Altec 19's

theophile said:

There is something about a good pair of Altecs which makes all of their flaws insignificant. They move one towards the satisfaction of listening to music and away from all of the audiophile trivia.

I've heard my Altecs sound superb with stock power cords, el-cheapo interconnects and hardware store bought speaker wire. Conversely, I've heard big name current well reviewed gear with multi thousand dollar power cords, multi thousand dollar interconnects, and multi thousand dollar speaker cables in multi thousand dollar treated rooms sound lifeless and utterly uninteresting. That's not a criticism of expensive cabling and an endorsement of el-cheapo cabling. More an indication that all of the peripherals are like make-up.

You can take a gorgeous woman, and she will remain gorgeous without a scrap of makeup on. No amount of makeup will enhance a vulture. The Altecs just shine because of their inherent qualities. Some other gear only seems to sound good in the system of a reviewer who gives it gushing praise.

I do enhance my Altecs, and my other gear. A little makeup on a gorgeous woman can be very appealing.

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IMO, those women look better WITHOUT makeup. I feel the same way about my gear. If a speaker isn't able to wow me in stock form, then I'm better off with something else (I'm not much of a DIY'er, so the less I have to do to it, the better).

I wish I could explain the "Altec Effect". I is the only speaker I have ever owned that had such an odd pedigree of sound. They built speakers all over the place for many years, most of them favorable I would say. My real admiration came once I got to listen to at length, and finally own, their larger system-namely the Altec Model 19. It was sooooo very impressive I deeply wondered why they are still not being made today, at any price. Sure it is a room hog and plays at the the waist level- none the less it is a superior loud speaker system that seems to lack for nothing in pure sound offerings! I mran show me an Altec showroom somewhere!

Even "upgrading" these larger Altec's can be a real bone of contention- understandibly. In their non-upgraded form are perfectly good sounding audio platforms. The drivers are uniquely first rate with excellent tonality of their own, cabinets a pleasing to the eye, the stock xovers offer perfectly good blending. "Custom" Altec's, when properly used components are assembeled together, STILL offers very the exciting sound Altec is unique to. You can set a lot of 15" quality drivers in a given box and play them with the same tone or music- they usually sound pretty much the same. When you hook up an Altec 15"- like a 416B- you hear something more pleasing, differant and engaging. Same thing with their 511/811 horn & driver combinations.

I am not saying Altec is the end all of audio, it is not. But what you experience with an Altec speaker- especially the 19's, Valencia, etc is uniquely ALTEC! Once you sit down and listen to an Altec speaker you know it is differant somehow and it grows on you in a pleasing way. You tend to forget what's pushing them or even what's playing through them, but instead you are engaged with the sound, the sound they are welcomed and known for.
DC

diggin' an old crate here...
i'm very happy with my altec 19. they've been rewired internally and currently awaiting recap.
then out of the blue, as i got my hands on a second wonderful sugden a21 classA amp (the vintage second series with BDY38trans) a friend tells me to go bi-amp and above all, get rid of that "lousy x-over"...
i know that without it , they won't be 19 anymore, but did anyone here ever fancy the concept or tried it?

Get a different friend, that one thinks you can't hear.

well, i admit it's a quite extreme position but the same friend had proved right on many audio challenges. i need to talk it over with him. maybe he didn't mean getting rid of any x-over - just the stock altec's.

There are advantages to either route.

Properly done, bi-amping will almost always be better. Properly done, is the key.

To preserve the 19's sonic character of smooth HF extension, the EQ curve present in the passive network will have to be approximated in some way.

It's a lot easier to take a well engineered system like the Nineteen and make it sound worse by bi-amping it. Getting it right will take some time and patience.

Let your friend bring his gear to your listening environment and prove his claim to you.

The Model 19 has a very well designed crossover.. They just need to be recapped because most of them are well over 30 years old..

They should look like this when done. :thmbsp:

I know the debate continues over the "Z-19" networks developed by Zilch. It is factual to say they are NOT for everybody, especially the purist among us. They do have a signature of their own, a sound o their own. I have built several of them and used them and admit I do like what they bring to the 19's.

The 19's I had, now shared with a dear deserving friend, Had Durst foams, horn cells wrapped, internal batting modified and the bi-ampable Z-19 etworks. I liked the sound over stock. The stock sound in it's own right was quite good and very presentable with most gear, tube and SS.

In my findings using the Z-19 networks allowed high power before coil saturation with updated inductors, a cleamer horn with poly 5% caps and wire wound resistors, etc. Is this worth the gains- to me it was. I'll probably not get my $$ back, but it was a good investment non the less.....for me!
DC

dc270 said:

I know the debate continues over the "Z-19" networks developed by Zilch. It is factual to say they are NOT for everybody, especially the purist among us. They do have a signature of their own, a sound o their own. I have built several of them and used them and admit I do like what they bring to the 19's.

The 19's I had, now shared with a dear deserving friend, Had Durst foams, horn cells wrapped, internal batting modified and the bi-ampable Z-19 etworks. I liked the sound over stock. The stock sound in it's own right was quite good and very presentable with most gear, tube and SS.

In my findings using the Z-19 networks allowed high power before coil saturation with updated inductors, a cleamer horn with poly 5% caps and wire wound resistors, etc. Is this worth the gains- to me it was. I'll probably not get my $$ back, but it was a good investment non the less.....for me!
DC

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Are the improvements you hear the result of the Z-19 topology, or the quality of components used?

To compare a stock network using low cost, production quality components to a custom network built with semi-boutique level components is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison.

I recapped my 19's with rather generic poly caps, added the Durst foams and did a little damping of the horns...nothing else. In an acoustically treated room and with EL34 single-ended class A (switched to triode), 300B DHT SET or class A MOSFET SS they sound pretty friggin impressive to these ears as well as some rather discriminating ears of fellow enthusiasts. IMO/E the room and electronics have a huge influence over how the 19s perform....significantly more so than whether they're biamped or not.

bowtie427ss said:

Are the improvements you hear the result of the Z-19 topology, or the quality of components used?

To compare a stock network using low cost, production quality components to a custom network built with semi-boutique level components is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison.

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As I gradually added improvements to my once stock 19's I stop and listened, A/B, one to the other. I started out with just cap upgrade and cell wrapping, definition generally inproved, would do that all day long for a cheap enough improvement. Next came the Durst foam, again better off axis sound improvements. Lastly Z-19 networks, A/B to stock cap upgraded ones, A "different" sound- one that I liked. Took high power better, offered dual amp flexibility, had a sharpened sound. I fought with my A/B switch for a good while deciding and concluded the Z-19 was my better choice overall. Playing only at modest levels then the near stock networks were just fine.

As for amplifications I tried several decent SS amps and a Fisher Model C. The 19's a amp choosy! They sounded great in class "A" 10 watt amps, Yamaha BX amp, Technics SUv9, DH500 rebuilt, an Adcom and two other I cannot recall. The horn bi-amped with tubes is the real treat!. Tomlin has very good aspect about them as well I agree with!
DC

already recabled internally, mine will be recapped pretty soon. then we'll see if we go some "other" x-over route.
but life is probably too short for bi-amping and the sugden is dedicated to my ol' tannoys anyway. il like to ran them with old el84 PP mono blocks and on a daily basis with a LM3386 /15w chip amp.