Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
What is so great about Altec 604 speaker?
I'm new to this old audio thing and I hear comments like, "You need a pair
of Altec 604's to go with that amp". What is so great about this Altec 604 speaker? It looks like it belongs in a Mesa Boogie guitar amp. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Some people don't like Altec 604s. Dick Pierce (who was presumably
named that before it became a popular body modification in some quarters) is one. |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
personally, i think you can do better for the money.
for what its worth, if i wanted a sports car i would never consider a ferrari either... randy wrote in message oups.com... Some people don't like Altec 604s. Dick Pierce (who was presumably named that before it became a popular body modification in some quarters) is one. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
The Altec 604/5 series, Tannoy dual concentrics, and similar 1940/1950
speaker designs like the Jensen G610B, EV 15TRX, and University 315 are 2 or 3-way designs based on a 15" woofer with a horn-loaded tweeter. I've owned Altec 605A's, a Jensen G610B, and currently listen to University 315-C's. The advantages of these speakers are that they will play very loudly with little input (I'm using an NAD 2140, 40wpc), are very reliable, and can sound very "live" playing certain kinds of music (music that doesn't depend on very low bass and is performed primarily on reeds and brass, such as my preferred music, the big bands of Ellington/Basie/Henderson/Shaw and their various reincarnations). I ran some measurements on the 315-C's about 25 years ago, using a WE 640 1" condensor microphone, GR 1554 analyzer, and GR pink noise generator. The 315-C's had a LF break point of 35Hz and had a table up 6db from 500Hz to 6KHz (where the weird decoupled midrange section of the woofer cone operates) and then flat out to the HF limit of the WE microphone, 10Khz. This was extraordinary for 1960, pretty good in 1975, and still not too bad today. I hope to test these with more modern instrumentation, but not immediately. Up until fairly recently these speakers weren't very expensive on the used market; I paid $200 for the pair of 315-C's, including cabinets; since they are quite happy driven by small amps the total cost of the system can be pretty cheap compared to other alternatives. Finally, the build quality on these speakers is very high; cast aluminum frames, huge magnets, cones/suspensions/voice coils that seem to last forever. I'm currently refurbishing a JBL S8R system (LE15A/PR15/375/075) but with a true 500Hz horn/lens replacing the one in the original; I know it will be both louder and extend a bit deeper in the bass than the 315-C's but don't know if I'll like it any better. Mike Squires -- Mike Squires (mikes at cs.indiana.edu) 317 233 9456 (w) 812 333 6564 (h) mikes at siralan.org 546 N Park Ridge Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408 |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
AudioTitor wrote: I'm new to this old audio thing and I hear comments like, "You need a pair of Altec 604's to go with that amp". What is so great about this Altec 604 speaker? It looks like it belongs in a Mesa Boogie guitar amp. LOL! I got my pair for $50 two years ago, impulse garage sale stop after a fruitless morning at my normal Saturday swap meet; homemade cabinets by deceased 'audiophile Grandpa' ("You just missed his 'Big' speakers, they sold for $100." -Jeez- I wonder what they could have been???); the horns were out, and they were wired out of phase being demo'd with a small Sansui receiver (BTW with no antenna; the folk threw it in for free as they were sure it was broke too, wouldn't pick up a local FM station 10 miles distant.) All I had to go on was the Altec Xover plate on the side of the big black 'ugly' boxes, I couldn't see through the dense grill cloths, and they sounded like crap (did I have $50 to take a chance with? Sometimes I get *Lucky*!). Brought them home, did my flexure repair on the original diaphrams (known issue for Altec diaphrams, the flat ribbon wire breaks), cleaned the boxes up (and remounted the Xovers in front, now with no grill cloth, so you can see them in all their glory.) They had sat so long, the cones had 'drooped' and the surround doping had crawled south. The first real evidence (for me) that Mr. Lansing had it right; turn your woofers (! every ~ten years? LOL!) They're now my bench 3 playback monitors. Quite worth $50! (Whenever I'm depressed, I just check eBay's selling point for stuff like this ;-) Why are 604E's so 'important'? According the 'free' Altec Lansing demo LP I got back in the 70's (A&M Altec promo record named "Odyssey"), which 'hooked' me and caused my purchase of my first A-7's, 604E's were a sort of defacto recording studio reference at the time ("used by more recording studios for playback monitors than all others combined."); point source, *very* efficient, and if loaded into appropriate cabinets relatively flat (lucky for me, 'Grandpa' evidently payed attention when he built the cabinets.) In my experience (with my pair), the first version 604E horns/diaphrams (my pair are also true 16 ohm), there just isn't any top end above ~14K (I'm aware that I would need to change up to the 'tangerine' (sp?) diaphram setup to get past 14K.) I'm quite happy, but I wouldn't pay the +$700 a pair they bring on the 'Bay. My 2c- -Robert QTS http://www.Braught.com |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
