altec rack mixers

[bfish]

Bowtie, there's an excellent resource for your 1690 right here in our own library;

Altec 1690--TL 242

[bowtie427ss]

yeah, i love the console mixers for versatilty, however as im not mixing a band, just home stuff, i need a rack mount with left and right signal paths. man, i need to get going on photobucket

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">These mixers are as "stereo" as you can get. Consider that each of the 8 input channels is assignable via "pan" control to either left or right main bus, or any degree of blend between the two.

I use a Behringer console for a preamp in my main home system, it is the best sounding preamp solution i could find for home listening at an affordable price, it was all about sound vs. dollars in my case.

Dont be intimidated by photobucket, it's no more difficult than registering. If you can edit and save pics to a file in your computer where you know you can retreive them, then photobucket will be a piece of cake for ya.

Once you're registered, just hit one of the three browse buttons, choose the folder your pics are in, then the pic you want host, then hit the "upload" button, be patient as it sometimes seems like it's not doing anything but it will upload in generally 30 seconds or so depending on your connection and server traffic.

[bowtie427ss]

Many thanks Bfish!

That'll give me somethin to digest for a while.

[Old Guy]

Never ceases to amze me what bfish is capable of...I have a feeling his parents thought the same thing...

[Old Guy]

Originally posted by jdlowe13:

About the DDA consoles, my understanding is DDA made the consoles for Altec. I think DDA was still in business making consoles after Altec was bought by Telex and shut down. In my experiance, they were/are good consoles. .

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I had issues touring the DDA's. Definitely the Altec consoles were DDA, I was not sure abot the smaller mixer. DDA survived a little longer than Altec but not much. 2 years, maybe 3.

If you want to know where the DDA rechnolgy and personeel went, Midas brought out cheap mixers right after DDA disappeared. Funny how that works huh? I looked at a Verona- you can certainly see the DDA heritage (pun intended).

[Todd W. White]

The big Altec Interface consoles from the 90's were, as I recall, made in Germany by .... what was that German company's name that EV/Mark IV bought?

...having a senior moment.

[jdlowe13]

I don't think Altec ever made a rack mount 2 space or 1 space stereo mixer, which is what I think you are looking for. I am no Altec expert.
I have used a 1 space rack mount stereo mixer by Peavey. It is model #SMR™ 821a and has a lot of features for its compact size. If it is what your are looking for I would take a look at it.

About the DDA consoles, my understanding is DDA made the consoles for Altec. I think DDA was still in business making consoles after Altec was bought by Telex and shut down. In my experiance, they were/are good consoles. The Louisiana Superdome is still using one today for the main sound system! As far as I know it has never failed. They do get it cleaned and checked out every few years or so.

I help this helps.

[Old Guy]

Originally posted by Todd W. White:
The big Altec Interface consoles from the 90's were, as I recall, made in Germany by .... what was that German company's name that EV/Mark IV bought?

...having a senior moment.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Todd that would be Dynacord.

At some point DDA production may have moved there, or some Altec consoles were DDA and some Dynacord...I had a DDA that looked like the Altec Interface.

there were some "strange bedfellow moments", remember the EV speaker sold as Altecs- and I posted the other day, the boards in a friend's Altec Parametric EQ were labeled Klark teknik.

Remember the people suing cause they got Chevy motors in their Buick's and Oldsmobiles?

I think the same thing was going on.

[bfish]

Correction to my earlier post, my mixer is a 3308A, though its' appearance is identical to the 3208A in OG's catalog link.

On the back is a "assembled in Taiwan" label...

No matter, I still like it!

Since it's in use, and works perfectly, I'll not be opening it up till that status changes...

[StuWelwood]

If it doesn't have to be an Altec, then you might want to spring for an Ashly LX-308B. It's 8 channel stereo, single rack, with meters, mute switches, peak indicators... I got one a few years ago and absolutely love it. I paid about $325 for it new, but they seem to have gone up in price: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LX308B/

Stuart