Altec 892A Madera?

brainsmasher

Mid-Fi Madman
I just picked these up and am doing a listen test (which by the way is going well). These are fron the late 60's and appear to be the little brother to the Bolero other than that I have found nothing on the net. Anybody know these little beauts. Geez my 65th pair of keepers :D
 

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Interesting, I've never seen a pair in the flesh. Like the Bolero they use the Mighty 406, the greatest 10" driver ever made.

I imagine they sound quite similar to a Bolero but don't range as deep. Certainly far superior I would think to most (or any) speakers it's size.
 
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I have the big-brother Bolero's and they are one of my favorite speakers, and my most used "daily drivers".

Tom is quite right about the 406- Not many woofers can keep up.

Here is a link from the Lansing Heritage site: http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1971-home/page23.jpg

If you ever want to sell them (I see they are keepers, but a guy can hope) let me know. I've developed a "thing" for Altec booskshelf speakers.
 
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I searched the lansing site and got nothing, next time I will dig a little deeper thanks. One thing that does not get mentioned for the madera is it has the HF switch on the back like the corona, not sure if that is a given just my observation. I am really liking these even set up in a not so well thought out placement. These may have to come up to the office for some real listening. The cabs are in very nice shape and I will be looking out for a new altec badge so they are matching again.
 
The link should take you right to the page with the info. If you have your monitor set to less than 1280x1024, you may need to scroll right.
 
I have Boleros and if they have a flaw to my ear it's that the bass is a little loose. I think they'd actually sound better in a plain sealed box than with the passive radiator in the Bolero. Not as much extension, but tighter. I run a 'sub under mine anyway. Id like to hear a plain 2 cu ft 2-way with the 406 and these 3000g horn tweeters. Maybe as an experiment I'll pull the PR and stuff the cabinet, blanking off the PR hole with a fixed panel. That should be bliss.
At any rate, I'm not surprised you like the sound of the Maderas. I'm glad you posted tha tpic, as I was curious to see what the panel layout was like.
 
Just resurrecting this old thread to discuss work on my Altec Maderas.I am running them on a Fisher 500B and they sound pretty great.

IMG_0252.JPG

I wouldn't mind improving the high-frequency performance, but I couldn't find much information online about the crossovers (or the Heppner horns for that matter), so I pulled the LF driver and took a look. The crossovers turn out to comprise one inductor, three power resistors (15 Ohm), and three film capacitors (2x 3µF and 1x 14µF).

Madera_crossover.jpg
 
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...and the crossover network looks something like this:

crossover_diagram.jpg

Anybody know the value of the inductor? A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, if the crossover frequency is 2500 Hz, the inductor value should be around 1.2 mH
 
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Replace those caps with some Solens or Jantzens, they are more than likely past there prime. Any pics of the back of the drivers?

BillWojo
 
I already replaced the 14 uF caps and the 3's are on order from Parts Express.

I will post some photos of the backs of the drivers. The LF is the classic Altec 406Z.
 
...and here is the enigmatic horn tweeter. Made, I suppose, by Heppner. I have never found much information about it online.

horn_insitu.JPG
 
I swapped out the old capacitors for high precision (1%) Dayton MPP's. I know some people prefer the fancy, French-made caps but I have never been able to hear a difference between the Daytons and the more expensive alternatives.

crossover_2.JPG
 
I found a pair of these beauties in an estate sale in Winter Park, Florida last year for $40.00. The cabinets were shot and I couldn't test them. Took a crack at them anyway
and as an accomplished furniture refinisher, check out the pics...
Cleaned them with Denatured Alcohol (they were pretty well covered with Nicotine); scuffed up with Scotch-Brite (maroon) pads; 2 coats of fast drying Walnut stain; 2 coats of Min-Wax furniture wax paste, let dry and buffed out with cotton rags and a lot of elbow grease.
Like brand new. Sound great, but one of the tweeter horns were blown.
 

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I’m actually restoring a pair of 892A right now too. Mine were painted though.

Your cabs turned out very nice. Good work.

The horns are made by Heppner. When I looked on eBay at them for shits and giggles, a few turned up, but they were not exactly the same markings as my horns. If you found an exact match for 70$ that might be your only option. If you want to stay original that is.

I’d also be curious as to why the horn was blown. Yes it could have been overdriven, but it also could be that one of the Callins caps is so out of spec that it let too much LF through at moderate volumes.
If you are planning on keeping them I would think about recapping them. I just got the caps to do mine yesterday. 20$ from Digikey.
 
I’d also be curious as to why the horn was blown.
Note that he has a 406Z in one cabinet and a 406-8Y in the other. I doubt the differences end there. Would be interesting to know all of the differing details, and the date codes on the XO's.
 
I must have missed that pic. But yes I see the dust cap size is different now. Interesting.

I’d be curious to know when the woofer switch was made in production also.
 
Since I bought my 892a pair a few weeks ago, I’ve read about two more pairs being acquired in the same time here on AK. Seems like this is the Madera month or something.
 
Since I bought my 892a pair a few weeks ago, I’ve read about two more pairs being acquired in the same time here on AK. Seems like this is the Madera month or something.
I think it's a good indication of the number of lurkers, or silent visitors that regularly view this site.

Even with as much as AK has slowed down and active membership declined over the last few years, i'd wager that the site still gets hundreds of anonymous views per each post made.

Consider that Emilar components were close to free in the marketplace until a couple of us started posting about them and the company roots. ;)
 
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