Altec Lansing Model 19 crossover...repair? or replace?

[catangen]

Hello all, I am new to this forum and new to Altec Lansing in general. I recently purchased a pair of Model 19's and am having some issues. Neither unit was working 100%, I disassembled them and took as many good parts as I had and made one fully functioning and glorious sounding speaker, the other is going to need a little work. It has 802-8b horn drivers and 416-8z woofers. I have one driver diaphragm that was bad so I followed some advice found here and contacted Bill at Great Plains Audio and have a proper replacement on the way. The second issue with this speaker is that the crossover pack is causing the amp (pioneer sa9100) to go into protection. I removed this pack and installed it into the working speaker and the problem follows along it so I am relatively certain the problem lays somewhere in the electronics package and not in the speakers themselves. Bill at GPA has told me that he does not work on these himself and pointed me in the direction of local electronics shop, of which I have none that I trust. I am looking for some advise as to weather this should or could be repaired by someone not familiar with ALTEC or is this something that could be handled by anyone in the business of repairing any type of electronic gear? Or, is this something that is generally completely replaced by something new and more modern???

Here is a link to a slide show of photos of the crossover pack in question...

http://s1287.photobucket.com/user/catange71/slideshow/Altec%20Lansing%20Model%20Nineteen%20speaker1%20cr ossover

[rvito]

If you can use a soldering gun just repair. I just re capped my 19s along with new resistors.its very simple to do and perform the ground mod as well.

[CONVERGENCE]

the crossover pack is causing the amp (pioneer sa9100) to go into protection. I removed this pack and installed it into the Here is a link to a slide show of photos of the crossover pack in question...


DID YOU TRY conecting a single driver "the woofer" on your Pioneer to determine that it's your cross over ?

That happened to me once and it was my receiver not my cross over which are 40 years old.

I bought a new receiver and evry thing was fine.

You can connect a single woofer it's impedance is 8 ohms.

By the way that happened to me after I had my duplex reconed with spyder and all.

Eventually I will have someone at the engineering electronics department university rebuild my XO.

[catangen]

the crossover pack is causing the amp (pioneer sa9100) to go into protection. I removed this pack and installed it into the Here is a link to a slide show of photos of the crossover pack in question...


DID YOU TRY conecting a single driver "the woofer" on your Pioneer to determine that it's your cross over ?

That happened to me once and it was my receiver not my cross over which are 40 years old.

I bought a new receiver and evry thing was fine.

You can connect a single woofer it's impedance is 8 ohms.

By the way that happened to me after I had my duplex reconed with spyder and all.

Eventually I will have someone at the engineering electronics department university rebuild my XO.

....yes i did try to connecting to just the woofer and the problem still persisted, i them removed the crossover pack and connected it to the other woofer the problem flowed along, i tried it with both woofers and both speakers fully connected as well as trying it on both left and right channels of the amp and the problem was always where this particular crossover was. The right channel would work fine, i put this crossover in and the problem occurred, pulled it out and put the other crossover back in, and it worked fine. took the right side cross over out and put it in the left speaker and it worked fine, took it back out and put the original left side crossover back in and the problem returned. where ever this particular crossover was, regardless of left or right channel or what speaker combination, the problem always occurred where this particular crossover pack was.

[catangen]

If you can use a soldering gun just repair. I just re capped my 19s along with new resistors.its very simple to do and perform the ground mod as well.

I do know how to use a soldering iron. i do not know how to wire crossovers though. when it comes these type of components, where one person sees inductors and conductors and caps and diodes, i see white things, and black things, and brown things with goo on the ends and an occasional doohickey that hangs off the little spool of red wires......So i am not going to try it. lol

[catangen]

I did just get off the phone with Bill at Great Plains Audio and he does not work on these, but he does sell a complete replacement that is much better quality than the original. So much so its too heavy to mount of the front plate like the originals, these i guess need to mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. So i have decided to go that route for both speakers. i will probably put the originals up on ebay one working and one needing work and let somebody else more qualified make them into a working pair again.

[catangen]

@ Convergence....oh i see what you are saying now, no i did not connect the woofer itself directly to the amp. that never even crossed my mind. i will do that when i get home tonight just to check it out and be sure, but i think i have pretty well narrowed it down to the crossover pack. But hey, who knows, its sure worth trying...thanks for the idea.

[rvito]

I did just get off the phone with Bill at Great Plains Audio and he does not work on these, but he does sell a complete replacement that is much better quality than the original. So much so its too heavy to mount of the front plate like the originals, these i guess need to mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. So i have decided to go that route for both speakers. i will probably put the originals up on ebay one working and one needing work and let somebody else more qualified make them into a working pair again.

Not to chime in but I would keep the originals in case you ever sell these as aftermarket ones might diminish the value

[catangen]

Not to chime in but I would keep the originals in case you ever sell these as aftermarket ones might diminish the value

Not a bad Idea. I did have that in mind but I thought a new high quality functioning crossover would ad value over one that I broken. But I will keep that in mind, it is a valid point.

[robertbartsch]

...did you check to see if the crossover attinuator was mucked up and just needs some simple cleaning? I would NOT swap out the crossovers....

[catangen]

...did you check to see if the crossover attinuator was mucked up and just needs some simple cleaning? I would NOT swap out the crossovers....

