Altec archeaology--little help, por favor

[slowburn]

Rescued Altec primary documents at LA ham swap yesterday. Have a peek at a trove of test results. Haven't counted but I'd guess a thousand or more. All the drivers we know and love, tested in and on various cabinets, horns, and combinations, notations on most. Mics, other Altec products, too. Seems like it should all be scanned and put up for all to use. Help? Suggestions? 7617676178761757617976177

[srm51555]

That looks really cool. Im surprised that you can still find something like that at a swap meet. Thanks for sharing

[gdmoore28]

Slowburn, those documents are invaluable for Altec enthusiasts. Please contact the moderators for info on entering them into the data base here.

And please make the same notification at the Altec User's Board:

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700/altec-users-board.html

New, unseen documentation shows up very rarely now. You have a treasure trove there!

GeeDeeEmm

[slowburn]

Slowburn, those documents are invaluable for Altec enthusiasts. Please contact the moderators for info on entering them into the data base here.

And please make the same notification at the Altec User's Board:

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700/altec-users-board.html

New, unseen documentation shows up very rarely now. You have a treasure trove there!

GeeDeeEmm


Crazy thing is not that they were laying on the tarmac at ham swap but that I was late and it was still laying there. In fact, I nearly turned the car around half way there figuring it was too late. Lucky us. When I asked the seller, a man with whom I'm friendly, about the price, he chuckled, said he couldn't believe it was still there, figured it would have been the first thing he sold.

Anyway, yes, it appears to be primary source value in the history. I like to build turntablesa and speakers and I enjoy renovating old amps but I do not have any interest in digital library duty. This task needs expertise that I don't have. For instance, while the scanned images would be a terrific resource, someone with technical expertise should supervise indexing the data therein so that they are "visible" to network searches. I think I have that right, anyway.:o:

I'll try the moderators but in the meantime, feel free to alert the qualified to advise and execute the effort. Thanks again!

[gdmoore28]

Crazy thing is not that they were laying on the tarmac at ham swap but that I was late and it was still laying there. In fact, I nearly turned the car around half way there figuring it was too late. Lucky us. When I asked the seller, a man with whom I'm friendly, about the price, he chuckled, said he couldn't believe it was still there, figured it would have been the first thing he sold.

Anyway, yes, it appears to be primary source value in the history. I like to build turntablesa and speakers and I enjoy renovating old amps but I do not have any interest in digital library duty. This task needs expertise that I don't have. For instance, while the scanned images would be a terrific resource, someone with technical expertise should supervise indexing the data therein so that they are "visible" to network searches. I think I have that right, anyway.:o:

I'll try the moderators but in the meantime, feel free to alert the qualified to advise and execute the effort. Thanks again!

Boy, I'm in the same boat as far as knowing exactly how this should be done. I'll see if I can notify the moderators about it. Please don't forget to post a notice of your find on Altec Users Board. I'm sure those guys will JUMP on this kind of information.

In the meantime, are there any frequency response plots of the Altec 802D driver on the 511B and 811B horns? What about similar plots for the Altec 416 woofer? Would love to see what they had on those.

GeeDeeEmm

[badman]

Incredible find- That belongs in a museum after careful scanning- can I ask what it sold for, out of curiousity? Certainly far less than it's "worth", at least to vintage audio enthusiasts. I'm ignorant about digital imaging and archiving too, so it'll be a learning experience to see where this goes from here!

[JeffW]

The scanning and archiving wouldn't be hard at all. Scan a document in a decent resolution (not so small you can't read it, but not so large it takes 5 minutes on a T1 to open it), save it as a .pdf. Organize by driver type/size/model - whatever floats your boat. But finding a place to host them for eternity will be the kicker. Each download from the site will use some bandwidth up, and paying for bandwidth is the bane of websites everywhere - that's why ads are becoming so ubiquitous these days.

Sure, with a book that thick, you're looking at a lot of scanning, but it would all fit on a thumb drive when you were done. Back it up a couple of places (think re-ripping your entire music collection if your hard drive crashed).

[badman]

The scanning and archiving wouldn't be hard at all. Scan a document in a decent resolution (not so small you can't read it, but not so large it takes 5 minutes on a T1 to open it), save it as a .pdf. Organize by driver type/size/model - whatever floats your boat. But finding a place to host them for eternity will be the kicker. Each download from the site will use some bandwidth up, and paying for bandwidth is the bane of websites everywhere - that's why ads are becoming so ubiquitous these days.

