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Altec 886A purchase and questions

geartech

geartech

certifiable open reel nut
Got 4 of these speakers off CL for $40...seemed like a nice find to me. After just blowing off the dust, they didnt clean up too bad. Came with the reddish fabric grills and one Altec badge. Cabinets have a lots of scratches, may have to be redone. But right now, they're in the garage and I've been investigating these and listening to two of them.
These have a 10" woofer and 10" drone. As I listen, I'm kind of liking the sound of these....it may be too early to tell. But I like them enough to keep going....
The 2 I'm listening to sound fine. One of the others sounds like it has a bad tweeter, and one other was just plain missing the woofer. I didnt notice this when I bought them, evidently I didn't take the grills off all of them and look. I called the seller, a nice guy, and asked if he had the other driver and he did, it was on his bench. I went and got it...but its a bit trashed, needs a surround at least.
So far I've read that these arent true Altecs, that is, the drivers arent made by them, but l have found what the original driver numbers should be, and the woofers are original, 30684. But the tweeter has a metal grill over them that I dont see any of the (few) pictures I've seen of these. Not to mention they dont look like original screws. Taking one out, the hole has clearly been hacked into and the number should be 30685, and its not. It looks to me like someone has bought 4 tweeters and replaced them. And actually the crossovers dont look original and the numbers stamped on them, sort of looks like the tweeter. The binding posts and the back panel look original however.

So anyway, I'm wondering what your thoughts are. Make two out of the 4 and be happy with garage speakers? Restore to original glory? Anyone know what these tweets and crossovers are, and could I do better? I think it would be kind of neat to have all four working and in the garage. What about the surrounds on these? I cant tell if they are really butyl, or foam with butyl over it? If I want to redo the surround on the one (or a pair), Do I just use rubber surrounds?

Another interesting thing is, the "magnet" on the back of the woofers...appears to be encased in steel and is not magnetic? I haven't encountered this before.
 

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Also interesting is these dont seem to have a "name" like many other Altecs of the time period, like Madrid, Capri, Bolero, etc.
 
Wondered if these guys would ever make it on AK! I called the guy right after he posted them and was scheduled to pick them up the following day at 11AM and the guy forgot he was going to be away for a while so we rescheduled for 5PM but he didn't end up getting home until much later. I'm not in the business of being jerked around so I ended up passing on them even though the tried to reschedule a few more times. I hope you didn't have to jump through as many hoops. Enjoy them!
 
I've got a pair of those Altecs in my Garage system. Those tweeters are not original as you have gathered. These Altecs were supposed to be Large Advent killers. But, I am not crazy for their sound. They work fine in my garage though :)
 
Oh, and a not great picture of the 886A :)

picture.php
 
Well they had been sitting out there taunting me on CL for a few weeks, so I finally called about them. But I sure didnt need another project...but they'll be great in the garage for now. The cabinets are pretty beat up, but that's just 'patina', right?

Kermit, thanks for the info and pic...do you know if that's the crossover yours has? I suspect these have been replaced as well.

Mike
 
I never opened up the 886A's. Thought about recaping when I got them, but too many projects.
 
Are the 886A's supposed to be place vertical or horizontal? There's a pair on CL near me for $100... I've got a pair of RTR EXP 9V right now. Would the Altec's be a substantial upgrade?
 
I have not heard the RTR EXP 9V, but can say the 886A's are not worth 100.00 in my opinion. They were said to be Advent killers, but I much prefer the sound of the large Advents. And at that price, you should find some of those in decent shape. The 886A's can be placed Horizontally or Vertically. But, with the way the connections on the back are, horizontal was the original method.
 
As you guys have probably already figured out by now, there is nothing Altec about these other than the box and badge -- and I'm not even sure the cabinet was made by Altec. These were an entry level speaker using outsourced drivers -- not to say they are bad or anything, just not the real deal.
 
eurasian said:
As you guys have probably already figured out by now, there is nothing Altec about these other than the box and badge -- and I'm not even sure the cabinet was made by Altec. These were an entry level speaker using outsourced drivers -- not to say they are bad or anything, just not the real deal.
Click to expand...

+1 with the proper drivers in there they do sound nice.Original Bolero's came with a woofer/passive radiator and with the 3000 series tweeter can and do sound good. The comparison to Large Advents is apples and oranges!

