Altec Model 19 restoration

**boltupright** · October 22nd, 2006, 02:10 PM

Actually, the B100 black looks good & the B400 grey looks like the correct weave but in grey. If you were to have the walnut 19's the black looks pretty darn close, but for me I have the oak 19's, & if I wan't it to look original, I would need the brown, but the brown in the link you posted doesn't look the same.

**Steve Gonzales** · October 22nd, 2006, 05:40 PM

While a member of another site, I found the holy grail of JBL cloth, the OEM monitor blue they had searched 3-4 years to obtain. During that search, I found a lot of different colors and weave patterns from many different vendors. As I look at the OEM black cloth that is original to my walnut 19's, I noticed that it is extremely thick and not very acoustically tranparent. I could be wrong, I'm not an engineer. I did an A-B test with my new cloth installed on the upper horn grille and one with the stock heavy weave. Definately a big difference in the UHF region to my ears. There are two camps in regard to restoration, completely 100% OEM true, and the kind of personalization/custom kind. I fall in the second group. When I get some real N1201-8A or M19 crossovers, the sonic quality will be true to the original for sure, I don't want to mess with such a brilliantly engineered "thing". But..., IMO, the grille cloth can be updated/upgraded without feeling like I'm not respecting the Original. To tell you the truth, the newer lightweight cloth types are better performers than that thick OEM stuff. I went with a medium maroon color just to see if it agreed with me, I kind of like it so far, what do you guys think of it? http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r142/mrgonzomeep/ . There is a great place that I found here locally. It is a little old upholstery supply shop in the industrial part of town. No internet site, real old fashioned service and no minimum order, you can buy a 1" x 1" piece if you want. They carry cloth that is true engineered grille cloth. You can hold it up to the light and see very clearly through it. Their catalogue/pricelist even reads "grillecloth" when they give me a price check and receipt. If any of you would like me to post scanned samples of each color, I would be more than happy to do so. It will take a day or two to gather them up and do so. I will also help you purchase anything you like. You can check my ebay feedback out, I am gonzo944s2 and have confirmed PayPal. I'm not trying to start a business here on this forum. I'm new here and I know how it looks to me on other forums when some new guy comes in and all of the sudden he wants to sell stuff and not contribute anything further. I am not a spammer. I just really enjoy helping out fellow audio friends, that's all. I also want to say that those new bases are really good! I also didn't realize that I could unbolt the top and bottom parts of the enclosure. I was really concerned about trying to sand the veneer that is in the recess between the upper and lower sections without marring the black riser. Thanks for posting that!

**boltupright** · October 22nd, 2006, 05:58 PM

Yeah, well If I were **** about originality, I wouldn't have sprayed the horns. forums

I like to upgrade the performance, but, I would like the original grill cloth though, if I could get some, just for apearances sake, as I dont usually have the grills on while I listen to them.