It was past lunch, so I took one last sweep at the Kutztown Spring 2021 radio meet before heading home. That's when I noticed this cabinet with a familiar looking metal-grilled driver partially hidden behind a huge pile of equipment. Without haggling, I handed a couple of ATM bills to the seller and we shook hands.
As soon as I got home I went through my Japanese audio magazine shelf and pulled this Stereo Sound Special Issue about Vintage Speaker Units, published in 2002.
Not exactly the General Electric A1-401 featured in the magazine but the slightly earlier A1-400. Pretty good memory for someone pushing 60, huh? 😉
GE A1-400 specs
As stated in the spec sheet, the perforated metal grill functions as a mechanical roll off filter for the 12" driver and the non-polarized wax and paper capacitor filters frequencies below 1800 Hz from reaching the 2 3/4" cone tweeter.
I also recognized this period correct DIY tuned pipe enclosure designed for corner placement. It was built based on an article published in the May 1955 issue of Audio (go to page 18), authored by Norman H. Bates.
BTW, AFAIK, he's not related to the lead character in Hitchcock's thriller. 🤣
Vocals are nicely rendered! The transition between the low and high frequency drivers is very coherent, as to be expected between two paper coned transducers. If I were forced to split hairs, I hear a tinge of nasal coloration in the lower region of male vocals, which I never notice with any of my Altec speakers.
Musical instruments and percussion are also well reproduced! Bass extension and definition of the A1-400 in the tuned pipe corner cabinet is at par with the Altec 756B in a 2.5 cf box, if not a couple of Hz more extended. Top end overtones are silky smooth and airy. Even if this cone tweeter lacks the ultimate transient speed and shimmer of a fine horn/compression driver combination, it's probably the finest I've ever heard!
I guesstimate its sensitivity to be in the high 90s/W/M because it'll boogie, driven by the 1250 mW SE triode connected 46 or 1500 mW SE10 amp. Although I can also listen to my Altec mini 757 with those aforementioned amps at respectable SPLs, it needs at least an SE2A3 for full dimensional monaural listening pleasure.
Kudos to Mr. Bates' corner loaded tuned pipe cabinet for the aforementioned impressive bass performance and my perceived easy-to-drive/high sensitivity nature of this speaker system. Kids, this enclosure was designed during the slide rule era!👍
Now I'm inspired to pursue my 285mW SE112A mono amp project.😊
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I really enjoy this speaker with a GE RPX or VRII phono cartridge tracing Atomic/Space Age/Exotica Lounge/Bachelor Pad mono LPs from the 50s by the likes of Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, Walter Wanderley, etc.
After 21 years of hunting, I finally got a satisfying taste of the GE co-ax. I've seen this on eBay between $150-175, which I believe is a fair price for a unit with intact cones and no voice coil rubbing. A couple of my Instagram contacts even expressed fondness and admiration for this speaker when they saw a glimpse of it in my posts!
I now regret leaving my RCA 501-S1 in the attic 😔 because it would have made for a very interesting shootout. If I can trust my sonic memory though, the RCA didn't have the nasal coloration in the lower midrange I noted earlier. OTOH, the top end of the RCA could be deemed more reticent or refined depending on the listener's taste.
I debated whether to refinish the cabinet but the patina grew on me.😊
In the context of my monaural hi-fi system, it shall remain second only to the Altec mini 757 because when I played a young Sinatra LP for my buddy Ding, he initially thought it was Bing Crosby.😄 Sinatra only sounds like Sinatra LIVE or on an ALTEC!👍😎
Let's see what the gentlemen at Stereo Sound thought of its younger A1-401 brother two decades ago...
The scan below is from Stereo Sound Vintage Analog 2, 2014
Because of the dearth of units left in the States and my indifference towards engaging in a bidding war versus fellow Asian hobbyists, I patiently hunted them for 20+ years via other channels.
The 405A is a 4" 60-15,000 Hz wide range driver with a sensitivity rating of 92dB/4ft/1W. It's equipped with a massive Indox magnet that's almost the same diameter as its cone.
IMHO and experience, Altec cabinet plans always deliver sonically. Aside from a full understanding of the physics of sound, their engineers used their ears as the final arbiter in a design brief. To me, that trumps any design completely derived from a mathematical formula or computer simulation. So I asked my buddy @ Hommage Audio to fashion a Bonsai pair of Altec 614-style boxes based on the above dimensions.
Interior stuffed with Dacron
For sentimental reasons, I have a pair Realistic Minimus 8s on my test bench. I always thought they were above average, although not extraordinarily special. Same deal with the "Holey Frame" drivers I pulled out of a Sony TC500A RTR machine. To my ears, both FE103 derivatives have an upper midrange resonance, which require an EQ/contour network to make them more listenable.
