Acousti Craft?

[bshorey]

Hi All,

I grabbed these today, not sure what to make of them. It's an Acousti Craft console and matching speakers. The console has a nicely installed Sherwood S-7250 solid state receiver, unfortunately the original contents were gutted and tossed decades ago. The speaker enclosures have some ok looking Isophon tweeter and Electrovoice SP12B woofers that look like later production (white cast frames).

Quick research seems to indicate that the woofers are nothing special, but that the console and speaker enclosures might be kind of nice. It seems that Acousti Craft made some of the high end enclosures for JBL and Altec before they were brought in house in the 60's. These do look to be very well built. I'm guessing that the Acousti Craft branded stuff was bought and loaded by enthusiasts?

Anybody familiar with what I have here?

bs

 

[bowtie427ss]

Wow! that stuff is cosmetically confused. French provincial colors without the style.

The Altec cabinets were by Hill Craft, or built in house. Hill Craft also sold empty cabinets to vendors.

That said, these Acousticraft cabinets look very close to what you have pictured less the doors.

 

[rusomon]

Those speakers might end up sounding better than you think.

Good luck.

 

[bshorey]

Wow! that stuff is cosmetically confused. French provincial colors without the style.

The Altec cabinets were by Hill Craft, or built in house. Hill Craft also sold empty cabinets to vendors.

<snip>

Aw, they're not so bad if you close your eyes a little bit while you're looking at them.. Seriously, they are very well built. The internal wiring, not so much. Somebody simply ran two sets of wires off the inside of the rear panel, one to the woofer and one to the tweeter with a simple capacitor (which got ripped off when I removed the rear panel. Arghh!). At a minimum, I might go scrounging through the parts bin to dig up a proper set of crossovers, and maybe something a little better in the tweeter department.

You are right, I just went back and reread the blurb I found on the Altec side, and the Altec mention is that the cabs were sometimes loaded with Altec drivers.

bs

 

[bshorey]

Those speakers might end up sounding better than you think.

Good luck.

Thanks, fingers crossed!

bs

 

[bshorey]

Those speakers might end up sounding better than you think.

Good luck.

All righty!

I went to the parts bin to see what I could scrounge up. A couple of Ohm C2 tweeters seemed like a pretty close physical fit, and the only 2 way crossovers I had lying around were some Infinity RS 2001 parts.

Put it all together, it sounds so much better than what was in there. Cleaner highs, and the woofers aren't trying to reproduce everything. The drivers are now somewhat worthy of the enclosures.

Now, to get that Scott receiver working..

bs

 

[rusomon]

Trying the Isophons with new capacitors might be an option worth exploring.

On the other hand, if you're happy with what you've got....

 

[bshorey]

Trying the Isophons with new capacitors might be an option worth exploring.

On the other hand, if you're happy with what you've got....

The problem is, I kind of destroyed one of them. The box wiring didn't help. From the wiring panel on the back of the enclosure, there were two separate 18 gauge wires, one going to the woofer and the other straight to the tweeter. The tweeter wires were soldered on, so that when I removed the rear panel they broke off the tweeter, and yanked the smaller wires that go to the VC out. Ugh.

They are pretty big, maybe 4+ inches in diameter. I did listen to the other one, and even though the tweets are probably producing below where they should have been crossed over, they didn't sound too bad. But the ones I've got in there now, along with better crossovers, sound a whole lot better.

bs

 

[rusomon]

I'd like to say I've never had an accident like this. Like to. Can't.

 

[toxcrusadr]

I have the next up the line Sherwood, S8250CP. 1980-ish, about $300 MSRP. Very low distortion numbers, but I've always thought a little lean on bass from that receiver. I've had mine since new though and won't part with it as it was a HS graduation gift from my dad, an old school audiophile from the tube era. If the power and speaker selection is on the same knob, you are likely to have problems with the power switch. It will arc and carbonize and the power will flicker on and off. It can be cleaned but eventually you'll end up plugging it into a power strip or installing an inline switch. Similar problems with the tape monitor switch, so if you get channels cutting out, clean the switches. Other than that it's a really nice and good looking receiver. Too bad the tube gear is gone - who knows what could have been in there!

 

[bshorey]

I have the next up the line Sherwood, S8250CP. 1980-ish, about $300 MSRP. Very low distortion numbers, but I've always thought a little lean on bass from that receiver. I've had mine since new though and won't part with it as it was a HS graduation gift from my dad, an old school audiophile from the tube era. If the power and speaker selection is on the same knob, you are likely to have problems with the power switch. It will arc and carbonize and the power will flicker on and off. It can be cleaned but eventually you'll end up plugging it into a power strip or installing an inline switch. Similar problems with the tape monitor switch, so if you get channels cutting out, clean the switches. Other than that it's a really nice and good looking receiver. Too bad the tube gear is gone - who knows what could have been in there!

Thanks. It's got a separate push button power switch. Coincidently, there is a receipt dated 1996 for cleaning the contacts due to one channel cutting out. One channel is virtually gone at this point, so I'll be pulling it out and giving it a proper cleaning sometime in the next couple of days.

bs

 

[mightythor]

Sometimes you just have to revive an old thread as it may take awhile before some new info is found or a new member joins....

I just purchased the 'big brother' to the Acousti-Craft Console that started this thread. I mainly purchased it just for the speakers (University 312). It obviously does not have the original stereo equipment listed on the receipt, these newer items will be sold and replaced with some vintage tube stuff I have accumulated.

Based on the receipt, the console is Acousti-Craft model 5400 and the two speaker cabinets are model 5412. With the special paint job, it was quite expensive back in 1964. This whole package deal probably cost as much as some cars back then.