Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater Article

[MakeMineVinyl]

Several -- but the ones well known to me are all in MA and NH (oh, and my erstwhile Valencias, which aren't quite in the same league, are in RI). My house isn't one of them (I've got the drivers & the horns, but not the cabinets).
Sorry!


EDIT: As a weird aside -- a little fleamarket/charity store here in our (very) small town in NH, shortly before COVID, had a pair of Altec Magnificents. I had to actively resist acquiring them.
The Magnificent was a VOT A7 in a domestically friendly (well...friendlier) box.

(borrowed images)

That's the first time I've seen the Magnificent with the grill off. The A-7 with the horn internal is something I've seen and heard several times but doing this compromises the tuning of the LF cabinet (not that there's a ton of bass anyway).

 

[Tom C]

I'm sure there are plenty of people like me who have them, but finding those will probably be exceedingly difficult. They are way 'obsolete' in the audio world, and absolutely a niche interest.

You can find articles like this which feature Altec speakers with some of the VOTT components, but not the crucial short-horn loaded LF cabinet design. Also, companies like this are using vintage Altec Lansing VOTT drivers to design contemporary versions of the speaker.

The unique thing about the VOTT is that the LF and HF horns are naturally time coincident because of the short horn on the LF cabinet, making the vertical plane of the HF and LF drivers identical. Some of today's speakers jump through hoops to get this type of alignment which Altec did decades and decades ago.

I think those Mother of Burl are breathtakingly gorgeous, but no way am I spending that kind of money for speakers.
This fellow has been around for some time. Any thoughts on the value of his replicas?

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I think those Mother of Burl are breathtakingly gorgeous, but no way am I spending that kind of money for speakers.
This fellow has been around for some time. Any thoughts on the value of his replicas?

I have not heard of him before, but what he's doing seems legitimate. The stock low frequency cabinets were originally designed to be of reasonable weight, so they used relatively thin 5/8 inch plywood. They needed strategic bracing to bring them up to current standards. This is what I've done to my own cabinets. The curved horn walls of the stock cabinet were particularly thin, being more akin to the body of an acoustic guitar in solidity. Pouring heavy damping material behind them makes them completely inert. That, and additional cabinet bracing makes them heavy as hell however!

The later cabinets were constructed of thicker material (the A-7X).

 

[mhardy6647]

yup.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

yup.

Do you have blind testing data to back up that bold assertion?

 

[Digby]

Would dearly love to hear some of these famous big American horn loaded pro-audio speakers from yesteryear, but being uk based it seems unlikely unfortunately.

I suppose the closest thing would be at your local cinema, some JBL speakers. Do you really want these in your living room though?

8" is a mid-woofer to me. 6.5"? NOT a woofer of any sort, no matter the port!

How close does a 10" or 12" + horn get to these kind of speakers? JBL 4349 for example.

 

[Chr1]

Already using Tannoy V12s and three subs in my living room.

...which are admittedly dwarfed by the Altecs.

Reckon I could make room. Ideally I would like soffit mounted drivers ala studio main monitors...
Acoustically superior, space saving (kinda), and higher WAF.

 

[mhardy6647]

Do you have blind testing data to back up that bold assertion?

graphs, charts, maps, spreadsheets and 8 x 10 glossy color photos with notes on the back...

 

[Kvalsvoll]

How close does a 10" or 12" + horn get to these kind of speakers? JBL 4349 for example.

They really do not compare. This old Altec has a midbass horn with pattern control down into the upper bass range, properties of the lf driver is different, epect much more Slam! and realism that can not be achieved from a small speaker using trad technology.

 

[Tom C]

12” is small?

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

12” is small?

I'd call it 'medium' for a woofer. 15" is what I would call 'large' for a woofer. If a 12" woofer is mated to a full horn, that changes things though.

 

[Soundmixer]

I heard VOTT speakers in an old theater in upstate NY. I loved the natural sound. The speaker that got me into horn-loaded speakers was the HPS-4000 speaker system in a theater in Framingham Mass. Holy mother of a sonless goat this system sounded heavenly playing The Haunted (a horrible movie by the way). The sound was powerful, natural, and too large to put in anyone's home.

 

[mhardy6647]

I'd call it 'medium' for a woofer. 15" is what I would call 'large' for a woofer. If a 12" woofer is mated to a full horn, that changes things though.

EV (Electrovoice) wouldn't have agreed

Early Patrician with 18 inch woofer

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/50s/Audio-1951-May.pdf

Later Patrician 800 with 30 inch woofer

EV Patrician 800 | Inner Magazines

If indeed “mighty” is an adjective that could be attributed to a loudspeaker, here’s one that definitely deserves it.

www.inner-magazines.com

"There is no replacement for displacement."

