Romy the Cat wrote:

Last night I was cleaning/setting the room where the hated Altec 19 were sitting and I decided play them for a while.  I used a few different amps. To drive Altec 19, especially in it’s default configuration, always was a subject of debates and disagreements.  I had a few amps that I tried with more or less success. I did not paid attention to upper region of the Altec 19 – then are improperly made to do it right, but I was looking at bass that the Model 19 does. As much as I like the Model 19 bass driver as much I always hated the Model 19 bass. Still using different amps, tube sand SS, I recognized that the variation of bass was much larger then it shall be expected. After a bit thinking I concluded that the bass variation that I heard was not the variation in amplifiers but the variation amp’s output impedance. I decided to test it on practice and tock my Yamaha B2 amp and connected it to Model 19. The good part about B2 is that I have a comfortable full control of how I bias the output stage, so I begin to very accurately and very gradually slide the B2 bias from 20mA to 350mA. The bass of the Altec 19 was changing right in my eyes, perfectly reflecting the amp output. In fact I never had seen the speakers so sensitive to those things.  Apparently they have huge port reactance and I guess the best bet would be to have the amp’s current to damp the port reactance. The kink in it to damp it right before or right after the port dive making the speakers to produce what they call ”bass”. I was able to manage the Altec 19’s bass to very large degree. I do not claim that I was able to get bass that I feel it right bass but it was not my objective. My objective was to confirm that when idiots on-line sing the songs that Altec 19 has a good bass but to get there you need a good tube amplifier then they are expressing nothing more than idiocy.  Sure, the Altec 19’s bass channel needs current (power) but it also needs very precise amount of current to control the driver while the port is turning on. Picking different amps would hardly give a right level of precision – it needs to be continuously adjustable output impedance… Romy The caT

DonM wrote:

Romy, I have also noticed a difference in the response of my Altec 416A's with various amplifiers. My best rated amplifier the Bryston B60 was the worst and I could not listen to the speakers. I have been using a cheap Panasonic chip amp (SA-XR45) instead and it has provided the best results thus far. This comment is in no way an endorsement of this combination for others.  Thanks for posting the outcome of your test. DonM

Romy the Cat wrote:

DonM wrote: Romy, I have also noticed a difference in the response of my Altec 416A's with various amplifiers. My best rated amplifier the Bryston B60 was the worst and I could not listen to the speakers. I have been using a cheap Panasonic chip amp (SA-XR45) instead and it has provided the best results thus far. This comment is in no way an endorsement of this combination for others.  Thanks for posting the outcome of your test. DonM Don, as much as Altec 416 is OK driver as much problematic sound Altec 19 creates in bass. I think to get anything more or less useful out of it the Altec 19 much be biamped and the bass amp needs to deal with port current reactance. My main system is down during remodeling and I was listening for a couple days Altec 19 in my “opera” room. I got sick from this sound – all bass tones sound like one homogenous note. That made me to spend an hour to play with amp dumping… This whole thing needs to be reviewed – I do not think that chose amps is right direction to go. I do not have time not and frankly speaking the desire to do it nowadays. During the winter, when I will be setting up my “opera room” and if I chose to work with Altec 19, I might do it is…. The Cat

Dominik wrote:

And I take care to move driver back and forth:

I can see that 439 Altec-brewed white-trashes after reading the subject of this post run basement and begin to cut with table saw their stupid ears from their empty heads. Good for then, I am glad to be at service. No I do not propose to burn Altec 19 in fireplace, I propose to but in fireplace any retarded idiot who feel insulted by the fact that I consider that Altec 19 is shity loudspeaker.

The reality is that my Altec 19 is good for my fireplace and I use it “fireplace music”.  I play a lot of Altec 19 last week. My Koshka turned 20 year old on December 1 and I begin to develop some health problems that I work on. I love her immensely and it is hard to see her uncomfortable. We are together since she was 3 days old and when she was a little kitten on a few months she loved to sit at fireplace. Back in Philadelphia, where I use to live at that time, we spend long hours sitting at fireplace. She was biting fingers of my leg and I pretended that I am scare and that she is the most menacing Cat in universe.

