Altec Valencia 811B Horn Colors

[jaynemo]

I recently picked up a pair of original owner Valencia's, built in 1967. Owner was an elderly guy who never even opened them up. Upon my original inspection I noticed one horn is Altec green like the drivers, the other is gold painted. The S/N's are kind of far apart. Typical?

[SMKSoundPro]

The vals I have in my shop are 1968 datecodes, and all drivers are green.

I don't know anymore than that. Zilch is using a gold 811B on the other thread. Maybe, he will chime in.

Good luck and search for "look at my new babies." There is substantial science going on there regarding adding a tweeter to Val's or not.

Whether you're a novice or pro, it has been VERY interesting!

Scott.

[Gary L]

In Vals I have seen them black and green but never gold. I think the gold horns were from a Seaburgh cabinet used many moons ago for Juke box satellite speakers. I have one exactly like the one Zilch is useing in the New babies thread mentioned above.

Horns are pretty easy to re-paint so I would not consider this any kind of a draw back at all. I also don't think you will see 811B horns as any kind of a rarity any time soon so you won't destroy it's value at all.

Gary

[Steve Schell]

Gary L got it right. Altec supplied gold painted 811B horns to Seeburg for use in their Discoteque line of jukebox extension speakers. How one of these found its way into a Valencia is anybody's guess.

[toddalin]

Gary L got it right. Altec supplied gold painted 811B horns to Seeburg for use in their Discoteque line of jukebox extension speakers. How one of these found its way into a Valencia is anybody's guess.

My wife's father used to sell and fix Seeburg systems and I remember going to their house before we got married (>26 years ago) and seeing gold 811 horns.

[jaynemo]

As the original owner claimed he never even opened the cabinets.

[Gary L]

Nothing suprises me here Jay and I would not doubt your friends claims of being original, factory and untouched.
If the horn was going into a cabinet such as a Val with lattice grill covering it and would normally be un-seen, I don't doubt they would use a gold one when stocks of black ones ran out.

If this does concern you, I have black and gold 811Bs here and would gladly trade you either so yours match, you pay the freight.

I don't think they would have pulled a stunt like this on a speaker with a removeable grill such as a 19 but the idea back then was to load the cabinets and get them out as quickly as possible. This is not the first time I have heard about mis-matches that amount to nothing that would affect to sound or specs of a speaker. I suppose an 811B is an 811B no matter what color it is.

Gary

[jaynemo]

I posted another photo of the gold colored horn and gave the insides a closer inspection. Well, perhaps the original owner's memory wasnt serving him too well, like what usually happens to all of us some of the time, I noticed that the number codes of the 806A HF driver do not match the date code of the cabinet nor the same date code of the woofer, which is 391735, basically the 35th week of 1967. The numbers on the HF driver are 512558, which is a white sticker on the back of the cover plate, underneath that sticker is 18008 stamped in black ink. On the left side of the HF driver is black ink stamped 39152, with an AL 11 inspection stamp. I'm assuming somewhere along the life of this speaker the original 806A & 811B were replaced. So anything could have happened. I also noticed someone tried to open the X-over (one spot weld was broken and it looked like they gave up & the slotted screws were a little beat up). So the cabinet was surely opened up for some reason along the way. The other speaker is a complete date code matched set, 391751 perhaps a "Christmas Special", ie the 51 st week.

Regarding the odd horn & Hf driver, do these serial numbers have any special meaning?

Anyway, thanks for the offer on the horns, the mismatch doesnt bother me, as I wont be exposing the drivers anyway.

[Gary L]

I think you are probably correct Jay and the owner spoke with a curved tounge out of ignorance or failing memory.

I am almost 100% certain my Altec 15s are stock and completely original and untouched before me---- ALmost!

When I opened one driver it had an original 23744 diaphragm in the 802-8G driver. The other one had the right driver but had a 34647 original diaphragm in it and the date codes were only weeks appart. BTW, I can't hear any difference at all.

I made the offer to trade only because for me it is simple, I can make a gold horn black or a black one gold faster then you could pack either color!

Gary

[moldyoldy]

Hi, Jay,

You can track down those stray part numbers here;

http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/...975-driver.htm