Are these bass cabs an Altec design?

[douglas234]

I just dug these out of storage and am trying to decide what to do with them. I was told when I bought them that they were "an Altec design," but searching around the Net I'm not seeing anything resembling them. Any clues?

That's a 15 inch speaker, mounted on a flat front panel (unlike most Altecs I'm seeing...)



Thanks,
Doug

[louped garouv]

I just dug these out of storage and am trying to decide what to do with them. I was told when I bought them that they were "an Altec design," but searching around the Net I'm not seeing anything resembling them. Any clues?

Thanks,
Doug

I would venture to guess some kind of "scoop" or Jensen "Imperial" variant....

have any pics of the cavity behind the woofer

[Lee in Montreal]

All the versions of the IMperial I saw had a straight corner panel at the bottom, not a folded piece of wood. It looks like a mix of designs though.

Lee

[douglas234]

Thanks for your responses. The mention of "Jensen" made a light go on: I suddenly realized why I've hung onto these speakers – they're almost the same design as one we had when I was a kid. From what I'm reading, this was probably a common design for home-built speaker cabinets in the 1950s.:

"The original Jensen Imperial started back in the days before Stereo when people listened only in mono. Speakers were sold as raw components and consumers built their own enclosures or had them built.

Manufactures like Jensen offered plans for various speaker cabinets that would accommodate their new fixed magnet moving coil speakers...."

And that's what we had, built by a friend of the family...

The design of these bins is much simpler than what I'm seeing for the Imperials – something an average DIYer could handle, I suppose. On mine, there's none of that complex baffling behind the speaker, just a short piece of wood going back at 90° from the front baffle:




Reading on other sites, I gather there are advantages and disadvantages to this scoop design, compared to modern ported subwoofers, but it seems that these bins really do best in large rooms or outdoors. Probably ideally suited to an outdoor reggae concert...

So, not being an Altec design, this is probably all a little off topic, unless my photos give someone some ideas for building a simple folded horn bin.

And now that I understand why I'm so attached to these things, it'll be easier to let go of them.

[Altec Best]

Definitely look like Homebrew Cabs.The simple 1/4" round trim holding down the grill cloth speaks volumes !

BTW- What brand of woofer is that in there ?

[douglas234]

Definitely look like Homebrew Cabs.The simple 1/4" round trim holding down the grill cloth speaks volumes !

BTW- What brand of woofer is that in there ?

The grill cloth and trim was my handiwork, actually. I bought the almost-completed cabinets back in the 80s, finished them, installed the speakers, and improvised those grills from stuff at hand. I was on a tight budget, apparently.

I was also pinching pennies with the speakers, so grabbed some at the local flea market. But here's what might be the silver lining to this story: I looked in there the other day, and discovered I had two vintage alnico speakers. I haven't looked to see what shape the cones are in, but one is a Jensen Alnico 5 Concert Series, and the other is a Stromberg Carlson "Custom 400." I never heard of Stromberg Carlson, but apparently they made some good stuff, long long ago…