This thread will be about my Altec Lansing A7 "Voice of the Theater" speaker build.
First, a bit about how I got interested in building the Altec A7s:
About a year ago, I first heard the Altec sound at FM
Anilva's home and I was smitten by the sound of his DIY Onkens. Subsequently, I visited member
Rajiv's home in Chennai to listen to his custom Altecs with Tractrix Horn. I was hooked. I loved the tone and timbre of these Altecs. Voices sound so natural, high frequencies sounded so smooth and easy on my ears...and the sound of horns was so intimate. I knew I want these for my home. But these were huge, drivers were hard to come by in good condition and expensive to source, they were low on
WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor), but what the heck?! They made me wanna own them, I could not stop thinking about them. I decided to take the plunge
. I must mention that this project would not have been possible without guidance and support from both Rajiv and Anilva.
I kept looking for speaker drivers, always finding a single driver or a pair of drivers with ferrite magnets. I wanted the Alnico magnet version. Many moons later, Rajiv helped me find a pair of Altec 416a drivers on a silver platter - fully refurbished with OEM parts from Greatplains Audio. I carried them to Bangalore by bus. All I needed now was a pair of high Frequency drivers but these could be added any time, so I decided to start the build as soon as I returned from an office trip to Singapore. While in Singapore, I put up a "want to buy" advertisements on the local hi-fi forum - echoloft and got many responses. Everyday, after work, I visited many an audiophile to checkout the drivers they had on sale. And then suddenly, I found a matched pair of Altec 802-8g's in mint condition along with Altec 811-b horns. These were never opened and still had the original diaphragms and had very close serial numbers (same manufacturing batch). According to enthusiasts, the 802-8gs were the best small format (1 inch throat) Alnico drivers that Altec made. I paid SG$800 for them - a bit high, but one doesn't come across these everyday...and the value of these drivers keeps appreciating;). Altec also makes larger format driver (1.4 inch throat) like the Altec 288s, 299s etc and these are sought after by audiophiles. Hope to own the 288s someday
.
Here is a pic of the drivers:
Altec 416a 15" LF drivers, Alnico magnet:
Altec 802-8g Compression Drivers (1 inch throat), Alnico magnet fitted to 811-b horns:
The 811-b horn (800Hz cut off freq):
To get an idea of how big these are, see this pic with my 3.5 year old son, Tejas who is as excited as his dad is about his toys:
Contd....
