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Heathkit AS-1348 !!!!!

vtomike

vtomike

Super Member
I was at the local swap meet today and found these for $10 dollars! They need a re foam on the woofers But i hooked them up and could not believe the lows. The tweeters on one of them does not work but should not be a problem to fix. They must weigh about 80-90 lbs each. I cannot find much info on them. I saw pictures of some but they must be a newer model. Does anyone have pictures and specs on these? 38 inches tall and 2 feet wide. They seem to have a very good sound.
Heathkit 018.JPG Heathkit 012.JPG Heathkit 014.JPG Heathkit 013.JPG Heathkit 017.JPG Heathkit 016.JPG Heathkit 15in woofers 005.JPG Heathkit 15in woofers 001.JPG Heathkit 15in woofers 004.JPG
 
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Nice Philips drivers in those.

EDIT: From the Fall 1978 Heathkit catalog... somewhere I think I have an earlier, fuller blurb, including color photos. This'll have to do for now.

AS1348.jpg
 
Wow nice find, I wouldnt be able to pass on those! 15" driver? Looks smaller than that but measure, and get ahold of redger....... good luck!
 
Very nice. Unless they are really abused, with three tweeters and two mid drivers these should be difficult to burn out or produce audible distortion at those frequencies. And in turn I'll bet these can reproduce rock and symphonic classical music at near-actual levels in a typical living room & look efficient enough to *not* need a 200watt/channel seperate power amp to do it.

Their shape kind of reminds me of a special series of JBL speakers, in particular the Aquarius 3 (scroll down), where very wide dispersion was a key feature and special enclosures for the bass drivers were used.

BTW, where is the slot port for the woofer? edit: Oops, never mind - the Heathkit catalog pic says it's an acoustic-suspension enclosure......and maybe they might need a power amp to sound their best?
 
I actually picked up a pair exactly the same a month ago from the original owner/builder. I haven't had time to go through them yet, but from my short audition they sounded nice. I have the assembly/owners manual/spec sheet for them as well. Looks like yours have been modified a little, the rear facing woofer is suppossed to be slot loaded, I'll post pics of mine when I get a chance so you can see what that looks like.
 
It does not look like the speakers were modified to me. The woofer is mounted to a ring of wood from the inside. The screw threads hang out the back a little bit and are painted black. It looks factory to me but i could be wrong. If it has something that goes over the speaker could you send me some detailed pictures? I do think the speakers are original.
 
The circular piece of wood should only have a small rectangular hole in it, the woofer was originally mostly covered up, hence the 'slot-loaded'. Yours appears to have had the center cut away to expose the entire woofer. I can take pics of how they look on mine, and I believe the manual has a diagram as well. Would be easy to recreate that piece of wood in it's correct form. Who knows, maybe they sound better that way?
 
I'll try and scan it over the next couple days

Here is a pic from the web on how they should look from the back

image.jpg
 
O.K. so the woofer is slot-loaded (similar to the JBLs I mentioned) and is mounted in a sealed enclosure. Had to read that JBL page to see if I could find out more about what slot loading did for sound & here's what it said but the JBL is ported so it's not exactly the same thing:

Modifying the back panel to accommodate the larger LE14A driver was relatively straightforward. However, George soon discovered that slot loading presented a unique set of issues. This loading effectively added significant mass to the cone at low frequencies. With the bass reflex vents inside the slot, there was additional mutual coupling between woofer and vents. As a result, the woofer cone had to be lighter and the suspension stiffer than a standard JBL LE14A. Even so, bass response was considerably more extended than conventional JBL systems of similar size and the diffraction panel naturally attenuated the midrange response to provide an easier match between drivers.

.....In particular, its solid and extended bass response was arguably superior to most JBL speakers........
Click to expand...
 
From my assembly/spec manual:

Freq Res: 22-22k hz

Impedance: 8 ohm nominal (5.5 ohm min)

Power required for 100 SPL: 6.4 watts

Max amp power: 200 watts

XO freq: 500hz/3000hz
 
Power required for 100 SPL: 6.4 watts
Click to expand...
Whoa, looks pretty efficient then! Speakers equipped with 15" woofers almost always have an ability to reproduce bass with an authoritative nature & "ease" that multi-woofer systems can't seem to match for whatever reason.
 
That 15" driver is a Philips, too.
Interesting that it was US-manufactured. Probably the "HiFi" plant in -- where was it? -- KY? Someplace like that (a Magnavox plant, I presume).
 
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