BC2's, & Altec A7's, a match made in heaven...

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Monte Verdi
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BC2's, & Altec A7's, a match made in heaven...

Post by Monte Verdi » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:29 am

...Recently came upon a sale at a local College that was selling off it's vinyl and some audio gear from it's music dept. Well, there were some vintage behemoth speaker cabs sitting there that I watched in the corner of my eye as customers perused. Curious, I thought to my self those look like Voice of the Theater Altecs. Way to big for my living room but they must be worth something. I ended up buying mostly as an investment not to own personally.

To make a long story short I have been looking studying and seeking advice etc for a more efficient pair of drivers as I have been using Magnepan 1.6's most recently with BC2's. Anyhow picked up Altecs for a song and a dance brought them home and wired them up. I was expecting bright horns shouting at me and driving me from the room to post a for sale add on Audiogon. But lo and behold the most beautiful mellifluous sound poured from them like milk and honey that I have not heard in a very long time since growing up in southern California. I have searched far and wide with solid state to tubes, RMAF, to Audio Society's, to Audio stores, B&W to Maggies, Martin Logans to Festrex and Tannoy. And after all that I feel like I arrived home after a very long journey and now I just want to sit back, rest and listen a while...

Sorry, trying figure out how to load images.[/img]

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BlueKnight
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Re: BC2's, & Altec A7's, a match made in heaven...

Post by BlueKnight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 12:06 pm

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I might be able to help you out. Check you messages.
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BlueKnight
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Re: BC2's, & Altec A7's, a match made in heaven...

Post by BlueKnight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:26 pm

Here are Ramon's pictures. Very nice indeed!


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Monte Verdi
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Post by Monte Verdi » Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:47 pm

Thanks, go to Mike for posting my photos. I noticed that the 416A low frequency drivers are not visible down below, oh well. I plan on refinishing cabinets soon anyhow and I will take more photos.
And, yes there huge but I love'm. I wish you Blue Circle fans could hear them.
Ramon

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BlueKnight
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Post by BlueKnight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:53 pm

Monte Verdi wrote:Thanks, go to Mike for posting my photos. I noticed that the 416A low frequency drivers are not visible down below, oh well. I plan on refinishing cabinets soon anyhow and I will take more photos.
And, yes there huge but I love'm. I wish you Blue Circle fans could hear them.
Ramon
My pleasure. Even at full resolution the last picture was pretty dark. So tell us about the rest of your gear. I see avery nice TT sitting there.
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Monte Verdi
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Post by Monte Verdi » Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:37 pm

Thanks for asking, you know how we dorky audiophiles love talking about our gear. Here's a breakdown of gear;

Turntable is a Scheu Premier with Classic arm and a Clearaudio Sigma Gold cartridge. Phono pre is a Swedish made Coph Nia MC stage. Interconnect is Stealth CWS

Preamp, is the Audible Illusions M3A with 6922 Dutch Phillips tubes.

Amps are the BC2's with circa 1944 RCA VT231 tubes and FIM/CRL pwr cables.

Speakers are the A7-500 by Altec

CD/DVD Sony NS3100ES

Cassette Tape deck, Revox B215

Tuner, Kenwood KT 7300

Power Conditioners are two Power Wedges with FIM/CRL Silver power cables and Speaker cable is FIM/CRL Silver, though at the moment I have a thin gold, copper, silver, cyro wire from Aural Harmonies hooked up directly to crossover.

I think that covers it, thanks!

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Punker X
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Post by Punker X » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:16 am

Finally someone else with Altec's. Need to take some decent pictures of my 19's, Also have 9846-8A's. The sound can be very addictive.

If you need any of your drivers serviced check out

http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/

If they were mine, I'd look into upgrading the crossovers. Something with about a 1200hz crossover and a bit of high frequency compensation.

Mike
www.radioxtuners.com

Monte Verdi
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Post by Monte Verdi » Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:05 am

Mike, I agree with the advice to change crossover parts. My crossover is the N500D that crosses over @ 500 cycles. Have you heard Altec's crossing over that low? It's naturally making the horn work harder in the mid section and I'm curious as to what you think? I believe many on the Asylum believe it should be higher but haven't seen anyone chime in to Altecs defense to cross @500 for studio and home use, from what Altec's literature says. Altec apparently crossed at 500 on the A7-500 models for studio/home use and higher up for theater as from what there claims are. I will have to here it higher up to see if that sounds good to me. Would like to know what you think?

Thanks,

Ramon

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