I ran into some old Altec stuff at the new room I'm working. I was
wondering if anyone had any general info on them;

1566A Amplifier

436C compressor amp

9473A Limiter

1567A Mixer amp.

1568 A Amplifier

Just wondering if The 1567 can Have Outputs modded on each channel.
That might be really hip. The 9473 Looks to be a very cool old mono
limiter.It appears to be a two band deal as there are two gain
reduction meters ,one for below 250 hz and one for above 250 hz. I have
not had the time to wire any of these up but, will do so soon after
this HUGE console/Patch-bay cleaning job.

I understand that Mr. Dorsey might have some insight on these units.

Thanks loads folks.

ivis wrote:
I ran into some old Altec stuff at the new room I'm working. I was
wondering if anyone had any general info on them;

1566A Amplifier

436C compressor amp

9473A Limiter

1567A Mixer amp.

These are all common PA units, and manuals for them should be easily
available. Since the recent EV disaster, EV doesn't have manuals
available for free on older Altec products any longer, but none of this
stuff is rare or unusual and it all basically works. The 436C is a very
soft knee compressor intended for PA AVC, but everything else pretty
much does what you expect.

Just wondering if The 1567 can Have Outputs modded on each channel.

Yes, but you won't get very much drive current if you do that... certainly
not enough to drive 600 ohm loads. But you can tap into the line going
into the mix buss with a high-Z load, no problem. Folks did it all the
time for broadcast work.

I understand that Mr. Dorsey might have some insight on these units.

I don't understand the current rage over the old Altec PA gear, but if
you've got it already, set it up and give it a listen. It's decently
built by the PA standards of the day. Be aware that not all of the gear
you listed is tube gear....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 31 Mar 2005 17:49:26 -0800, "ivis" wrote:

436C compressor amp

Some people like these a lot for a different kind of flavor.

Al

Thanks guys, Yeah I didn't get that good a look at the stuff. I have a
couple of old opto solid state units in my home rig that I love on
Bass. I thought it would be fun to have at least the comps in working
order and in the rack. Maybe we can make use of one of the mic pre's
just run through the mono buss as designed.

Thanks again.....

ivis wrote:
Thanks guys, Yeah I didn't get that good a look at the stuff. I have
a
couple of old opto solid state units in my home rig that I love on
Bass. I thought it would be fun to have at least the comps in working
order and in the rack. Maybe we can make use of one of the mic pre's
just run through the mono buss as designed.

Thanks again.....


Although the 436 and 438 limiters are the Ebay favorites, my 1566a is
one of my "secret" weapons. These things have a less than stellar
reputation, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that 95% of
the units you see have spent 45 years on the front end of a PA system
in an inner city junior high school, and went straight to Ebay as
"vintage toob preamps" with zero maintenance. New caps, fresh tubes
and a grounded AC cord and you've got a real tube preamp that just
loves ribbon mics and other "hard to match" microphones. (gear
"purists" give me strange looks when I hook up my BLUE Bottle to the
1566a, but it just sounds GREAT!) Robert at VintageLoop
(www.vintageloop.com) up in Michigan does a complete rehab on these
things for a reasonable price. (at least it was reasonable 7 or 8
years ago......) Back when I got mine, the total price to purchase
(from surplus) and have the complete overhaul totalled out at under
$300, so the numbers might not pencil out quite as favorably today.
But I think that they are great little preamps.

steve