Nowadays as the cold time come I begin to use fireplace extensively and she come back right to the place where she use to be 20 years back. We are spending quality time: I am sitting on my low buckwheat chair, stretching my legs to fireplace and she, hugging with her paws my whole leg. We are like 20 year back, only we are not….

I have a pair of Altec 19 sitting on the both sides of fireplace and on evening I played them in my fireplace room. Altec 19 can’t play classical music by default and suitable only for pop music. So, I spin Roger Water “Amused to Death” and alike. In reality it is absolutely irrelevant what kind loudspeakers I would use during my fireplace sessions, it happens that it is Altec 19. Does Altec Sound well in this environment with pop music. Who cares! As long as Koshka is comfortable and willing to hug my legs I do not care about Sound in my fireplace room.

I was trying to strategize what would I do it tomorrow someone get in touch with me and offer my $50K. In another words what would I do to convert the Altec 19 to Cetla Ledom?

This is an interesting discussion itself as it gives a blueprint for me what might be done with my Altecs closer to the next winter. For sure the people who know me do understand that my proposal to rebuild to somebody for $50K I not really my desire to practice audio enterprise but rather my desire to piss the Altec self-proclaimed aficionados. If you look at the Altec sites then you will see how the fucking idiots got pissed – I do experience a pleasure to tease a stupid angry dog with a plastic bone. I wools never do it with Cats – they are noble creatures but dogs, in particularly stupid barking little retarded irate dogs with no sense of own identity – they beg to treat them with contempt.  You got the picture.
Do not look at Russian dictionary trying to figure out what Cetla Ledom 19 is. The name is just revered reading of Altec Model 19 from right to left. So, what the Cetla Ledom 19 would encompass?

As I said I do like the Altec appearance, particularly with my fireplace in my unused room but the bind with mint condition pre-existing Altec 19 might be was not the best idea. There is a guy at eBya with user name ‘aquariumsolutions’ and he makes very good replica  of the Altec 19 cabinets. The great thing about this direction that he can made  for $700  a new boxes with minor adjustment in the dimension to accommodate the changes Altec 19 to Cetla 91. I have no interest to do it as I have already my Altec 19. It is what it is and I will stick with it.

The Cetla Ledom 19 will be 3-4 way acoustic system.  The people who read my site and who have own brain/ear do understed that any more or less serious horn installation imply no less than 5 channels but the Cetla Ledom will not be serious speaker it will be a good speaker for $50K or a good speaker for my fireplace room love to watch fire and to listen something like “Amused to Death”.

The very first step that must be done with Altec 19 is trashing the horrible Altec horns and introduction of normal lower MF channels. This will let the bass driver do not go to ridicules 1000Hz. So, here is how I see the Cetla Ledom complete:

1) Bass channel with 416 drivers as it is. The Altec 416 is a very good driver, for sure very stupidly used in the Model 19 type enclosure. I will keep it however as is with 250Hz lowpass second order.  The key is to use Cetla Ledom’s bass section will be the amplification, read about it below.

2) Lower MF channel. This will be my 18-sell multicell horn with JBL 2490 driver. I decided do not vandalize the appearance of my Macondo, so the multicell goes to the Cetla. I will re-paint it to wood color to match the Model 19 box and it will be it. The channel I presume will be carrying from 250 to 1000Hz, something sort of my Fundamental Channel at Macondo.. It will take HF out of the bass channel and it will take LF out of MF channel.

3) The MF channel. It will be Vitavox S3 or less likely S2 in the Vitavox “narrow” horn. Vitavox had 3 own horn and the “narrow” one I find was quite nice. Not as good as fast opening spherical but still acceptable. It will be high passed with whatever order and location that would give proper integration of it with   2490 and multicell. I think it will be somewhere around 1000Hz but I do not know the details yet. The MF horns I plan to put in the same location where the Altec has own MF horn. The mouth of the Vitavox horn are the same (near identical) size as the Altec opening for MF compartment.

