ALTEC Valencia 846A/Shindo

[Hotzenplotz]

Hi John- Sounds great. My room is just under 36 feet long, and I actually sit at least 13.5 feet back right now. So 12-17ft is easily accomplished and in the next future my new future room will be even smaller then today (that will be a predicted forecast only, as the weather shows like rain or shine, huh). Very sad.

Best Hotz

[junker]

Definitely build stands to raise the horn to about ear level. This lets you back down the L-pad on the back over half way. It also reduces the floor reflection, and increases the image height. I used 3/4" baltic birch, and I'd also recommend removing the plastic slider casters on the bottom for better coupling. Also, highly recommended is to make sure you countersink your screws so that that do not protrude at all. Good luck! I can post pics if you want.

The Flamenco, Valencia, and others had their cabinetry outsourced are are squarely intended for the home market where design and compact stature are important. The Magnificient and A7 are more the size they would be...if this were not a consideration.

Junker

[fjn04]

Junker- It would be much appreciated if you could post photos. Cheers -Don

[junker]

Sure. Here is a photo of the speaker table made out of 3/4" Baltic birch. It uses 15" legs that are secured with 4 brass, countersunk screws per leg. You could even consider using braces between the legs for added stability.

[Hotzenplotz]

Thats a great speaker!

[junker]

Thank you very much!

The main thing holding these speakers back are the stock crossovers which are a simple 2-way 2nd order crossover. This can be made on a wood board in which you replace the old electrolytics with film capacitors, where the L-Pad is bypassed with a fixed resistor, and where the ferrite core inductors that are literally next to each other at the bottom of the can can be replaced with at least an air-core foil inductor on LP side. The stock crossovers still sound really good at low volumes, but when pushed all sorts of things start to go wrong.

The captive stock 20 gauge Belden wire is also very old on these and is nice to replace with the new crossover.

And the last thing is that the rear panel is 3/4" MDF that can be replaced with nice 3/4" Baltic birch plywood that doesn't have the vestigial L-pad, masonite compression driver cover, and connector screw plate.

A couple small upgrades and you will be in 100 dB / 16 ohm compression driver & alnico paper driver heaven. Definitely worth the effort! =)

[Hotzenplotz]

Yes, di it, this mod will pay off greatly

[fjn04]

Just wanted to ask 846A owners about speaker terminal orientation. I have no RED/BLACK markings on my speaker terminal (SCREWS) or anywhere at all. I have assumed when looking at the REAR Panel, the Right channel is on the RIGHT, and left on the LEFT. Then of course the other speaker is the same mirror image.... I received my A23 Adapters, and just started listening. I just wanted to have the piece of mind that the above orientation is correct.

[closdesducs]

If memory serves (I'm traveling right now so I can't hunker down behind my 846A's), the previous owner of my speakers had marked a "+" above the left screw and a "-" to the right.

[closdesducs]

Did a little web surfing after my post and saw pics of 846A's that had been modded by their owners to replace the screws with more modern binding posts and they all show black on the left and red on the right.