Come to think of it, Hartley wouldn't have agreed (with 15 inch being "large") either.

(24 inch Hartley woofer)

 

[DonH56]

Wow, nice thread, brings back a few old memories... I first saw the A1/A2 (not sure) when a local theater upgraded to stereo and put a pair of them behind the screen, ca. 1970's. The theater got them used. In college a friend of mine had a pair of A7's much to the envy of all. But I myself never owned them and actually knew/know very little about them. I had to repair a few, mainly ripped woofers from overzealous party fiends who used them for block parties and tried to outdo the frat house across the street (as a tech I got a lot of business from college parties). That was when I first learned about their time-alignment feature with the little rail system for the horn (IIRC); and here Dahlquist thought he was first.

Big VOTTs in custom cabinets and Bozaks (and the McIntosh speakers for a time) were for a while the status symbol of the well-heeled audiophiles in the area, though in my area (midwest) the more "musical" audiophiles were gravitating to 'stats like Acoustat and Beveridge as well as Quads. And a Shure VP had a special room (more like a small theater) built with an HQD system, one of a couple I saw (and have to say was not all that impressed by the sound).

 

[Trouble Maker]

I used to bum cigarettes off of the musicians to rip off the filters and stuff into my ears. Today, I'm very thankful I did.

The first image that came into my head was of someone using the tobacco side.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
This is bringing back some great memories.
There was a Movies Theater in my country, Haiti, called "Le Triomphe". They used the Altec Lansing VOTT in their main venue. Can't remember what amplification they used... Perhaps UREI? Or JBL. That was the first time I heard stereo in a movie BTW and later they had Dolby surround, using Altec Lansing Cinema speakers for surrounds but the LCR remained Altec Lansing VOTT. Before the movies they played music .. often, pieces I knew or even we had at home. Their system always sounded better to my ears than what I had at home. ... It sounded better, not louder, just better. My father was also of this opinion but didn't see himself getting VOTT in the Living Room, although I believe they would have fit.

Those were in the early 70's..

Peace.

 

[Sonny1]

A speaker system for the single guy! I was lucky enough to hear these a few decades ago in a large room (not large enough) on a very nice system in Michigan. The owner was an older gentleman who had them for years and the dynamics were beyond anything I thought possible. It might have been Wisconsin, I don’t remember the details except that the speakers were as large as my refrigerator and the sound was amazing to my young ears.

Oh, and the owner smelled strongly of cigarettes and whisky. Definitely a fellow who had his priorities in order. He had a massive record collection and I imagine his system cost considerably more than his home. For years I dreamed of having a similar system but the combined volume of the speakers was close to the size of my modest apartment. My wife is pretty tolerant of my audio hobby but not VOTT level tolerant.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

EV (Electrovoice) wouldn't have agreed

Early Patrician with 18 inch woofer

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/50s/Audio-1951-May.pdf

Later Patrician 800 with 30 inch woofer

EV Patrician 800 | Inner Magazines

If indeed “mighty” is an adjective that could be attributed to a loudspeaker, here’s one that definitely deserves it.

www.inner-magazines.com

"There is no replacement for displacement."

Come to think of it, Hartley wouldn't have agreed (with 15 inch being "large") either.

(24 inch Hartley woofer)

Yeah, they certainly put a 15" to shame, but they are very uncommon in the wild. I've never run across a 30" woofer beyond the ones they used at the "Indiana Jones" ride at Disneyland.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The owner was an older gentleman who had them for years and the dynamics were beyond anything I thought possible.

I hear a lot of speakers, even mega expensive ones in the course of my work, but I've got to say that the A7-500s beat them all in terms of dynamic punch and realism (in the sense of projecting real instruments in the room). I believe a lot of this in with my own examples is using the original LF/HF 500Hz crossover point. There's some special magic going on with the HF horn in the range of 500Hz-1000Hz that makes instruments and vocals especially sound exceptionally real. Mating the A7-500 with four 18" subwoofers helps too.

The crossover points Altec used has been the original 500Hz (for the A7-500), 800Hz (for the A7), and 1200Hz for the version of the A7 they made when I worked for them in the early 80s. I've tried all of these frequencies and in every instance the 500Hz crossover wins out with its much greater impact when called for by the music. They sound 'big' when playing at low volumes and incredibly big when playing loud, and they never show signs of running out of steam, likely due to the very high sensitivity.

I already had them when I met my wife, so she didn't have much say in the matter.

 

[mmi]

There’s a bit of a modern revival of the Altec look and sound amongst American music collectors, inspired by the Japanese scene I’d imagine. This guy makes a living designing Altect inspired PA systems and custom speakers:

https://instagram.com/devonojas