The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

jerryjg

jerryjg

PinkElephantologist
My friends, Let me introduce you to the rare delicacy that is the Altec 417. It is to speakers what the '59 Bassman is to amps.
This is the speaker over and above any JBL orange or D120.
This IS tone. Period.Exclamation point.
This speaker is to sound then, what the Tone tubby alnico is to sound now. The very greatest of its time. Its still one of the greatest speakers of all time, but youd have to consider the Celestion Blue, maybe the Gold, the rare old 20 watt Celestion Greenbacks, a few old Fanes and even the scarce G12m25 models. For modern sound, the hempcone alnico Tone Tubbys are right there amongst the finest in the entire world. Am i right?
http://cgi.ebay.com/NOS-Altec-417-8...3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:1|39:1|240:1318
 
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Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

jerryjg said:
My friends, Let me introduce you to the rare delicacy that is the Altec 417. It is to speakers what the '59 Bassman is to amps.
This is the speaker over and above any JBL orange or D120.
This IS tone. Period.Exclamation point.
This speaker is to sound then, what the Tone tubby alnico is to sound now. The very greatest of its time. Its still one of the greatest speakers of all time, but youd have to consider the Celestion Blue, maybe the Gold, the rare old 20 watt Celestion Greenbacks, a few old Fanes and even the scarce G12m25 models. For modern sound, the hempcone alnico Tone Tubbys are right there amongst the finest in the entire world. Am i right?
Click to expand...

The King of Tone surely owes it to his most exalted self to acquire this most splendiferous of all transducers.
 
Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

My experience is just with Celestian's. Someday when I am retired, I will probably play the chase the tone game more seriously. In the meantime, I am taking notes in case senility sets in and I forget what I have read in the past
 
Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

I've owned a few Altec 417-8C speakers. Used them for about a year in the early 70's. It's not my tone. Santana used to like them. Don't know if he still does.

My favorite 12" speakers of all time would be the Celestion Alnico Blue or Silver from the early to mid 60's and the Celestion G12H-30.

Depends on the amp though. The 60's Alnico Blues or Silvers are the ultimate in some amps (Vox AC-30, Fender 5E3 tweed Deluxe, my modded blackface Princeton Reverb...) but sound to bright with other amps (most Marshalls and most blackface Fenders).

The G12H-30 sounds pretty darn good in just about any amp I've tried them with.

The '58 blueframe Jensen P12Q is another great speaker - if it has the original cone and if that cone is not dried out and coming undone.

Next to the Celestion G12 Alnico blue or silver, the '58 P12Q sounded best in my tweed Deluxes.
 
Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

I like them in certain amps---I have a grey frame 417C set in a BF Twin that sounds great; very clean, lots of detail without the hash of a JBL, but not particularly efficient. I have another set in a orphaned AC 50 cab...I have replaced the aluminum domes with paper; an improvement IMHO.
 
Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

I have mixed feelings about these. Yes Santana did use the 417-8c for quite a while. Apparently he stopped because he was have problems having to re-cone them. They were an option on early boogies but were dropped in favor of the EV (mostly because the 417 was much more costly, if you believe what you read on the Altec forum). I have a re-coned 417-8h and tried to buy a few 417-8c's on e-bay but they were selling for ridiculous amounts (I kept getting sniped by some guy from Florida who was willing to pay huge amounts and seemed to be buying all that were for sale.)
They have been re-released by a company called Great Plains Audio (some old Altec guys). I have one of the new ones. As mentioned not the most efficient speaker (not necessarily a bad thing with my boogie). Can handle alot of power, I believe the guy at Grat Plains said 140 watts. I had it in my MK II but have since taken replaced it with the boogie celestion and put it in a closed back 1x12 cabinet.

Interesting thing is that I bought my speaker from Great Plains Audio about a year ago and they still haven't listed it on their website. Not sure if they are still tweaking it or what. Because it has an alnico magnet it is not cheap.
http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/vintage_altec.html
 
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Re: The Holy Grail of Vintage Speakers

I have a couple of old Altec alnicos (I don't know what model), but I really don't care for them with a dirty or semi dirty amp. It's a little thin to me. They are nice clean, but I find that they breakup fairly early too.
 
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