Altec Bolero 890A / 890C mod

I have been monitoring this forum for a few months and this is my first thread.

I have a pair of Altec Bolero 890A's that I got a couple years ago. Somehow I blew one of the 3000 horn tweeters. I sent the horn to Bill Hayes down in Anaheim for a new diaphragm. Apparently Bill is the only guy in world that has these diaphragms. He was I believe the head engineer of acoustic research for Altec back in the day. He's a great guy and repairs microphones and these tweeters as a business out of his house. Here is his contact info:

Mr. Bill Hayes
MicroMike Labs
1537 West Cris Place
Anaheim, California 92802
Telephone: (714) 774-0342

Apparently his work is exemplary, but he is not cheap. It will cost me some $160 to get my horn fixed.

So what I have decided to do after consulting with Bill is to repair the 3000 horn, but in the meantime I have also acquired a set of the Hepner horns out of the 890C along with the crossover networks. My plan is to hook up the 890C horns (part # 21517-3) to my Boleros, thereby effectively saving the 3000 horns from further destruction and the resulting costs of having them repaired. I don't want to cut up my 890A cabinets, so my plan is to either build or find a box to mount the Hepner horns and run wires to the main speaker cabinets which will house the awesome 406 woofer and passive. The 3000 tweeters will remain in the cabinets, fully functional but not hooked up. I'm thinking the networks for the Hepner horns, which I believe is crossed at 2000 Hz will also be mounted in these "auxillary boxes". Until I actually get the boxes made or find a pair of boxes or empty small bookshelf cabinets for the horns they will probably just be sitting loose on top of my Bolero cabs.

My reason to do all this is to save the 3000 horns. The Hepners are a lot less expensive and easier to find. Apparently there are a lot of the C version of the Bolero's out there versus the A or B models. I really like the sounds that come out of the Bolero's and they are currently my only Altecs and only horn speakers that I own. Eventually I hope to add more models to my growing collection, and ultimately the mighty Altec 19's or maybe even a VOTT.

Any thoughts on this little project? It seemed a little crazy at first but I think it makes sense. :D I'll take some photos as I progress.
Thanks!

welcome aboard!


I traded my Altec 3000G horns/xovers to prevent me from blowing them up. :o:

My 890A Bolero's cabinets were in pretty poor shape, and the woofer on one side had been reconed -- so i didn't feel too bad selling off some parts of a complete system...

I am in the process of finishing up my reworking of the remains...

when i am done, it will be (actively crossed over):

altec bolero 406As w/ PR
JBL 076s
Altec 802Gs on 1" slant plate horns

:D

i was initially going to fabricate some 1" smith style horns for the 802s,
but came across the Mccauley lens horns first...

An excellent alternative, although larger in size is the Eminence APT series. These are inexpensive, worK great, and the APT-150 has a horn that looks just like a Mantaray. These sound a lot better than the 890C horn and way better than the EV T35. The 3000 series were wonderful sounding, but, oh so fragile. I put one an APT 150 in an old Santana in place of the old Phenlolic ring tweeter, perfomance is wonderful. Try it out.

JIM

Crites CT125 tweeter is Eminence APT-50 on an EV T35 style horn.