4) At the very top it will be RAAL 101dB sensitive ribbon. I have them as left over from some kind of project that I do not remember about and it will do fine. The HF will be sitting above multicell and will kick in at 12kHz

5) The HF, MF and Lower MF will be time-aligned

6) The  Cetla Ledom will be bi-amped. The HF, MF and Lower MF that are all above 108dB sensitivity (ribbons so not need to have sensitivity match) will be driven by one amp with passive filters. The Bass channels will be driver by dedicated amps with ability to dial it the amp dumping. If somebody pays $50K then it will be completed 4Ch Class A SS amp with adjustable output impedance for bass amp – 416 driver is supper sensitive to loading in this configuration. If I leave the Cetla for myself then I will be using whatever I use and will not any by-amping as I will not need “proper bass” from this thing.

I think what I describe is a reasonable setting and I do not think that a Moron for his $50K will be able to get from the industry-sponsor speaker the Sound that he will be getting from Cetla. Tonally and dynamically it will be far beyond what the today gasoline-made driver are able to deliver. I will make sure that the complete speaker is well-balanced.

mats wrote:

Too late now for points, but just the other day I tried to imagine your plan. and I was pretty close. Actually, it is a bit like what I have going now;  15" Eminence bass guitarr woofers in a sealed 3 cu ft cabinet, Oris 150 with 8" B&C midrange driver, JBL 2435 (carefully filtered) on 340Hz Lecleach and Fostex T90A gently on top.  Oh, and a tapped horn in the 25-45Hz range.  To gain midrange resolution I aim to implement JBL 2482 on the Oris via an extender. The 340Hz horn is too large, so 600Hz on the horizon, perhaps with field coil. This will also provide space for a more refined ribbon top. No room in this house for 60Hz horns.  I like the sealed upper bass solution. I am at a loss for a more refined driver.  Even at 200Hz, second order the quality is very important. You are satisfied with the upper sound of the 416's. The best soiund I had on the Eminence was with a Marantz 8b that I had for a very short while. Nice rosin growl on the cellos! Hope you will realize the Cetla plan! Mats

My plans are will wary from how the project will end up. If somebody pays me my $50K then it will be a complete, properly balance and well performing speaker with amplification. If I keep it for myself then it will be more like a pile of conceptual channels as I do not need from acoustic system in my fireplace living room any “pushy” sound.

The Altec 19 came to me accidently and mostly due to the residue of my stupid Christian repent.  About a year ago a local audio guy was complaining to me about his loudspeaker and was asking me what to buy for little money. Since he was jazz listener I advised him to get Altec 19 but I warned him that it will require modifying them. Unfortunately people hear only what they want to hear and my comments about need to modify them were discarded. The guy went and bough a mint condition Altec 19, the cleanest that I ever with the newest drivers I ever seen, brought them home and hated the sound. I was in his home at that time and I understand what he did not like but we heard them so differently. Knowing how Altec sound I discarded in my mind all things that are bad about Altec, knowing that it might be dealt with by modification. He did not have the luxury of my experience and he was very pissed with the result – here is one more of my “recommendations” burned in hell. In addition the guy wife did not like the look of Altec 19 in this room and the guy was appearing as he just was raped by Sasquatch. At that time I was moving the things from my storages at my new home and looking how frustrated he was I decided to take those “recommended” Altec 19 from his hands. I always liked how Altec 19 looks like and they looked very nice with my new mahogany-red floors. Yes, some moronic people who do not have furniture buy speakers to fill the room.

