Woofer Score!

[analogadikt]

Here are some nice vintage woofer pairs that I scored during the past few days.





The one in foreground is IPC Western Electric LU1004 15 woofers. The recone job on this has been completed. International Projector Corp who made the famous Simplex projectors supplied these on the WE sound systems bundled with their projectors. I plan to use them with my Altec 604C drivers.
In the background are RCA MI9449 15 theater woofers. I already have MI9448 compression drivers to pair with these.

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=24837&stc=1&d=1178382674

Last is a pair of Vitavox 12 woofers, it would be interesting to hear them.



Shall update on the progress with these.

Regards,

 

[quad]

Congrats on the score! Mumbai seems to be the Happy Hunting Ground
for vintage drivers

 

[Rajiv]

Hi,

Congratulations on your score.

The RCA MI 9449 woofers are very good comparable to the Altec 515. The Vitavox and IPC woofers are also good woofers.

Finding original cones or cones similar to the originals for all these woofers is difficult. They are available but at a price.

Using local cones to recone them will change the sound from the original. The local cones are also heavier than the originals which were very light.

Mumbai seems to be the Happy Hunting Ground
for vintage drivers

From what I hear people are paying silly money for vintage stuff over there.

Regards
Rajiv

 

[analogadikt]

Hi Rajiv,

Thanks for chiming in.

At the moment budget is very tight so I am doing with local cones. I try to get the lightest possible ones, take my electronic scale along when sourcing cones. NOS W****m cones available with a person in India, (you know who am talking about).

The Vitavox I had one for some time and got a single one cheaply last week. The IPC were hanging in a traders shop for a few days. Some fms passed by but did not pay much attention. they are looking out for Altecs most likely. I purchased them as Jensen, later realised what they are, although manufacturing was done by Jensen. I see they are going for crazy prices on the bay, 700/800 big ones for pair w/o cones, 1400 for pair retrofited with nos cones.

Last time I let RCA compression drivers go as the asking price was very high, that pair was sold for 15000/-. But I got anoher pair for 5000/- as you had suggested.

Thanks and Regards,

 

[sachu888]

Congratulations, nice find. That RCA woofer is very famous and used with RCA Ubangi system https://www.google.co.in/search?q=R...3.3299j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

Regards
Sachin

 

[reubensm]

Good to see these speakers, nice score, congrats!!

Can't help but ponder over Kishore Kumar and others singing over these while Rajesh Khanna and others lip synced on screen, part of Indian cinema folklore

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

Hi,
I can provide original American replacement parts for these drivers which are presently used as the closest replacement part "Made in America". The factory original one's are no longer available, since those cone manufacturers had shut down their operations way back.
I have attached some recent pics of Altec 416A recone job done at my works.
Vivek

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

Pics of the recone parts I had used for the Altec 416A reconing.

 

[reubensm]

Somehow, I have never come to believe that a re-conned speaker can be as good as the original. After re-coning, how did it sound?

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

Somehow, I have never come to believe that a re-conned speaker can be as good as the original. After re-coning, how did it sound?

Same as before in most of the cases.
Vivek

 

[GeorgeO]

Reconing with quality stuff is as good as original..

 

[GeorgeO]

Maybe I should have put it better-it's better than a tired and worn out original..

 

[quad]

Maybe I should have put it better-it's better than a tired and worn out original..

Provided it is done by an experienced professional, taking care
to maintain all the tolerances as close as possible to the original.
Most of the time, we find quacks, who have
no love for the craft, nor the skill or dedication. And lack of proper tools.

 

[analogadikt]

Thank you.
All are welcome to drop in at my place whenever you are in Mumbai and check out the vintage drivers here, some have original cones, some are reconed.

Regards,

 

[anilva]

Nice drivers. I have a pair of RCA 15" drivers waiting to find replacement cones for them. Apparently there is a guy in US making similar cones to original RCA specs. He was selling on ebay but can't find him anymore.

Cheers

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

Nice drivers. I have a pair of RCA 15" drivers waiting to find replacement cones for them. Apparently there is a guy in US making similar cones to original RCA specs. He was selling on ebay but can't find him anymore.

