As most of the readers of this forum know, I picked up a pair of mint Altec Model 19’s two weeks ago. However, there was a significant problem. They had been sitting unused for the past 20 years. The compression drivers were not working when I first hooked them up. An examination revealed that three of the four tinsel leads had snapped at the 90 degree bend. I immediately ordered replacements from Great Plains Audio. However, due to a shipping screw-up, they will not be mailed out until today. Fortunately, “John” on our forum lent me a pair of 808-8A’s as a temporary replacement. I tried mounting these drivers, but could not get the 802-8G’s to dislodge from the horns. The gaskets appear to be glued in place. Therefore, I did the next best thing and swapped the diaphragms. I am now running Symbiotic diaphragms in the 802-8G’s.

Upon getting the new diaphragms installed, I hooked up the speakers to my Threshold 400A amp, Parasound preamp and Kyrocera CD player. My first impressions were not good. There were no highs. Cymbals sounded recessed and clipped. Bass response seemed anemic and boomy. Worst of all, the mids were piercing and grating. In summary, the Altec cliché of being all midrange seemed evident in spades. When all seemed lost, I thought, how would this system respond to EQ? I have a 4 band parametric SAE equalizer that I have not used for years. When I tried using it with my Dahlquist DQ-10’s, it seemed to create more problems than it solved, so I took it off line. Now I decided to see if the Altecs could be tamed by it.

The short answer is – yes. EQ worked wonders on the 19’s. The first thing I did was hit the 2khz midrange hump with 4db of cut across a two and a half octave band. This made an amazing difference. Vocals that were previously raspy became smooth and delicate. More significantly, it affected the overall forward balance of the system, resulting in a much more natural presentation. It also greatly improved imaging. Previously, the mids so dominated, that a vocalists sounded like they were out in front of everything. Now, all instruments can be perceived with a proper spatial perspective.

I next added around 4db of boost centered at 40hz over a one octave band. I combined this with 2db of cut centered at 300hz over a three octave band. This got rid of the midbass boom while providing a solid and tight bass foundation. Finally, I added 12db of boost centered at 14khz over a one and a half octave band and this restored the shimmering highs.

All-in-all, I’m quite pleased with the results. It still doesn’t have the neutrality of my DQ-10’s, but it’s not far off. Further, the system has bass and dynamics that the DQ-10’s could never hope to touch. I’m looking forward to getting the correct Great Plains diaphragms to see if this makes a further improvement. I have no doubt that the high end response issues should largely go away. I also think that the midrange issue should also be improved. However, my gut instinct is that equalization will still be a key factor in getting the best out of this system, even with the proper diaphragms.