Back in the Uk

[junker]

Larry, one of the members here on AA, brought over his Mr. T for me try and the cord on it was ~2x my height so maybe 4m! Not sure if they are all that length but thought I'd let ya know...

[baddog]

WOW! Wonderful setup, looks beautiful, and Josh thanks for the additional pix.

[junker]

Thanks Barr! I'm having a great time improving and updating the Flamencos - they just get better and better. Eventually will move up to Shindo Separates from Matt. Are you still rocking the Cortese? And O/96's obviously?

Originally Posted by bplexico

WOW! Wonderful setup, looks beautiful, and Josh thanks for the additional pix.

[fjn04]

Looking wonderful Junker. Congrats on maximizing such a well implemented system. It must sound wonderful. I have my 846A's a bit further in to the room than you do. When I have a reliable second pair of hands, I will experiment with getting these bad boys off the ground. My thought is to use an old Encyclopedia (book) set I have. What other upgrades have you done?
I apologize if you covered it here already. Cheers -Don

[junker]

Yeah definitely consider this... Tables are a game changer! I'm going to kick-off another thread on vintage Altec speakers where we can all have a dialogue regarding our vintage Altecs. I've considered them my main hobby project for about 18 months and have another $2-3k into them for what I would consider OEM+ upgrades and have learned a tremendous amount that I can share (some of the secrets!). At the last Pitch Perfect event I went to I was surprised at how many Shindo owners have gone through great lengths to use these as starter speakers for moving into the Shindo, vintage, SET direction. And yet there is so much dogma out there that reads from some limited Art Dudley comments - even he alluded to L-R balance issues and perhaps building crossovers. I'm going to go on the record for saying that the magic of these speakers is inherently due to the drivers. It is absolutely not the crossovers, the cabinet materials, the insulation, or the wire type. These are not Shindo. Historically, Altec primarily made drivers for both professional and custom installations and sold the drivers and crossovers as individual components. Then, at some point (mid-60's) they seemed to expand into the residential market. Both the crossovers and cabinets have numerous cost-cutting measures and, in fact, the cabinets were outsourced. Also, please remember the crossovers are in a welded closed aluminum can and are potted in tar. I've bought an extra set and extricated the components to confirm the plans I've used are correct. Trust me you do not want to do this... Electrolytic caps do dry out, and values do drift. L-Pads will never be as good as a fixed R value. And for god's sake there is nothing ideal about having both ferrite cored inductors sitting next to each other at the bottom of that infernal can - that is a big no-no as inductors crosstalk due their magnetic B fields coupling. And if you want to ever replace the captive 50 year old tinned 20 gauge Belden wire you effectively need to replace the crossover. And if you replace the crossover you effectively should either replace the backs (MDF!), or leave the stock crossover as a vestigial appendage occupying valuable cabinet volume that was used to calculate the port size. No, there is a cascade that you start to get into when you go down this path but there are clear and dramatic improvements along the way to be sure. There is a lot of potential left on the table in the stock enclosures.

Definitely be sure to read over this ALTEC loudspeaker design document from 1968 just so you can understand how these very special drivers are intended to be used by the manufacturer. This also includes the enclosure schematics for the A7, Valencia, and Flamenco. =)

-Josh


http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/vint...sures_1968.pdf

[junker]

Moved the discussion here:

http://www.audioaficionado.org/gener...tml#post723244

[Pronan]

Originally Posted by junker

And to get that amazing pre-amp back up to the top shelf where it belongs! P.S.: What is a CD?

Yes... Sorry for the slow reply Junker... The order of merit is slightly out of each at the moment :-)

[Pronan]

Originally Posted by junker

Larry, one of the members here on AA, brought over his Mr. T for me try and the cord on it was ~2x my height so maybe 4m! Not sure if they are all that length but thought I'd let ya know...

Junker,
That's so elegant, Can I ask what are the two bronze cylinder shapes on the bottom front left of the unit?

Regards,
Paul

[junker]

Sure thing Paul. They are just a pair of Mapleshade brass tube dampers. I'm still trying to decide if I want to use them or not. Currently, I'm running them on the gain tubes. At least they don't look terrible like silicon o-rings.

Originally Posted by Pronan

Junker,
That's so elegant, Can I ask what are the two bronze cylinder shapes on the bottom front left of the unit?

Regards,
Paul

[Pronan]

Originally Posted by junker

Sure thing Paul. They are just a pair of Mapleshade brass tube dampers. I'm still trying to decide if I want to use them or not. Currently, I'm running them on the gain tubes. At least they don't look terrible like silicon o-rings.

Wow! They really give add the steam punk feel to the amp. I think it's really cool looking!