University Audio Mediterranean

[turnitup]

Ugly...check
Big & Ugly..check
Big & Ugly & 60’s look...check
Looks like something out of grandma’s house...check
Make in Oklahoma City...check
A subsidiary of Altec...Hmmmmm...



Ok, had this one on ice for awhile and decided to crack it open, a University Audio Mediterranean. Built in the early 60’s, it was primarily made for tube gear. 50 watts @ 8 ohms. A 3-way open baffle speaker. Swing open the front door, and walla, the drivers await you.



Time to check under the hood...

 

[turnitup]

Ok, the drivers look good, and it has a nicely engineered crossover. HUGE capacitor value. A 200mf and a 250mf capacitor run in parallel (450mf!?!). Looks like oil in paper capacitors. Also a 16uf and a 2mf capacitor. What should I do for the 450mf cap? Don’t think I’ll want to put a poly in at that value, I’d have to mortgage the house! After 60 years, I’m sure they need to be replaced...

 

[turnitup]

A Division of LTV Ling Altec, Inc. in Oklahoma City. I like the “Altec” part, no clue on the rest...

This will actually be a great look in my 60’s/70’s man-cave (the tackier the better)! Excited to fire them up and see how they sing...

 

[turnitup]

A little history found on the web...

I especially like the last sentence of the review, “If your decor calls for a cabinet of this design, the Mediterranean should be your dish of tea.”

DISH of tea!?! Cup, maybe, but dish??? Maybe the cats are digging these...baby...

 

[doctorolds]

I would gladly grab a pair of those speakers!

 

[grindstone]

Ads from both '66 & '71 to aid the cause (note XO different).

 

[turnitup]

View attachment 2522345

Too funny, need the swag lamp and the cherub head to go on top of these! These are classy beasts! Lol

 

[MaxP]

I can’t wait to hear how they sound!

 

[turnitup]

I can’t wait to hear how they sound!

Me too, but I’ve got to figure out what to do about that 450mf capacitor though (might also have to find a cherub head to act as ballast), could be the clincher...

 

[4343]

You're sure the big caps are parallel and not series? Being polarized caps (the big + on both of them says that to me) normal practice is two caps connected back to back in series to make a non-polar cap. In which case you'd need somewhere around 120 uF to match the series string of 250 and 200 uF.
Also the red end caps are already film caps, fairly decent ones IIRC.

 

[grindstone]

Have you put any signal into it yet? Can you get a quick impedance sweep of it the way it is?

 

[turnitup]

You're sure the big caps are parallel and not series? Being polarized caps (the big + on both of them says that to me) normal practice is two caps connected back to back in series to make a non-polar cap. In which case you'd need somewhere around 120 uF to match the series string of 250 and 200 uF.
Also the red end caps are already film caps, fairly decent ones IIRC.

I don’t think they’re in series, but nice catch on the polarized “+” on the caps. I’m starting to question if they are in parallel too. I’ll do some further investigation today. The crossover board is glued to the bottom of the enclosure so it’s really hard to get a good close view in there, even the camera angle is tough. It’s also a spaghetti of wires in there. More to come... Thanks for chiming in 4343!

 

[turnitup]

Have you put any signal into it yet? Can you get a quick impedance sweep of it the way it is?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the test equipment to be able to do that... But no, I haven’t hooked them up to anything yet, just been checking out the hardware. I wanted to see how much of a quality build they were...so far, so good. Maybe today...

 

[turnitup]

I looked up the “LTV Ling Altec Inc.” company (the manufacturer of these guys) just for the heck of it, and what a crazy historic past!!! Yep, Altec Lancing was in their portfolio at one time.

If you want a quick read on some money hungry, balls to the wall, scheming investors...man this company and its history is for you! My jaw was dropped just reading it. The weirdest diversity you can imagine. If your company got swallowed up by these guys, good luck. There’s probably a lot of current investment companies today that are a whole lot worse, but these guys seemed to be some of the early pioneers.

I just can’t get my head wrapped around people who sell their souls for the almighty buck. Glad my DNA doesn’t have that in me! Life’s to precious, and short!

Crazy read...

https://www.company-histories.com/The-LTV-Corporation-Company-History.html

 

[1tumbleweed]

James Ling is semi-notorious in corporate history for cobbling together one of the earliest makes-no-sense conglomerates. Who'da thought you couldn't make a go of a speaker manufacturer (Altec), a meat packer (Wilson) and an airplane manufacturer (Chance Vought aircraft) under the same umbrella?

Not to mention destroying a perfectly good cornfield in Oklahoma.

 

[turnitup]

James Ling is semi-notorious in corporate history for cobbling together one of the earliest makes-no-sense conglomerates. Who'da thought you couldn't make a go of a speaker manufacturer (Altec), a meat packer (Wilson) and an airplane manufacturer (Chance Vought aircraft) under the same umbrella?

Not to mention destroying a perfectly good cornfield in Oklahoma.

Is this where Great Plains Audio resides, now?

 

[1tumbleweed]

Not too clear as to where they are exactly, but they are in Oklahoma City, where Altec/University used to be - but not necessarily the same actual facility. They seem to be in town, where LTV Ling Altec's plant was literally in a cornfield (or perhaps a wheatfield), but the town could have grown up around them in the intervening sixty years. I'd love to know.

 

[GaryTrojano]

Ugly...check
Big & Ugly..check
Big & Ugly & 60’s look...check
Looks like something out of grandma’s house...check
Make in Oklahoma City...check
A subsidiary of Altec...Hmmmmm...

View attachment 2522123

Ok, had this one on ice for awhile and decided to crack it open, a University Audio Mediterranean. I found some information about it on dissertation on the resource https://essays.edubirdie.com/dissertation-help for students dissertation help. Built in the early 60’s, it was primarily made for tube gear. 50 watts @ 8 ohms. A 3-way open baffle speaker. Swing open the front door, and walla, the drivers await you.

View attachment 2522193

Time to check under the hood...

Even after all these years it looks very interesting. I'm sure it would take a lot of effort and time to restore it, but to have one in my collection would be very cool!

 

[turnitup]

Got everything recapped, and the results are somewhat disappointing. Not exactly shocked by the outcome, but disappointing none-the-less…

Sometimes you run across some “old sleepers” that really surprise you, these unfortunately are not one of those. They lack clarity on the top end and bass on the bottom end. Midrange, well, they’re OK. Probably just mediocre drives of the time. I think these guys were more about profit, and less about build quality of the day. They spent all of their money on the cabinets and probably went cheap on the drivers…

I don’t like swapping out drivers (and probably won’t on these), but it would be interesting to put in some quality drivers into these just for the grins. They are large ported cabinets, so could be interesting to play around with. Too bad they didn’t really pan out like I had hoped. Win some, lose some. These clearly sway towards the latter…bummer!

 

[300man]

IMO University made some really good speakers when they where located in White Plains, NY. So late 50s - early 60s...Like some of other things LTV Ling got involved with, they went down hill, some sooner than others.