I still like very much how the Altec 19 look in my fireplace room. The room is not being used in my house but at winter I do burn fireplace a lot – I love watch at fire. The fireplace room is too far from Macondo and it is a good idea to have some local speakers in it. The quality of these speakers in absolutely irrelevant however. If I sell the Cetla for my $50K then I’ll probably might be able to write off my fireplace room as some kind design facility or demo/testing room…

tokyo john wrote:

I just stumbled on this thread, and am thinking about being your first customer. I am planning to move to New York from Tokyo end of this year - not just escape the nuclear radiation but to let my kids experience a different culture. Depending on my economic circumstances next year I would love to be able to order my Cetla from you and set it up in a room with a lovely fireplace like yours. I am no Bill Gates so 50k is a lot of money for me, but as we have discussed before about value in audio, there is nothing out there commercially available  for 50k that looks honest (although I am curious about the Audio Machina Pure System that comes in a proper sealed enclosure), and your aims and goals with the design if achieved are worth 50k it seems to me. Maybe someone else will ultimately beat me to the Cetla, but your designs for it will hopefully not be wasted either case!

Romy the Cat wrote:

Yesterday I was working for a half day at the part of the house were my Altec 19 are sitting and just to keep myself entertained I set up the Altec 19 to play from my add-hog playback: Sony $30 DVD player, Yamaha C2A preamplifier and Yamaha B-2 power amp, all connected with those horrible Radio Shack interconnects. It was not good sound, not that I was looking for any kind of Sound. However, again and again I have noticed the amassing quality of the Altec 19’s bass driver – it just never stops to up in dynamic. As I told many times before this characteristic to demonstrate absolute lack of compression in bass at high volume is the ONLY one worthy quality of this entire speaker. It is not the bass is good, it is very bad in fact – the typical ported crap but the way this bas climbing up in dynamic range is truly remarkable and VERY infrequent commodity that one very seldom can get even from a good horn.

Wojtek wrote:

with your opinions. Your hateful criticue of 802 driver goes against your own recommendation of finding apropriate solution (horn and application ) for chosen driver . To me 811 is a bad, raspy sounding horn ,but quite perfect for reproduction of electric guitar tracks. I understand your sentiment toward Altec 19 apperance in your fireplace room but it would be probably easier and simpler to build Cetla from the ground up from the proceedings you get selling Altec 19. Since you exclusively listen to classical music and altec users exlusively are non classicaly oriented (at least I never met any) there is no point of proving anything. Hovever it would be of great value to people looking for sensible HE speaker less imposing and complicated than Macondo if you proceed with CETLA project  I think. That if you're in sort of humanitarian, sentimental mood and want to help out bottom feeders .Whatever happened to your MiniME project? Is it worse than Altec 19 that you have to aggravate yourself with altec dreck?

Wojtek,

Of cause I would not agree with inconsistency as you need to view my comments from a proper perspective. The Altec 19 is not my main playback and I have absolutely no objectives to have second respectfully playing installation. In fact to make it “respectfully playing” would take much more efforts then I am willing to spend. My currant approach in audio allows to me to be involved in any audio project where I do not need more tools then a screwdriver. That is literally the measurement of the efforts that I am willing to invest. The people who use Altec with 802 as their own playback and particularly who are wiling to play classical repertoire (as you very accurately noted) would need much more then screwdriver efforts and it is not what I do nowadays, without somebody pays me $50K… :-)

The “proper perspective” that I mentioned is the ultimate objective that I have for my Altec 19. The recent resurrection of my interest to Altec or Cetla coming from the fact that my local audio friends temporary furnished me with components that converted my fireplace room into Opera Room:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=14568

So, the Altec, or Cetla or whatever need to be good enough to play video – very limited and very restricted set of audio requirements.  My experiment with substitute the 802 with S2 was just a band-aid to eliminate some announce from Altec MF, the announce that does not exhibit itself what I play video, so it is very possible that for video I will use even the stock Altec 19 as the requirement is very low in there. I will observe that subject further but most likely in my Opera Room thread.

Wojtek wrote:

I understand your sentiment toward Altec 19 apperance in your fireplace room …