Complete Altec Setup - Help Please

[Houston]

I ran across a complete Vintage Altec setup. I replaced the horn diaphragm, ohm’d the sub, and powered up the amp to ensure it’s operational. I Wired in a RCA female, 120 volt switched fan, built a housing for the horn to be closed in, then fixed cosmetics to existing box. The horn sounds great but the sub barely moves. Any insight would be nice. Thanks for your time.

 

[Houston]

I ran across a complete Vintage Altec setup. I replaced the horn diaphragm, ohm’d the sub, and powered up the amp to ensure it’s operational. I Wired in a RCA female, 120 volt switched fan, built a housing for the horn to be closed in, then fixed cosmetics to existing box. The horn sounds great but the sub barely moves. Any insight would be nice. Thanks for your time.

 

[Houston]

I I forgot to attach a picture of the sub. It’s already back in the box but I found a image on the internet so you will know the model.

 

[Houston]

Altec Lansing Hollywood 515 20ohm

 

[Sam08861]

Try posting on the ‘Lansing Legacy’ forum. A few Altec gurus there can likely offer some guidance.

 

[PPstereo]

Its not a "sub".

Its what it says it is, a low freq horn.

Also if your look at the literature you posted it says it only reaches down to
50hz.

And Im sure thats on the generous end.

You need to keep in mind the era this stuff was made and what was capable.

Speakers that made effective and loud 40hz and below was not common nor
sought after yet. And the tech wasnt around yet for the most part.

Listening to gear of this era, especially when its not properly setup nor tuned in
will not give you a very pleasing experience with standards of today.

Its still good stuff but its far from turn key and needs a good deal of knowledge and
proper associated gear and setup effort.

 

[roger2]

I ran across a complete Vintage Altec setup. I replaced the horn diaphragm, ohm’d the sub, and powered up the amp to ensure it’s operational. I Wired in a RCA female, 120 volt switched fan, built a housing for the horn to be closed in, then fixed cosmetics to existing box. The horn sounds great but the sub barely moves. Any insight would be nice. Thanks for your time.

Both drivers are horn loaded. There is a high frequency horn and a low frequency horn.

When you say "the horn sounds great", which are you referring to, high or low?
When you say "...but the sub barely moves", are you expecting, but not seeing, significant visible cone movement in the low frequency driver? Or is the low frequency driver not producing sound?

I am not familiar with those pieces. I can not tell from the pics if there is an amplifier for both drivers or just one. I agree with the suggestion to post in the Lansing Legacy forum here on AK. You can click the "Report" link at the bottom of your first post and request that the thread be moved.

Good luck...welcome to AK

 

[Houston]

Try posting on the ‘Lansing Legacy’ forum. A few Altec gurus there can likely offer some guidance.

Thank you for your time and direction.

 

[Houston]

Its not a "sub".

Its what it says it is, a low freq horn.

Also if your look at the literature you posted it says it only reaches down to
50hz.

And Im sure thats on the generous end.

You need to keep in mind the era this stuff was made and what was capable.

Speakers that made effective and loud 40hz and below was not common nor
sought after yet. And the tech wasnt around yet for the most part.

Listening to gear of this era, especially when its not properly setup nor tuned in
will not give you a very pleasing experience with standards of today.

Its still good stuff but its far from turn key and needs a good deal of knowledge and
proper associated gear and setup effort.

I understand. Working on this is like rebuilding a carb on a 57 impala. I’m a fuel injection man. It was gifted to me for free and I’m rebuilding it to give to a friend in a financial crunch at my church. Thanks for your time and patience.

 

[Houston]

Both drivers are horn loaded. There is a high frequency horn and a low frequency horn.

When you say "the horn sounds great", which are you referring to, high or low?
When you say "...but the sub barely moves", are you expecting, but not seeing, significant visible cone movement in the low frequency driver? Or is the low frequency driver not producing sound?

I am not familiar with those pieces. I can not tell from the pics if there is an amplifier for both drivers or just one. I agree with the suggestion to post in the Lansing Legacy forum here on AK. You can click the "Report" link at the bottom of your first post and request that the thread be moved.

Good luck...welcome to AK

I’m sorry for the poor technical terms. The low end horn isn’t putting much output at all. It is a amplifier for both horns on a single channel. Thank you for informing me how to repost. Have a great night and thank you for your time.

 

[damacman]

Like others have said, the low frequency speaker is a woofer, not a subwoofer. Altec designs as these are based around high efficiency (hence the horn loading of the woofer) with low power required to achieve very high sound levels.

Here in 2020, we don't see many of the fabled 311 horns - designed to be crossed over as low as 300Hz. These can be worth a fortune to the right buyer depending on what is fitted to it.

I've never seen any of the components of this system in the wild myself - the low frequency horn, the Amplifier, or the 311 horn and I've been following Altec for three decades.

@bowtie427ss can likely tell you lots more.

Very cool find indeed sir!

 

[Houston]

Like others have said, the low frequency speaker is a woofer, not a subwoofer. Altec designs as these are based around high efficiency (hence the horn loading of the woofer) with low power required to achieve very high sound levels.

Here in 2020, we don't see many of the fabled 311 horns - designed to be crossed over as low as 300Hz. These can be worth a fortune to the right buyer depending on what is fitted to it.