As soon as I hooked them up to my near-field hifi system, I was pleasantly surprised that they play like their bigger brothers, albeit at a reduced scale.
It's physically impossible for the 4" cone of the 405A to extend much below 90 Hz, but the roll off is gentle and there's enough harmonics to suggest bass lines. I hear a slight trace of peakiness in the presence region. For my taste though, an EQ filter isn't necessary.
Although the Altec 405A can't replace the Altec 755C (much less the 755A) in my near-field set up, its midrange depth, micro dynamics, detail resolution and overall tonal balance makes it worthy of the Altec badge!👍😊
In my reality check article, I used the above chart to associate frequencies with the vocal range of humans and acoustic musical instruments. Please use it as a guide to the RTA traces and discussion of frequency ranges below.
Lou Donaldson on Snell Type JIIIs
The Snell Types E, J, and K have developed a reputation as single ended triode (SET) amp-friendly speakers. Arguably, my pair of Type JIIIs can be a good stop gap but I'll try to explain in the simplest terms as to why, in the final analysis, they don't meet my criteria for flea power amplifiers designed with "it's the first watt that counts" ideology.
Snell Type JIII specs
Since I couldn't find a late 80s to early 90s Vifa catalog, I based all the specs from the above information provided by Snell. The low(ish) nominalimpedance (Z) of 6 ohms is an advantage when driven by current source devices such as solid-state amplifiers, which can typically supply more power to a lower Z load. OTOH, vacuum tubes are inherently high impedance/voltage source devices, thus requiring output transformers to drive lower Z loads. However, any well-designed tube amp with an 8 ohm tap from the secondary of the output transformer shouldn't have problems driving the Type JIII.
Snell Type JIII
While the man cave is hardly anechoic, this RTA trace is smoother compared to anything I've taken from any of my Altecs. It pretty much tracks the manufacturer's specs.
Altec 753C
In spite of the fact that the Altec 753C's RTA isn't quite as smooth, it has a half octave greater extension in the low end. The top end also starts to roll off earlier, at around 13kHz. But as further discussed below, the performance of the Altec 802D compression driver + Altec 32C belies its 40s Western Electric roots.
The radiating area of the Altec 414A cone at 95 square inches is 2.5 times greater than the 8" Vifa M21's 38.5 square inches. Both use paper cones - the Altec cone is left bare and suspended by a treated accordion surround, while the Vifa uses high compliance foam and its cone is treated with some form of damping compound. The added cone mass from damping helps low frequency extension. Regrettably, it also reduces speaker sensitivity, among other things.
Altec 414A in wide range mode
In wide range mode, the 414A's 95 square inches of radiating area covers a frequency range of six and a half octaves, starting from around 40Hz-3500Hz. That's just a few notes shy of a piano's range at both extremes as well as the fundamental notes of most acoustic musical instruments and easily, the entire human vocal range. This driver sounds very natural to my ears and plays smoothly with no detectable glare or shout manifested when listening to music. I’m happy to report the tiny spike before 1kHz isn't audible to me. 😉
The Vifa M21's smaller radiating area of 38.5 square inches tasked to reproduce five and a half octaves from 49Hz all the way to its 2700Hz roll off point is a greater challenge.
Altec 414A specs
The 414A goes lower than the Snell JIII but not quite solid down to the claimed 30Hz rated fundamental. With a 99dB/1W/4ft sensitivity, it has an 8dB advantage over the Snell Type JIII's 1.6 cubic foot (cf) ported box rating of 91dB/1W/1M. Housed in a 4 cf bass reflex cabinet, the 414A can definitely move a whole lot more air with minimal power input.
Reverse engineered Snell JIII crossover
The type JIII's crossover is a bit more complicated than my Altec 753C XO below. Encircled in red is a paralleled choke/resistor/capacitor EQ network for the Vifa woofer. This shapes and/or controls cone resonance in the midrange. Unfortunately, the EQ network also absorbs power.
Case in point, BBC engineers' extensive use of EQ in the LS3/5A crossover made it notoriously inefficient. But to their credit, whether it was the earlier 15 ohm or later 11 ohm version, it was a friendly load, especially to tube amplifiers.
Altec 753C crossover
Since the 414A has no serious peaks or dips, which I verified through years of listening and later confirmed via RTA, I chose to run it in wide range mode in which the woofer rolls off mechanically. This preserves the efficiency/sensitivity of the woofer and makes the crossover simpler since it only involves a 4 uf capacitor acting as a high pass filter. By using non-inductive resistors, the Altec 802D compression driver is attenuated to match the 414A's sensitivity. Then I adapted the high frequency EQ circuit from the Altec 30923 to tweak the shape of its top end response.
Left: Altec 802D + 20275 Right: Snell/Vifa D26
For the higher frequencies, Snell chose the Vifa D26 1.25" soft dome fabric diaphragm that has a radiating area of 1.23 square inches vs. the Altec's 2.25" diameter aluminum diaphragm with an equivalent 4 square inches of radiating area.
