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Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater Question

mr.jones

mr.jones

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My brother is going to look at a pair of Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater speakers at an estate sale in St.Louis. They are described as "solid walnut with a solid black slate top bought in 1974" Anyone familiar with these?

Thanks
 
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Probably not Voice of the Theatre per se but very close, domesticated relatives.

Sounds like a Santiago or even a Santana (the latter not in the Voice of the Theatre family) to me.
The Valencia of that time (1974, indeed) - which was the more authentic "VoT in consumer speaker" clothing - didn't have the faux slate top.

The Valencia and the Santiago are both dandy. The Santana... not so much.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/catalogs/1974-home/page2.jpg
page2.jpg
 
dang... I'm on bowtie's "ignore" list...

:-P

The Santiago's close enough to a real VoT for me... indeed, I quite like mine. The "Dynamic Force" acoustic-suspension woofer is less efficient, but it also (subjectively) goes deeper than the 416 in the Valencia - and the bass is pretty tight. Not that there's anything wrong with Valencias, I like them too.


One of the Santiagos in situ...

santiagoinsitu.jpg
 
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Many years ago a friend of mine had a pair of VOTTs' (exactly like the one in the picture below) in his living room being driven by a 400 watt SS amp. He likes heavy metal music and would open his front door and crank-up the music so loud that I could hear it from two blocks away. For those who don't know, VOTTs' are very efficient speakers because they were designed to be driven by vacuum tube amplifiers so it doesn't take a lot of power to drive them. I'll bet his neighbors just loved him.
Personally, I wouldn't consider them to be hi-fidelity speakers.

VOTFw.jpg
 
mr.jones said:
My brother is going to look at a pair of Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater speakers at an estate sale in St.Louis. They are described as "solid walnut with a solid black slate top bought in 1974" Anyone familiar with these?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Back in the 70's when I worked at Shure Bros. I got a chance to listen to one of the battleship grey versions. I was not impressed with the bass. They were efficient though.
 
Bass is an issue with the Valencia and the 'real' Voice of the Theatres... a halfway decent subwoofer fixes that.

The Santiagos, as I mentioned above, go deeper (at least subjectively/anecdotally) and have a nice 'modern' (tight) quality to the bass they do produce. One does pay a price in sensitivity for that sealed box woofer though... note in my photo above a PP EL84 amp instead of a SE 2A3 that I would preferably use with Valencias (or Duplexes, for that matter).

Mind you, I am not denigrating the VoT - overall I love the sound of them. They don't go too high and they don't go too low; but in between they're just so dandy.
 
I was not impressed with the bass. They were efficient though.
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Not surprising as they are primarily mid-bass horns. The reflex loading will make bass, but it's several DB down below the ~100hz cutoff point of the horn section. They balance out a little better with corner loading in a big enough room, or with plenty of EQ and ample power. Much better with a dedicated woofer system that can handle the dynamic scale they're capable of, they can be quite hifi given the right setup.

The Santiago's close enough to a real VoT for me... indeed, I quite like mine.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree with MRH's perspective, they surely have as many attributes in common with the VOT's as differences. There was a time period that Altec referred to most of their line as VOT's. I'd wager the marketing dept embraced the idea a lot more than the engineering dept.:yes:

Ironically, i've rolled the 9846's in for a few weeks while i decide the fate of the model 17's.:scratch2:
 
I got the same impression (midrange-y) when I first heard JBL 4560's playing in bands. They were designed to do 3-way service with horns on the high end and scoop bass bins doing low end.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Bass is an issue with the Valencia and the 'real' Voice of the Theatres... a halfway decent subwoofer fixes that.
Click to expand...

That may be true now but back in the 70's a speaker either had the guts on its own or it was for voice only. Why would you want such a huge box if you still needed another big box?
 
jlovda said:
That may be true now but back in the 70's a speaker either had the guts on its own or it was for voice only. Why would you want such a huge box if you still needed another big box?
Click to expand...


The upper bass and lower midrange was so gorgeous that people accepted the compromised low bass. And the low bass wasn't that bad, indeed it could sound subjectively perfect playing many Pop recordings. To this day I don't think I've heard Duck Dunn's bass on many Stax recordings sounding better than it did over a very old pair of A7s I had with the original rolled paper surround 803A woofers.
 
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