Altec Model 19 First Impressions

[Ian Mackenzie]

Yep.

[Joe Alesi]

My thoughts on the Altec 19 Doubled up (excerpt from my post on Stereonet Australia):

Oh what a night....

Melbourne Audio Guild Meeting at John Corneille's premises

Friends, Romans...:

On arrival there was quite a team gathered outside in the carpark chewing the fat. It was great to see there was such a strong contingent from SNA: 56oval and two of his friends, Nick and Danny who I also know from the Audio Guild- small world. Moondog, Paul Spencer, Jaspert, Junkmail, Joz and I. Others in attendance (hopefully my taking the roll doesn't miss anyone): Mohan, Russell, Clint, Emil, Tony, Red, Geoff and John, our host of course.


Room:

John has a great sized carpeted room probably 4m x 8m or thereabouts with a reasonably high ceiling. The room is well treated for sound reflection using very nicely arrayed modular egg-carton reflector/diffusers as well as closely spaced steel purlins as a ceiling (see image).


System:

The system was composed of:
a marantz CD player,
Audio Research Preamp (Not 100% sure of the model; possibly LS-2B),
Lux OTL Amplifier or later in the night a pair of British 300B SE monoblocks and last but not least two pairs of Altec 19 speakers arranged in a stacked (D'Appolito) configuration as shown.

Music:

There was a wide selection of music played throughout the night: female vocal, jazz, orchestral, choral, blues, folk.... After an hour or so of listening the Lux OTL was swapped for a 300B SE British Amp . The Lux OTL had a beautiful sweet sound, but for the orchestral stuff I preferred the 300B SE amp, set to no feedback. I was awestruck again by how good high efficiency / horn systems can sound.

The Altec 19 arranged in D'Appolito style by John (see images) had incredible control over the air in the room. Rimsky Korsokov's Dance of the Tumblers (Reference Recordings "Tutti" CD Track 1) really sounded like we were 20-30m from the orchestra with an incredibly REAL sense of dynamics and true scale.... Hats off ! I played it twice...It should have been more,....


Thank you:

Thankyou again to our very gracious host, John Corneille for his efforts in making this a very enjoyable night for me and I am sure all present.

Best
JA

[analog addict]

Nice room but those Bose 901/s?

Merely a tuner stand at the time being. Got them for free, and when we finally move, I was planning on trying a couple of pairs of 901's in the garage as suggested by a fellow over at AK. (Those are series V, and I also have a pair of series II's in the current garage) I also have a Bose 1801 amp, so it seems like a likely combination....

That sounds like a world class tube compliment. It must sound stunning. That would be a great example of a transparent first watt....

Funny how it really is all about the synergy. I've rolled a lot of EL84's through that amp, and before I settled on the 7189A's, I had a quad of pristine late '50's Bugle Boy's in that amp. However, they just didn't fill out the low end in the 19's like the GE 7189A's do....:dont-know

BTW Joe, tell your friend I like his style. Never seen stacked 19's before. Musta sounded nice....

[Ducatista47]

Funny how it really is all about the synergy. I've rolled a lot of EL84's through that amp, and before I settled on the 7189A's, I had a quad of pristine late '50's Bugle Boy's in that amp. However, they just didn't fill out the low end in the 19's like the GE 7189A's do....:dont-know

If you ever want to experiment further, I highly recommend 6P14P-EV's, but with caution. They are the quietest, cleanest, best sounding, most powerful variant I am aware of, but they draw more heater current than an EL84 and will fry any amp without the tranny and power supply to handle it. They are NOS from the old Soviet Union, a rugged military variant. In Cyrillic, six pi fourteen pi dash EB. I knew they were OK in my amp because the designer put me on to them.

I bought mine from Audiotriodes.com (in France). The Euro vs dollar is making them pricey right now, but still low priced for NOS.