Now if you said Large Altecs and Large Advents the difference will be substantial IMHO! :yes: And a much fairer comparison than large Advents and a Bolero/corona.

Large Altecs Like the avatar... :thmbsp:
 
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eurasian said:
As you guys have probably already figured out by now, there is nothing Altec about these other than the box and badge -- and I'm not even sure the cabinet was made by Altec. These were an entry level speaker using outsourced drivers -- not to say they are bad or anything, just not the real deal.
Click to expand...

It looks like these have been gutted - the proper drivers would have all been pure Altec.
 
I've had two pairs of Boleros, both with the little horn, which I think was an Altec, replaced later by a Hepner, and then, I thought by a phenolic cone. But it sounds like everyone here thinks they aren't Boleros, and disdains them. Why not, and why?
 
Hmm. These are interesting, now that I think about it - the Bolero's model number was 890x. Definitely a cheaper cousin of the Bolero, which used a 3000 series tweeter in the A and B generations, and a Heppner in the C series.
 
But it sounds like everyone here thinks they aren't Boleros, and disdains them. Why not, and why?
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Eurasian's post is EXACTLY correct.

They are 893 Corona's driver load with the addition of a passive radiator. CTS woofer, CTS cone tweeter.

QFE:
As you guys have probably already figured out by now, there is nothing Altec about these other than the box and badge -- and I'm not even sure the cabinet was made by Altec. These were an entry level speaker using outsourced drivers -- not to say they are bad or anything, just not the real deal.
Click to expand...

Taking one out, the hole has clearly been hacked into and the number should be 30685, and its not. It looks to me like someone has bought 4 tweeters and replaced them.
Click to expand...
These are the original tweeters from 879A Santana's. They were made by Becker. It appears that Altec may have stocked a couple versions of these for a while to replace the CTS cone tweeter. A previous owner of your 886's may have sourced new tweeters from an Altec dealer and these are what he received requiring the holes to be opened up a bit more. The CTS version has a much smaller magnet, i have some around here i should post a pic of those too.

altectweets.jpg
 
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I got these speakers last summer when I posted this. Since then, I replaced the tweeters with 4 new ones from Parts Express, their replacement ones for the CTS tweeters. I figured it was as close as I was going to get. They look similar to the ones BowTie just posted. Also replaced the caps. They sound decent...definitely not bad, but not spectacular. They are working well in the garage, I have 2 in there, and 2 I'm not using at the moment. I'll have all 4 in there eventually unless I decide to do something different.
 
With 4 matching Altec 886 speakers and a garage, i think i would be looking for an old quad receiver, you just may be surprised.
 
Hmm -- I guess I'm not a purist, since it seems to me that these don't just have an Altec box and badge, they also have Altec design, and presumably those other manufacturer drivers were built to Altec specs. If these aren't Altec, then it seems to me the Hepner horn ones aren't either, nor are the Santana.
I don't have any problem liking the big professionally derived Altecs more than the consumer products, but I also don't have any problem recognizing the house sound and aesthetic in even the lesser of the consumer products -- Coronas and so on. So I don't have any problem calling them Altecs.
And to be absolutely candid, I didn't think the Altec drivered Boleros were so superb that any change to them is unthinkable.
 
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And to be absolutely candid, I didn't think the Altec drivered Boleros were so superb that any change to them is unthinkable.
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This could be said of every loudspeaker i've ever heard from any manufacturer.:yes:

I think the rub, at least in my opinion, comes from the lesser consumer models being designed and introduced as a marketing exercise to fill a niche where as the classic products were developments of invention and innovation, the best the Altec engineers had to offer so to speak.

FWIW Nat, i agree with your entire post.

Sometimes it's easy to overlook the fact that after all the engineering and innovation it was still necessary for the corporation to be able to competitively market their products at a profit.
 
Didn't mean to ruffle feathers, just to suggest that these were not "classic" pro component based Altec consumer speakers like Malibus, Carmels, Magnificents, 604 based designs, etc. They are, of course, more of a true Altec concoction than the later Sparkomatic era gear.

IIRC, the 886 does have the distinction of being the first Altec product to be designed using the then brand new T/S equations.
 
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