Cheers

Hi,
I have the American RCA cones which you are looking for. The guy you referring to making cones like RCA original listed on ebay is false. He might be having them sourced from
the manufacturer or some vendor. The cone manufacturer Industry in the US is now limited
to very few. Mostly shut down. There were 4 big companies from quite some time. One of them mergered with the other, now only 3 major companies are there in operations.
Vivek

 

[Fantastic]

I'm fascinated to see so many guys refurbishing vintage drivers when they can build great speakers with 'new' drivers with possibly far less money than the 'refurbished drivers'.
New drivers from old companies like Eminence , Celestion , JBL etc. should still be producing drivers that sound as good as, if not better than, their older designs ? But I guess it's not just about the 'sound' !

 

[analogadikt]

I'm fascinated to see so many guys refurbishing vintage drivers when they can build great speakers with 'new' drivers with possibly far less money than the 'refurbished drivers'.
New drivers from old companies like Eminence , Celestion , JBL etc. should still be producing drivers that sound as good as, if not better than, their older designs ? But I guess it's not just about the 'sound' !

Could you support the statement? Can you give us details of your firsthand experiences with speaker systems using vintage components?

I shall be very happy if you could show us a source for a system of comparable specs and performance and costing FAR LESS than the one in this thread.

http://www.hifivision.com/vintage-audio/56196-just-put-together-altec-two-way-system.html

The owner has mounted the woofers in a simple C frame enclosure and is very happy. Several fms who have critical ears that cannot be easily satisfied have heard that system and appreciated it.

Regards,

 

[anilva]

I'm fascinated to see so many guys refurbishing vintage drivers when they can build great speakers with 'new' drivers with possibly far less money than the 'refurbished drivers'.
New drivers from old companies like Eminence , Celestion , JBL etc. should still be producing drivers that sound as good as, if not better than, their older designs ? But I guess it's not just about the 'sound' !

I don't think there are any manufacturers doing drivers like the 515B. 416, 9449 etc. The construction quality, size of the Alnico magnet etc are not done these days at all.

Reconed vintage drivers are are better than the new stamped woofer basket, ferrite magnet stuff peddled these days.

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

I don't think there are any manufacturers doing drivers like the 515B. 416, 9449 etc. The construction quality, size of the Alnico magnet etc are not done these days at all.
Reconed vintage drivers are are better than the new stamped woofer basket, ferrite magnet stuff peddled these days.

There is a misconception regarding this debate why present day drivers are not like the vintage 416's or 515 . We see all this thru an user's end eyes or something we would like to see around but that isn't. As though vintage lovers have a desire for these drivers and have an opinion that such drivers should be produced in the present day also . The reality & fact is that commercial it is not a good idea to produce a big daddy 15" driver with a power handling of only 20- 30 watts.
No big manufacturer will be interested to produce them seeing a very very small market globally.
Regarding build quality and budget drivers. Here also cheap stuff or budget driver are catered for a different market which is very big and does well in commercial sense.
You cannot draw a conclusion on the entire industry on this line. In early days the hi end top drivers were certainly the old Altec's , University, Goodman's ...... They were the superior drives of those days which were build to the ultimate quality of parts and technology available at that time.
Presently the top end drivers are technically & sonically much ahead and superior in comparison to vintage drivers. Many things have changed since then. Lots of development had been done in fabrication of Frames , magnet materials and motors parts & optimization of magnetic field geometry of motor structures in terms of attaining symmetrical gap field, lower distortion, temperature reduction to over come non linearity and compression. Voice coil material and wire had too seen similar changes. Soft parts as cones, surround suspensions, spiders, diaphragms material and their geometries are now different and are much much ahead and superior to the old day drivers.

Early day drivers had all these limitations in terms of technical advancement & development since these were discovered as years passed by through extensive research and development in many fields.
In present day if any manufacturer ventures in manufacturing drivers similar to 416 or 515, it is quite possibly and would be more superior to the earlier ones with the addition of the current technology and superior parts quality.

One may also argue over keeping all aspects aside and compare side by side a vintage 416 vs present day 15 inch in terms of tonal or sonic quality. Then comparison should be fair enough by having the modern 15" driver with the same power handling capacity as the 416.
Unfortunately there is no such driver out there. Except for the GPA version of the Altec's built to the same specs.
Vivek