his stock varied too much in both specs and build quality for me. I mean if they had been RadioShack drivers it wouldn't have been an issue and I would have designed around them, but at Altec pricing for a high SQ app? I don't think so! The next time I dropped by to get some 1" diaphragms they were hawking B%^& prosound and most of their Altec stock was gone, so finally wound ordering them from a N.C. re-coner after much searching.

As for the Urei debacle, IIRC Todd posted an in-depth recounting some time ago and it didn't paint a 'pretty picture' of Altec's QA program and very much in line with my experience.

[Old Guy]

GM I have to bow to your knowledge here. I was back into touring right about the time you mention, and that was a virtually closed market probably 95% JBL at the time.

I understand though that just before and after the move QC went to **** and came back later in the '80's- that was what I was trying to say.

And I believe any QC issues could be resolved by GPA redoing the units- am I corerct here? If not let me know. that's my understanding.

But as far as specically the OKC speakers being any kind of different desing, that wpould result in them as a group being more mid heavy- I don't believe there is any fact there. The QC issues started before the move and continued.

[GM]

Dunno about later in the '80s, my semi-'deep' involvement petered out after a life changing event in '75 and completely after another one in '89 except for the diaphragm search several years later.

Agreed, all knowledge of poor QA centered around dumb $%^& stuff like DCs on **** -eyed or poorly installed VC leads, and at least two 416Cs that had no goop on the surrounds! What were the QA, testing, packaging, folks doing to justify a paycheck? Then there was the driver Fs issues. This was how the distributor matched drivers even after they began using the Margolis-Small HP calculator T/S program that allowed them more accurate comparisons. Some were far off enough to make us wonder if there'd been an undocumented 515B redesign and apparently there was since the published T/S specs are way different to my '69 reference pairs and others I bought before the Fs jumped up.

Thanks to this forum a lot of other discrepancies have been brought to light, a pretty damning case against Altec's general (mis)management at all levels IMO. Sad really.

Don't have a clue about model revisions/QA issues with later 604s other than what Todd and others have posted, but there was a period after SS became 'de riguer' where the 604's specs were altered to somewhat compensate for the lack of a tube amp's high output impedance, but they switched back by popular demand. These performed more like the consumer market oriented 605s, so indeed sound more 'mid-bass weighted', but this all occurred before the move AFAIK. Again though, I imagine a re-cone would solve this perceived 'problem'. As for the rest, they've either been fixed by now or withstood the test of time, so a moot point.

[Old Guy]

Thanks GM. I know a couple people probably think I'm a "**** " about accurate info. But the truth is I try to be as hard on myself as everyone else.
the problem with innacurates info is it gets puicked up and repeated, then passes as fact.

Remember the old Monty Python Spam,Spam,Spam routine.