Vintage Altec speakers: any good?

[Henryk]

well sort of but not really.
It wouldn't be at all hard to do, though, with decent quality.
Best of all, the XO could be fairly high, if one allows the Biflex driver to... well... biflex.
I'd do it in an instant.
Heck, I'd start* with a pair of Altec 32C horns (the plastic bent horns used in the Altec Fifteen -- arguably the best of the 32 family, which dates all the way back to Western Electric) and a pair of 802D drivers. I'd probably use active XO, at least initially to get the XO parameters right.

The Tale of Three Horns... Variations of the Western Electric 32A Horn

audio, tube, horn loudspeaker, high efficiency, loudspeaker, turntables, vinyl, field coil,

electravolt.blogspot.com

The only problem with the 32C is that they're collectible and the prices for 'em has become outrageous.
They are 1) plastic and 2) of a decidedly utilitarian level of contruction -- but they do perform amazingly well.


______________
* Yeah, I know that all y'all wouldn't...

Since crossover work is needed anyways, couldn't you use a more readily available horn?
Not sure who - besides Altec - makes good ones though...

JBL?

 

[Henryk]

Hmm... is there any crossover between 32C owners and 3D printing wizards? I imagine that scanning this shape would be rather nontrivial and may involve cutting one apart along the mold seams, but maybe there's a trick.

I bet you're right!
With how good 3D printing is in 2025, a replica would be a piece of cake.

 

[mhardy6647]

Hmm... is there any crossover between 32C owners and 3D printing wizards? I imagine that scanning this shape would be rather nontrivial and may involve cutting one apart along the mold seams, but maybe there's a trick.

funny you should mention that.
This fellow Trieu ("Tsingtao_1903") has printed some, it appears.

Western Electric 32A and Altec 32 variants.

So, went down quite a number of rabbit holes with this project.... I really wanted to be able to create a model from scratch (using existing design features and dimensions) to understand better the fascinations surrounding the 32x horns. Spent quite a bit of time on an Altec 32C. Took...

hifihaven.org

He printed and sold a small number of "32D" horns. I won't point to a for sale thread, but there's one at the site referenced above.
He prints and sells a larger WE horn, though, it appears.

Lycan3R | Custom Horns

Great custom horns for your special audio needs ! Lycan3R

www.lycan3r.com

 

[EERecordist]

That Altec 420A woofer may be hard to recone/resurround. Poke around https://www.audioheritage.org/. It would be fun to test with a calibrated mic on axis and report back. I had some other JBL's reconed by Morgan Sound in Seattle, they had a surprising amount of new old stock speaker parts.