I've never seen any of the components of this system in the wild myself - the low frequency horn, the Amplifier, or the 311 horn and I've been following Altec for three decades.

@bowtie427ss can likely tell you lots more.

Very cool find indeed sir!

Thank you Sir. When I saw the set I knew they were rare. I Appreciate you knowledge. I didn’t want to modify too much. Thank you for the information. Now I just hope they can help my friend at my church. I will contact the person you suggested. Thank you for your time. Have a good night.

 

[Houston]

Thank you Sir. When I saw the set I knew they were rare. I Appreciate you knowledge. I didn’t want to modify too much. Thank you for the information. Now I just hope they can help my friend at my church. I will contact the person you suggested. Thank you for your time. Have a good night.

 

[bowtie427ss]

Altec Lansing Hollywood 515 20ohm

That's how it began life in the late 1940's. It's been re-coned and is now functionally a 16 ohm 515B. Are they both matching?

What compression drivers are on the horns?

What is being used for networks?

 

[bowtie427ss]

I've never seen any of the components of this system in the wild myself - the low frequency horn, the Amplifier, or the 311 horn and I've been following Altec for three decades.

The cabinet is 816A, the most compact VOT type horn/reflex box, effectively half of an 817. They were very popular in the mid 70's for all types of sound reinforcement including large tour sound systems. Their lack of LF extension makes them less than ideal for a stand alone music playback system. Now, if you stack 8 of em on a side, things get interesting. Single systems are exceptionally good at vocal reproduction, HIGH OUTPUT vocal reproduction in a fairly compact package. They were almost always loaded with high power drivers, 421's or G series 515's.

The amplifier was designed as a direct replacement for, and intentionally voiced to sound like the 1569 tube amplifier. True industrial amplifiers made to drive PA and distributed sound systems and endure 24/7 operation. Hundreds of these ran continuously for years in hospitals, schools, factories, airports, etc.. Not the last word in fidelity. But, they should be the poster child for durability. It's a little earlier than the the speaker bits, date codes have it looking like 1973 production. A little aside, they were still making 1569 tube amps at this time. Not cataloged, but surely in production as one of my pair carried '73 date codes.

The 311 is kind of interesting, came along later in the 70's, never sold as part of a production system. It's believed they were originally intended to pair with the 290 phenolic diaphragm driver(that's the only Altec safe to 300hz) for weatherproof, high output, full vocal range coverage, in all likelihood for NASA or Boeing, or the DOE, or the DOD. The gov't got it's own pricing from Altec in the 70's under GSA contract.

FWIW...

 

[damacman]

Three words @bowtie427ss ...

Take My Money!

 

[Houston]

That's how it began life in the late 1940's. It's been re-coned and is now functionally a 16 ohm 515B. Are they both matching?

What compression drivers are on the horns?

What is being used for networks?

Here is what is on the horns. I have a Denon avr-3000 receiver ran to my Numark mixer so I can play with the frequencies of the signal to the Altec Amp.

 

[Houston]

The cabinet is 816A, the most compact VOT type horn/reflex box, effectively half of an 817. They were very popular in the mid 70's for all types of sound reinforcement including large tour sound systems. Their lack of LF extension makes them less than ideal for a stand alone music playback system. Now, if you stack 8 of em on a side, things get interesting. Single systems are exceptionally good at vocal reproduction, HIGH OUTPUT vocal reproduction in a fairly compact package. They were almost always loaded with high power drivers, 421's or G series 515's.

The amplifier was designed as a direct replacement for, and intentionally voiced to sound like the 1569 tube amplifier. True industrial amplifiers made to drive PA and distributed sound systems and endure 24/7 operation. Hundreds of these ran continuously for years in hospitals, schools, factories, airports, etc.. Not the last word in fidelity. But, they should be the poster child for durability. It's a little earlier than the the speaker bits, date codes have it looking like 1973 production. A little aside, they were still making 1569 tube amps at this time. Not cataloged, but surely in production as one of my pair carried '73 date codes.

The 311 is kind of interesting, came along later in the 70's, never sold as part of a production system. It's believed they were originally intended to pair with the 290 phenolic diaphragm driver(that's the only Altec safe to 300hz) for weatherproof, high output, full vocal range coverage, in all likelihood for NASA or Boeing, or the DOE, or the DOD. The gov't got it's own pricing from Altec in the 70's under GSA contract.

FWIW...

View attachment 1962058

You are quite knowledgeable and spot on. This actually came out a college basketball auditorium. They took everything apart to do a remodel and junked everything for upgrades. I’ll include a image of where i think it was suspended from the ceiling it whole life.

 

[Houston]

But why would the high horn sound great but the low horn barely has any output? It’s a mono amp so that means the signal from the amp is there. Also when I got it and starting rewiring it, I noticed they had it wired in 4ohm even though these are 16 ohm components. In my mind I was going to rewire the high horn on the 16ohm circuit on the amp and keep the low horn on the 4ohm.

 

[Houston]

But why would the high horn sound great but the low horn barely has any output? It’s a mono amp so that means the signal from the amp is there. Also when I got it and starting rewiring it, I noticed they had it wired in 4ohm even though these are 16 ohm components. In my mind I was going to rewire the high horn on the 16ohm circuit on the amp and keep the low horn on the 4ohm.