Snell employed a sharper 12dB/octave slope high pass filter for the dome tweeter to cut in @ 2700Hz while I blended the 802D compression driver/32C horn combo at a gentler 6dB/octave slope @ 3500Hz in the Altec 753C just where the 414A top end response starts to taper off.
Altec 802 + 32C horn
My old school high frequency horn loaded system uses the Altec 802D compression driver in conjunction with the 90° H x 60° V dispersion Altec 32C horn originally designed by Western Electric for their 753C monitor system. It's merely coasting along from 3500 Hz, generating the top most octaves and harmonic overtones compared to the hard-at-work direct radiating Vifa dome tweeter diaphragm of 1.23 square inches struggling to replicate the final octave of top end fundamentals from 2700Hz. Hence, the Altec horn system reproduces much faster and cleaner transients with ease, while also enhancing the already effortless presentation of micro and macro dynamics of the high efficiency 414A woofer.
I'm not set up to plot a reactance chart for the Altec 753C and Snell Type JIII but after using them with various amps in my collection, I guesstimate that both proffer a benign resistive load. However, the 16 ohm nominal impedance, simpler crossover of the Altec 753C and its greater efficiency are a godsend to low damping factor single ended directly heated triode amps.
Ever since I built my first pair of open baffles, evaluating drivers in wide range mode in order to gauge their ability to reproduce an accurate midrange has become routine. Listening to the Vifa M21 woofer in this manner wasn't a very pleasant experience because it sounded very dull. This is in stark contrast to the snappier midrange of the Altec 414A, which I've been using in wide range mode for many years. Likewise, the Vifa 8" was totally outclassed by a handful other woofers and wide range drivers in my collection including the 10" Altec 406Z and Altec 756B.
It's a no brainer that the long travel foam suspension + cone damping extended the low frequency response of the 8" Vifa. But to my ears, this was achieved to the detriment of midrange performance. Is bass extension really more important than midrange accuracy in the high-end audio era? Why is cone damping so prevalent in modern drivers? Western Electric, Jensen, Altec, and their contemporaries all used bare cones.
During the era of Western Electric and Altec, engineers used their ears, guided by cutting edge technology test equipment. This can be gleaned from contemporary ads and press releases. I can't help but wonder if the Vifa woofer was designed merely to satisfy test instrument requirements and laboratory standards without any ear testing involved. If that is the case, is that what we consider progress?
I chose the Altec 755C over the near mythical Altec 755A for this feature because IMHO, it is a worthy benchmark for an 8" wide range driver that is still quite accessible and affordable in the real world. Based on the above specs, by the time Altec introduced the 755C in the late 50s (or early 60s?), they had conceded to the spec wars triggered by the commercialization of stereophonic equipment. I've listened to the 755C loaded in an OB, 2cf box or the Silbatone cabinet but never heard a solid 40Hz low end, merely well defined harmonics of that fundamental.
Simple 46 amp (1250mWpc) > Altec 755C in Silbatone enclosures
Granted the 755C can go a bit lower, subjectively, its low frequency extension isn't significantly greater than the 755A. I'm glad though that Altec was able to retain much of that captivating midrange + dynamics even if it's not quite as realistic as its older Western Electric-designed 755A sibling.
Altec 755C in the Silbatone box
The Silbatone + 755C combo loses about an octave at the frequency extremes vis a vis the Snell JIII but has a 5dB advantage in sensitivity. Despite the spikes and dips in its RTA trace, I much prefer listening to the Silbatone 755Cs. Maybe the dips and spikes = musical?🤔
Snell JIII = 1.6 cf vs. Silbatone 755C = 1 cf
Whether driven by my SET amps, Dynakit ST35 or Nobsound/JLH 1969 clone, the Snell Type JIII sounded veiled and anemic compared to the Altec 753C and Silbatone 755C. With the Snells, I have to turn up the volume a couple of notches to be engaged musically but with the Altec 753C or Silbatone 755C driven by my weakest 750mW per channel SE71A amp, I already hear subtle details even at background sound pressure levels (SPLs). Understandably, the JIII could not compete with the Altec 753C at the loudest end of the spectrum since it doesn't have the physical size to move as much air. But considering Snell's reputation, I expected better resolution and nuances at low to medium SPLs.
