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Altec 846B Valencia restoration next steps

Being reassured by Mr Boochie’s comment I finished the second crossover, too, and added a new rubber seal on both.
I cleaned all the contacts of everything (crossover, L-pads, speaker terminals, driver connections, younameit) thoroughly in three steps (remove oxidations and corrosion, wash off oxidation and corrosion remover, protect contacts from future corrosion).

And then I put a little damping material I had lying around on the two horns. I can't tell you what exactly it is; it is very dense and heavy, elastic and rubbery. I only put one sheet cut in half on both horns, but I have another sheet lying around should I ever want to put more of that on there. Not sure it will do anything, but figured it won't make them sound worse either.

The old 8 and 21uF caps measured 8.8uF (both) and 24.3 and 23.2uF respectively. Not super far off.

Hope I can put in new rock wool damping tonight when the little one is asleep, after that it's only reassembly and I should be done for this round.

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holger7188 said:
That’s smart, but I don’t really have any wire lying around that would be a good lead extension. What are the leads made of, anyway? Sure doesn’t look like copper.
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I use whatever is leftover from other cut leads. Off resistors or caps.
 
holger7188 said:
I know it is/should be a bipolar cap, that’s why the plus was confusing me. Maybe an indication of the direction of how the cap is wound, I know some caps have that.
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Remember, the secondary of the OPT is AC voltage. There is no voltage polarity to the speaker circuit. Only phasing between the speakers.

Maybe, the manufacturer added that (+) for when the cap is used in an amp or pre-amp. Where there can be DC voltage.
 
Mr Boochie said:
Maybe, the manufacturer added that (+) for when the cap is used in an amp or pre-amp. Where there can be DC voltage.
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I would guess that "+" marking is simply indicating the outer foil winding of the capacitor.

I've read where some will recommend having that end oriented towards the signal source ( versus destination ) as a sort of telescopic shield concept ( and of course, the opposite opinion exists online ).


:)
 
EarlK said:
I would guess that "+" marking is simply indicating the outer foil winding of the capacitor.

I've read where some will recommend having that end oriented towards the signal source ( versus destination ) as a sort of telescopic shield concept ( and of course, the opposite opinion exists online ).
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Dang, I knew I got it in the wrong direction! Too late…
 
So I did manage to put the new rock wool damping in and to reassemble both speakers.
Should probably have tested everything before I did so, but I felt lucky. Now I have two speakers that look the same like hours of work and three days earlier, but I have no idea whether they sound the same (or at all) because it is the middle of the night. Tomorrow will give answers…

What I do know for sure is that I will have to restore them cosmetically, too. Maybe repaint the black parts, definitely sand down the veneer and re-oil/-wax it.

Here’s two photos with inside of the cabinet clean as a whistle and with the new damping in, looking messy because rock wool is much flakier than glass wool.

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holger7188 said:
So I did manage to put the new rock wool damping in and to reassemble both speakers.
Should probably have tested everything before I did so, but I felt lucky. Now I have two speakers that look the same like hours of work and three days earlier, but I have no idea whether they sound the same (or at all) because it is the middle of the night. Tomorrow will give answers…

What I do know for sure is that I will have to restore them cosmetically, too. Maybe repaint the black parts, definitely sand down the veneer and re-oil/-wax it.

Here’s two photos with inside of the cabinet clean as a whistle and with the new damping in, looking messy because rock wool is much flakier than glass wool.

View attachment 3046338

View attachment 3046354
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Very nice job!
 
holger7188 said:
Maybe an indication of the direction of how the cap is wound, I know some caps have that.
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EarlK said:
I've read where some will recommend having that end oriented towards the signal source ( versus destination ) as a sort of telescopic shield concept ( and of course, the opposite opinion exists online ).
Click to expand...
My understanding is that this really only becomes relevant at RF, and is essentially moot down in the audio spectrum.
 
Cap leads are tin plated copper wire. Any similar sized wire even stranded will work fine.

If you could score a pair of M19 (N1201-8A) crossovers down the road, I think that would be a great upgrade for the Valencia.
 
RonSSNova said:
If you could score a pair of M19 (N1201-8A) crossovers down the road, I think that would be a great upgrade for the Valencia.
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Fantastic, thanks for the pointers! These look easy enough to build myself (down the road), as even if one pops up for sale it seems to go for 400 bucks minimum.
Or is there anything I don’t see right now that makes them actually difficult to build yourself?
 
Hey, you are welcome. And yeah the price on those went nuts, another pitfall of the internet. If you got to the point of building them, you can eliminate the HF control. It just attenuates, it's commonly just set wide open.
 
RonSSNova said:
Hey, you are welcome. And yeah the price on those went nuts, another pitfall of the internet. If you got to the point of building them, you can eliminate the HF control. It just attenuates, it's commonly just set wide open.
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Great advice, when the time comes I'd definitely prefer simplifying everything by eliminating the H.F. control. Thank you!
 
I can’t report much yet on how the speakers sound now because I was struck by a middle ear infection that leaves me half deaf at the moment, but more on that once the time comes. In the meanwhile…

… a little update about the cloth cover for the speakers:
When I bought them they came with a custom made white cloth cover, but 1) the white is pretty stained by now and 2) it doesn’t quite fit in my listening space (unlike the previous owner’s, who went for a Miami Vice style interior including a big white grand piano in the middle, but that’s another story…)

I ordered some cloth samples that arrived today to make my own “half-style” cover, meaning leaving the horns exposed. My initial idea is to use a see-through cloth to not completely hide the woofers, but that still gives a minimal amount of protection from little kids hands (or at the very least some haptic feedback to said kids that reminds them daddy said not to do it. Yeah, good luck right).

Unfortunately the cloth samples were mostly thin strips so it was hard to get a good idea of what it could look like, but generally I was left with two options:

Option A (see below)
It's a small-to-medium size mesh fabric and I like the amount of translucency and size of the mesh.
Biggest problem is that the fabric is waaayyyy too elastic, more or less like stockings. It didn't feel “solid” enough.

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Option B (below)
A thin but sturdy fabric that's actually very see-through – but unfortunately not right against a black background like this with light coming from the side rather than straight on. From this fabric I actually do have enough so I might just go ahead and put it on a simple frame – the grey could be o.k. but probably not great.

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So what I will probably try next is Option C:
Have to order samples of this one, but it is a rougher and not-elastic mesh type of fabric. Maybe too modern, but we will see. Was thinking grey or black or yellow.

I don't believe either of these should affect the sound from the woofer much or at all.

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toddalin said:
If you can use black, why not just good old grill cloth? You can still see components though it.
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D’oh, talk about missing the obvious. Black isn’t my first choice but this looks really good!
Maybe it’s a lost in translation thing but I didn’t find anything like that here. Do you have a link to what kind of cloth this is so I can look for something similar over here?
 
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