I wouldn't know what an attenuator is if you threw it at me. lol. Can you tell me why you wouldn't swap out the crossovers? even for ones built by from what I can tell is the leading expert on Altecs? Is your opinion due to dollar value based or based on your preference for things being original or is actuially performance based ?

All I know is that I took the crossover pack and all the wiring out and put it in other speaker and the problem followed along with it.

[catangen]

@ convergence....I just tried setting up the wooker direct to the amp and it works just fine, I run it through the cross over pack and it sends the amp into protection. It does this if I run high and low both, and it does this if I run just the low or just the high.

[catangen]

...did you check to see if the crossover attinuator was mucked up and just needs some simple cleaning? I would NOT swap out the crossovers....

ok, learned something today, as for the attenuator, I can l see inside them somewhat and from what I can see, they look very clean.

[Horn Fanatic]

I did just get off the phone with Bill at Great Plains Audio and he does not work on these, but he does sell a complete replacement that is much better quality than the original. So much so its too heavy to mount of the front plate like the originals, these i guess need to mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. So i have decided to go that route for both speakers. i will probably put the originals up on ebay one working and one needing work and let somebody else more qualified make them into a working pair again.

You're better off with Bill Hanuschak's new M19 networks. With his you have no need for that silly variable L-Pad.

[catangen]

You're better off with Bill Hanuschak's new M19 networks. With his you have no need for that silly variable L-Pad.

I was thinking that Bill's replacement would be worth while but there seems to be some opposition to that. Are you familiar with them? How does his differ with regards to the L-pad? from what he has told me they should work and look exactly the same. I am not familiar with them at all except for there seem to be a lot of people that praise them.

[CONVERGENCE]

@ convergence....I just tried setting up the wooker direct to the amp and it works just fine, I run it through the cross over pack and it sends the amp into protection. It does this if I run high and low both, and it does this if I run just the low or just the high.

Ok now we know for sure . GPA NEW "CROSS OVER" ARE BETTER THAN THE OLD ONES , they don't have caps that leak.

I would certainly buy them . That gives you a system worth 10 K and eventually where an upgrade in your amp would make a difference like Mcintosh for example.

Good luck your a lucky guy !!!

[catangen]

Ok now we know for sure . GPA NEW "CROSS OVER" ARE BETTER THAN THE OLD ONES , they don't have caps that leak.

I would certainly buy them . That gives you a system worth 10 K and eventually where an upgrade in your amp would make a difference like Mcintosh for example.

Good luck your a lucky guy !!!

Well i dont know about being worth $10k, but i got into them right and even with the new diaphragms and new GPA crossovers, and recovering the grilles with new cloth i will be into them for less than $1k. So i think i will have done pretty good. Especially seeing as the cabinets are in pretty good shape. i would say an easy 8.5 out of 10. the only bad spots on the are on the back bottom corners. They have some signs of being scooted around a bit on the carpet but that about the most significant wear area. No customary plant ring on the top even. They came with the smoked glass tops and by looking at the tops of the cabinets, the glass was used as it should have been. Over all they are in great shape, after recovering the grilles they should be the focal point of any room.

[Alien_Shore]

Buying the GPA N1200 crossover is a smart move. They will sound better than the 40-yr old stock crossover, that's for sure.
I agree with rvito, you should keep the original stock crossovers so if you do decide to ever part with the speakers, you'll have the complete original equipment. Most collectors would want that, and including them would most likely increase the value of your sale more than what you'd make off of selling the inoperable crossovers by themselves.

[catangen]

Buying the GPA N1200 crossover is a smart move. They will sound better than the 40-yr old stock crossover, that's for sure.
I agree with rvito, you should keep the original stock crossovers so if you do decide to ever part with the speakers, you'll have the complete original equipment. Most collectors would want that, and including them would most likely increase the value of your sale more than what you'd make off of selling the inoperable crossovers by themselves.

I did buy the n1200 units from GPA, Not the most user friendly things to use. They came with no mounting brackets or hardware so i had to have those fabricated, no big deal as i am a mechanical designer for a fully outfitted manufacturing company. Also some of the solder joints connecting the leads to the pcb were weak and had to be redone, again, no big deal. Not sure how they sound yet, i am still in the reassembly stage of the process. I want to treat the wood cabinets with Restore a Finish before i put the horns and woofers back in. But just on appearance you can tell that these are much better quality crossovers than the originals. I think i will be very happy with them. I decided to get the N1200's from GPA after not being able to find anyone to fix the one bad original, as luck, or should i say as bad luck would have it, just after i received the new N1200's i find out that a friend of a friend is an electronics tech for a local TV station. i sent the bad crossover to him and in just a day or two i had it back good as new with spare caps to boot. So...i do have the originals, they are now both in working order and i think i will follow the advise of keeping them with the speakers so they can be put back to original if someone desires. I hope that does end up increasing the value as these Model 19's will unfortunately be more than likely be up for sale soon. At the price i paid for them i considered it a good value, but i did so assuming they were in working condition. with the cost of the repairs added in i think it has pushed my investment, although still probably a good value, beyond what i can afford for yet another set of speakers. Especially since i now live in a smaller apartment and will never really be able to take full advantage of what they have to offer.