Music Reference RM9 amp > Snell JIIIs
The most convincing full range sound I got from the Snells was when they were driven by the Music Reference RM9 amp, a push-pull parallel/triode connected EL34 stereo amplifier producing 35 watts per channel with the negative feedback set at minimum. Alas, with this combination, the irresistible charm of the single ended directly heated triode amp is lost...I can't have my cake and eat it, too.😔
Altec 755C in Silbatone cabinet + 3000H super tweeter Truth be told, lately, I find the use of a super tweeter redundant
Through the years, I’ve tested a few vintage and contemporary 8” wide range speakers but haven't found any which could closely approximate the 755C’s sound quality. The design isn’t rocket science and if Great Plains Audio still has the original tooling, I don’t see any reason why the humble 755C PA speaker can’t be reproduced at a reasonable price. That would be a great boon to single ended directly heated triode amp aficionados, especially those who have limited space in their listening room.😊
Contrary to current trends in speaker cabinet design, the wider front baffle area of the Altec 753C cabinet (and to a lesser extent, even the Snell Type JIII), enhances projection by acting as an acoustic soundboard. Western Electric and Altec speaker systems were usually fitted with wings in theater installations, which is the main reason I've been an advocate of the wide open baffle. In principle, this is practically no different to the fully open lid of a grand piano during a performance in a concert hall.
Altec 753C + mini tour of the man cave
The Snell Type JIIIs can give a glimpse of what directly heated single ended triode amplifiers can do. But these are definitely not end game speaker systems for those who want to indulge in the delights of flea powered single ended directly heated triode amps. As competent as the Snells are and given their already above average sensitivity (compared to typical high end audio speakers), they could never spook me into believing musicians come alive in my man cave the way my Altecs can at times. For some organic reason, I can also listen to my Altecs for extended periods without listening fatigue creeping in. Keep in mind though that the empirical and subjective observations embodied in this article only reflect my musical aesthetics and priorities. YMMV.
I hope I was able to illustrate that there's no myth or magic to a fine sounding and efficient speaker system. All it takes is a basic understanding of the physics of sound and learning how to compromise.
Our dear friends Charito and Joey, whom we haven't seen for over five years, were in NYC visiting for a couple of days. On short notice, Tish was able to take a day off so we were able to meet up with them. Joey is an avid audio DIYer and was a frequent collaborator especially during the annual November Hifi Show when I was still based in Manila. He represents G.I.P. Laboratory in the Philippines.
The OJAS loudspeaker system utilizes Great Plains Audio drivers, which are currently produced using original Altec tooling - GPA 416B 16" woofers + GPA 288H 1.4" compression drivers. The latter compression drivers are coupled to bespoke OJAS 1505 horns, which are remastered versions of the classic Altec 1505B multi-cells, while Pioneer PTR9 ribbon super tweeters fill-in the top-end octave harmonic overtones. At the center is a Fostex FW800HS super woofer. Devon starts with Werner Jagusch crossovers but driver loading and alignment are all developed in-house and then fine tuned by ear!
The OJAS gestalt brought back cherished memories of the lateDon Garber'sFi audio gallery from the early 90s, which was along 30 Watts Street in SoHo NYC. I wasn't able to ask Devon if he got the chance to meet Don. I bet they would have gotten along really well!
A pair of Altec/Peerless 4722 SUTs are mounted directly on a FET-based phono preamp using vacuum tubes as constant current sources. This was designed by jazz guitarist Steve Berger, who's also the man behind Aprilsound NYC. The adjacent chassis with two large knobs houses a transformer volume control wound by Dave Slagle of Intact Audio.
Being a devoted Garrard 301 listener for many years, Devon is cognizant of the finite supply of these idler driven classics. So for this project, he chose the platter + motor from a Technics SL1200G and mounted them in a custom layered plywood plinth. To assure absolute speed stability and smoothness in operation, a 3-speed linear power supply was specially designed by Linear Tube Audio. Having done DJ work during his younger years, he admits that his choice was partially in reverence to the marque.
Mounted at the back is an Ortofon RMA309 tonearm + a restored vintage SPU-A for stereo LPs and a Dynavector DV505 tonearm + SPU mono CG 65 Di for 78 rpm shellac discs.
Devon's pair of SE300B mono-blocks (fitted with Tango XE20S output transformers) is an homage - not a slavish copybut his own interpretation - to Herb Reichert'sFlesh and Blood amplifier published in Sound Practices Issue 8.
Unlike a typical hi-fi show swarming with silver-haired or balding guys, it was refreshing to be surrounded by a twenty-to-forty something crowd. Devon is attracting and developing a niche market uncharted by mainstream high-end audio publications such as Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Due to his background in design and interaction with the upper echelons of the fashion and music industries, the whole Sound Practices ethos of music reproduction spearheaded in the early 1990s by Joe Roberts will hopefully reach a larger audience.
Joey and I spent a couple of hours listening to Blue Note jazz, contemporary classical music, and talking shop with Devon. He was a very gracious host, who candidly gave credit to his collaborators as well as to those people who've influenced and inspired him.
Me, Devon, and Joey
Bravo, Devon, very well done!
After several years of PMs, it was great to finally meet you. I look forward to more shop talk when you visit my man cave.
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