Clark

[DaveV]

Hey Analog Addict. What timing! I just discovered the same thing with my 19's.
I had rebuilt a Scott 299 and 299C, both integrated amps, about ten years ago just to see what they sounded like.
At the time I had EV Regency speakers and although both Scotts sounded good with the EV's I stuck with my Mac C-22 preamp and 225 amp that sounded "more refined" to me and I packed the Scotts away.
A couple of nights ago I dragged the 299 out and the bass from my 19's is unreal with less than 2db boost on the bass controls and no loudness control engaged.
The highs are nice too but the mids are a tad laid back or not quite as clear as with the Mac stuff but the bass, lightning speed of the the sound and overall tonal charactrer is something to hear for sure.
Then I dragged the 299C out and it makes the 19 woofers go into overdrive too with 1 db of bass boost on each channel.
The 299 has 7189A outputs for around 15 watts per channel and the 299C has 7591A outputs for around 35 watts per channel and both sound like much higher power amps on the 19's.
Makes me wonder if a lower damping factor (than the 225) is at work here that the 416B's with that cabinet tuning like but I'd think there's more to it than just that.

[SUPERBEE]

I prefer the A7s....

.

Heard both

A7's

[altecspkrs]

How about a comparative analysis between JBL L200'Bs and Altec 846B Valencias,and 19's? ......(I still have a pair of L200B's as well as the 846B's, and while I've always felt the L200B's are very smooth and dynamic, I'm wondering if I'm hearing more detail and instrumental accuracy through the 846B's....ir is it just my hearing?) .... The bass of the 19's, to me, is on a par with the L200B's, but as I no longer have the 19's, I can't currently compare the rest of the range......Thanks!

[Zilch]

My data is posted in these forums.

846Bs lack both highs and extended lows, and are excessively forward in the midrange. Nobody's home above 10 khz; 806As don't cut it.

L200Bs have more extended lows than either 846Bs or Model 19s, but the Model 19s beat both 846Bs and L200Bs in response flatness and VHF extension.

L200Bs have more VHF than 846Bs, but HL91's collapsing vertical dispersion renders the attempt largely fruitless. It didn't happen two-way 'til 4430.

"EUREKA!" said Giskard.

[Indeed.... ]

[altecspkrs]

Thanks, The wider vertical dispersion of the 811B horn over the H91, then, accounts for the greater "openness" (presence?) of the Altecs, it seems you're saying. My experience with both would seem to bear this out as well, and may account for my peception of more h.f. detail from my recently aquired 846B's vs, the L200B's I've had for some time. (I've also been aware of this openness with another system I put together with JBL 2445H h.f. drivers mounted to 2380A JBL HORNS, each sitting on top of a JBL 4647 cabinet housing a JBL 2225H woofer, and crossed over at 500 hz by means of a Altec N1285-8B network - VERY open and dynamic, re: the horn, and extended bass, too - but NO WAF, Wife Approval Factor, because of the black pro sound utility look) In my experience, ALL of the systems we're discussing herein, 846B's, 19's, L200B's, and the above, require h.f. boost equalisation of 6 to 8 db at 8K hz. and more at 16K hz to sound alive, with that "you are there" experience......Just as an aside, the black ones are confined to my "office", but I did put together another pair using JBL L200 cabinets with 2225H's, alone, inside,and the big JBL horns and Altec 500 hz crossovers on top, all masked sufficiently with new matching grooved foam grills for the cabs, and above, for the horns, to achieve enough WAF for another room, which we both inhabit from time to time! (And the sound is almost identical, too.) ......Just some rambling, for what it's worth. Thanks all.

[altecspkrs]

Is 808-8A "Symbiotic" h.f. driver a plus, in Barcelona systems? Opinion of Barcelonas in general, as opposed to Model 19's and 846B Valencias? (See that Santiagos, smaller version of Barcelonas, have 806-8A drivers and same 411 woofers - opinion of this model, in comparison?

Thanks.