Sure, with a book that thick, you're looking at a lot of scanning, but it would all fit on a thumb drive when you were done. Back it up a couple of places (think re-ripping your entire music collection if your hard drive crashed).

You're missing the part about searchable functionality-not just images but proper tagging and text interpretation.

[JeffW]

Like this?

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?59-Transducer-Information

[slowburn]

Like this?

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?59-Transducer-Information



That's exactly right. The rub: a technical expert really should go through it with a fine tooth comb. I could hack away, scanning, typing headings like "Two 730-C drivers on 329-A horn" because that's written on a page with test result printouts taped to it. But such an exercise is akin to asking a plumber to catalog the stuff found in Leonardo DaVinci's studio. Get me? I'm certain that most of the information isn't announced in headers. I could stumble through it but I'm like an undergrad teaching himself hieroglyphics. Sorry to use two distant analogies in the same paragraph but it'd take me forever to catalog it and then it's unlikely to be anywhere near as effective as it would be if performed by an genuine expert who can spot associations for cross-references. Make sense? So, who's qualified? I could send copies of docs in small batches, so that qualified "librarians" could accomplish tasks, not get burned out by the sheer volume. I don't think these librarians need to be Jean-Michel LeCleac'h, god rest his soul, but it'd all turn out better in the end if the loggers had that kind of mastery of the science. Did I mention it's a lot of work?

[mech986]

slowburn, an incredible and invaluable find. Are the pages essentially in looseleaf form or are they bound? Looks like some handmade and pasted / taped data logs too.

If looseleaf, might investigate going to a REALLY GOOD Kinkos/FedEx Office where they could do all the scanning, carefully!!, and recollate the originals back for you, and give you a nice flash drive full of the files. Then one, a group, or a committee of JBL and Altec experts could review and then rename the files (or copies) and then help to organize them in a way that makes sense and can be searched.

I dare say that, IMO, the data should be housed either here at LH, AudioKarma Database (they host too), or Altec Users group. 3 repositories should ensure they will be available for a long time, and you'll still have the originals. Thanks for deciding to share them, that is a very Karma gathering decision.

[gdmoore28]

slowburn, an incredible and invaluable find. Are the pages essentially in looseleaf form or are they bound? Looks like some handmade and pasted / taped data logs too.

If looseleaf, might investigate going to a REALLY GOOD Kinkos/FedEx Office where they could do all the scanning, carefully!!, and recollate the originals back for you, and give you a nice flash drive full of the files. Then one, a group, or a committee of JBL and Altec experts could review and then rename the files (or copies) and then help to organize them in a way that makes sense and can be searched.

I dare say that, IMO, the data should be housed either here at LH, AudioKarma Database (they host too), or Altec Users group. 3 repositories should ensure they will be available for a long time, and you'll still have the originals. Thanks for deciding to share them, that is a very Karma gathering decision.

Good idea, mech! I'm just itching to see more of what that collection contains. It's invaluable to have the wealth of info that has already been collected, catalogued, and posted on this site, GPA, AK, and the Altec User's Group, but having access to original - especially hand-notated - internal documents is just too much to ignore if you are a true-blue enthusiast for the Altec or JBL brands. I hope something can be worked out.

GeeDeeEmm

[BillWojo]

Did this ever go anywhere? Looks like to much valuable info to just sit on a shelf.

BillWojo

[gdmoore28]

I was wondering that myself, Bill. I recently saw a similar trove of Altec documentation for sale on ebay. Don't know if it was the same OP.

GeeDeeEmm

[BillWojo]

I saw that to, and wondered the same thing. I sure hope that whoever has it makes it available for all. For folks like us it's really great info.

BillWojo

[slowburn]

Did this ever go anywhere? Looks like to much valuable info to just sit on a shelf.

BillWojo

I haven't touched it since posting. I have to visit edgewound Ken soon to pick up a pair of drivers he was working on. I'll try to remember to take the Altec binder with me, show it to him. Maybe he'll have an idea about how to digitally catalogue it so that anyone can access the docs.

[slowburn]

I was wondering that myself, Bill. I recently saw a similar trove of Altec documentation for sale on ebay. Don't know if it was the same OP.

GeeDeeEmm

See above. Three years later, I'm gonna get right on it! Cross yer fingers for 2020.