There was an era when you couldn't present a commercial control room to
the record business without a pair of 604's hanging above the window. What made them a "studio monitor" in addition to a hifi speaker was their durability and efficiency. Bass players routinely pull jacks out of their Fender P-Basses when they don't realize they are live - generating heart stopping blasts and hums. After everyone gets up off the floor and apologies are made, the Altec 604E's would still be working. A few years later Audiotechnics proferred the Masterlab crossover which extended the lifespan of the 604 as the default large speaker studio monitor. Then, UREI time aligned them and released the 813, 811 etc, which was actually a 604 with Altec crossed out and UREI written in in crayon. There were certainly speakers with more depth and detail that most of us recording engineers didn't get to hear until we attended a mastering session with our hands folded appropriately behind our backs. The 604 was a studio workhorse with a laudable purpose: When a sweaty rhythm section blasts through the control room door to hear a playback of a take they just played at 103dB, you can't give them a playback on some candy-assed console top monitor at 85dB and expect them to be excited about the results. 604's had... well they had balls. Kind of a cross between a big stereo system and a good bar-band PA. I'm not a beleiver in loud listening for extended periods mind you, but there's a time and place to crank it up. Overdub and mix sessions can easily be handled by better sounding nearfields at half the volume. That's another thing. The 604's DO NOT sound good at low volumes. I gotta beleive the guy who invented the "Loudness" control on preamps was listening to a horn loaded duplex at the time. I agree with a former poster who described them as good sounding on horns and reeds. (drums and bass too) They make strings sound like trained bees, however. I finally sold my last studio pair to a swooning Japanese man about ten years ago when I tapped into that corner of the world that genuflects in front of old school, horn loaded Duplexes. He asked me to play some Beethoven. I said "Suit yourself". When I heard that swarm of bees buzzing through the crossover area I thought "he'll never buy these old things". He proceeded to pay me twice what I thought they were worth and half what he thought they were worth. We both grinned as we loaded his minivan. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
"kellykevm" wrote in message ups.com... There was an era when you couldn't present a commercial control room to the record business without a pair of 604's hanging above the window. What made them a "studio monitor" in addition to a hifi speaker was their durability and efficiency. Bass players routinely pull jacks out of their Fender P-Basses when they don't realize they are live - generating heart stopping blasts and hums. After everyone gets up off the floor and apologies are made, the Altec 604E's would still be working. A few years later Audiotechnics proferred the Masterlab crossover which extended the lifespan of the 604 as the default large speaker studio monitor. Then, UREI time aligned them and released the 813, 811 etc, which was actually a 604 with Altec crossed out and UREI written in in crayon. There were certainly speakers with more depth and detail that most of us recording engineers didn't get to hear until we attended a mastering session with our hands folded appropriately behind our backs. The 604 was a studio workhorse with a laudable purpose: When a sweaty rhythm section blasts through the control room door to hear a playback of a take they just played at 103dB, you can't give them a playback on some candy-assed console top monitor at 85dB and expect them to be excited about the results. 604's had... well they had balls. Kind of a cross between a big stereo system and a good bar-band PA. I'm not a beleiver in loud listening for extended periods mind you, but there's a time and place to crank it up. Overdub and mix sessions can easily be handled by better sounding nearfields at half the volume. That's another thing. The 604's DO NOT sound good at low volumes. I gotta beleive the guy who invented the "Loudness" control on preamps was listening to a horn loaded duplex at the time. I agree with a former poster who described them as good sounding on horns and reeds. (drums and bass too) They make strings sound like trained bees, however. I finally sold my last studio pair to a swooning Japanese man about ten years ago when I tapped into that corner of the world that genuflects in front of old school, horn loaded Duplexes. He asked me to play some Beethoven. I said "Suit yourself". When I heard that swarm of bees buzzing through the crossover area I thought "he'll never buy these old things". He proceeded to pay me twice what I thought they were worth and half what he thought they were worth. We both grinned as we loaded his minivan. Did you ever consider re-capping the crossover with PP caps and give another audition????.........GC |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Nothing but 100% Pure Audiogon Customer Satisfaction | Marketplace | |||
The Art of Bose Bashing and Amar's Supposed Descent into Mediocrity | General | |||
The Art of Bose Bashing and Amar's Supposed Descent into Mediocrity | Marketplace | |||
FA: Altec 604 Early Duplex Speaker | Marketplace | |||
additional speakers | Tech |