First up - Altec Santiagos

Drugolf

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A few of you probably have seen the thread over in Dollars and Sense about the haul of gear I picked up last week. These 4 Altec Santiagos were part of that.
So far I have gone thru 3 of the 4 doing general clean up and checking the drivers etc. All will need new surrounds. Rick Cobb does not have any for the Altec 411-8A woofer so I need to find a supplier of the correct foams. GordonW though the JBL 2235 was something he had used previously. Looks like there are 2 ebay sellers with some they identify as being correct and good. Audiodogs and Springfield speaker. Any thoughts folks?

One of the woofers is bad and tests open unfortunately. Again reached out to GordonW to see if he thinks it is something that can be repaired. Otherwise I see a couple on the bay for too much $.

My plan is to get these in general working order and not do any major refinishing of the cabinets etc and pass them on. Grille foam is of course long gone but thee grilles are in-tact and each have the badge so that's cool. Caps look to be those black and red tip callins.

I had previously restored some Valencias including the new foam and they looked pretty sharp when done.

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I would have thought surrounds would have been easier to come by for these models. Interesting. On one occasion, I needed some foams for a set of ADS L710 (yes, some use foam, not rubber surrounds) and I could not locate any (they have since become available). In talking with Rick Cobb, I gave him the roll and rim measurements and he sent me slightly larger foams that I was able to cut down and they worked quite well. Not as good as having the exact size, but a work around.
 
The original surround on the 411-8A is like nothing you've ever seen in a "foam" surround - very thin and very pliable. Wild man David Miller at Speakerworks in Tulsa may have a solution - hit him up and tell him Tony from AZ referred you. (918) 664-6299
 
Thanks Tony. I will give him a call. BTW, I grew up in Scottsdale - Horizon HS, UA
GordonW is gonna get the open one to see if he can bring it around.
 
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This is a great time to be from Scottsdale, given all tue record setting temps. I have a pair of NIB NOS 411-8A woofers squirreled away - spares for my 9846-8A speakers.

Good luck!
 
I bet Gordon can get that woofer fixed up for you.

It is surprising that there are not surrounds available for the 411.

My 616 duplex uses the 411 frame. Lucky for me they use cloth accordion surrounds.

I believe those two woofers (411 and 616) are the only Altec's to use 4" VC's.
 
This is a great time to be from Scottsdale, given all tue record setting temps. I have a pair of NIB NOS 411-8A woofers squirreled away - spares for my 9846-8A speakers.

Good luck!
One of the reasons we picked up and left after growing up there. Had enough of the heat. But it is funny to see all the newbies there making a big deal out of the summer monsoon storms, including the news folks. We used to get hem like clockwork every summer. Violent wind, sand, lightning rain..... it was great!
 
I bet Gordon can get that woofer fixed up for you.

It is surprising that there are not surrounds available for the 411.

My 616 duplex uses the 411 frame. Lucky for me they use cloth accordion surrounds.

I believe those two woofers (411 and 616) are the only Altec's to use 4" VC's.

Yeah, he fixed an open RH Labs subwoofer that was open for me. I too was surprised when I went to look them up and when Rick said he didn't have a match. Gotta be a fairly common driver, no?
 
The 411-8A has a 4" coil, low sensitivity, and was designed for sealed systems - making it the odd duck of all vintage Altec 15" woofers. Only the Santiago, Barcelona, and 9846-8A were equipped with them. The 9848-8A had a pair of 16 Ohm 411s, wired in parallel - never seen a pair in the wild, easier to come across a 4 leaf clover.

The up side is that the 411-8A can play into the low 20s in the right environment. Set up is difficult in a domestic setting as the 811 is so much more sensitive than the woofer. My 9846-8As have the 802D/511 and I typically settle on between -7 to -8 on the LPads and then fine tune that by ear over the next several weeks anytime I set them up in a new room. That board between the X-over and horn is a passive EQ designed to flatten the response of the horn with respect to the woofer. Mine are due for refreshing. Whatever you do, retain the stock Altec inductors in the X-over.

As for power handling, I ran strapped MC2300s to mine for years and the Altecs were king of the block when it came to house parties, etc. I've never heard the Santiagos and don't know anyone with a pair.
 
Wish I lived near Idaho....any plans to drive through SoCal and bring a pair with ya?
 
The 411-8A has a 4" coil, low sensitivity, and was designed for sealed systems - making it the odd duck of all vintage Altec 15" woofers. Only the Santiago, Barcelona, and 9846-8A were equipped with them. The 9848-8A had a pair of 16 Ohm 411s, wired in parallel - never seen a pair in the wild, easier to come across a 4 leaf clover.

The up side is that the 411-8A can play into the low 20s in the right environment. Set up is difficult in a domestic setting as the 811 is so much more sensitive than the woofer. My 9846-8As have the 802D/511 and I typically settle on between -7 to -8 on the LPads and then fine tune that by ear over the next several weeks anytime I set them up in a new room. That board between the X-over and horn is a passive EQ designed to flatten the response of the horn with respect to the woofer. Mine are due for refreshing. Whatever you do, retain the stock Altec inductors in the X-over.

As for power handling, I ran strapped MC2300s to mine for years and the Altecs were king of the block when it came to house parties, etc. I've never heard the Santiagos and don't know anyone with a pair.

Yep. The 411 will go significantly lower than the JBL 2235, in similar enclosures.

Though, it would take a much larger vented enclosure than the 2235, for flat response.

The tradeoff is that the 2235 is a few dB more efficient...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Yep. The 411 will go significantly lower than the JBL 2235, in similar enclosures.

Though, it would take a much larger vented enclosure than the 2235, for flat response.

The tradeoff is that the 2235 is a few dB more efficient...

Regards,
Gordon.
Gordon - I know squat about JBLs so your words are gospel.
 
The original surround on the 411-8A is like nothing you've ever seen in a "foam" surround - very thin and very pliable.
It's a single doped cloth roll, and is garbage. Thankfully the design was revised with a proper foam surround.

Only the Santiago, Barcelona, and 9846-8A were equipped with them.
The 9861 monitor uses a 411 in a mid-bass horn load with a large ported reflex chamber. It's also my understanding that some of the last 875A Grenadas off the line were equipped with 411's instead of 413's.
 
It's a single doped cloth roll, and is garbage. Thankfully the design was revised with a proper foam surround.

The 9861 monitor uses a 411 in a mid-bass horn load with a large ported reflex chamber. It's also my understanding that some of the last 875A Grenadas off the line were equipped with 411's instead of 413's.

Its surprising there are no off the shelf surrounds available for these. Do you know what the production numbers were versus the previous Altec woofers?

Seems like there are not a lot of 411 out there. I do see them come up for sale from time to time, but not like the other Altec woofers.
 
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So, grilles. ?
These have all the "under grilles" in-tact still but the original foam that was adhered to them is long gone. On my Valnecias I had new foams made up by foamspeakergrilles. They looked great but I am not wanting to drop that kind of coin on these quite yet. Anybody have any experience with a successful solution that they could share? I of course could always just cover what I have with fresh good grille fabric from PE or similar.

Here are the originals and one I saw on the internet that I thought was a nice way to go that sort of breaks up that big black with a similar 3 section pattern front nicely. Might not be too difficult to fabricate.

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I passed on a pair of those in a Salvation Army store. They had a crazy high priced tag on them.
 
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