I picked these up a couple of weekends ago. They are Altec Lansing A15-8A VOTT's. Voice Of The Theater speakers made for movie theaters, large auditoriums, outdoor venues etc. Made in 1995 I think, at least 1993, right before they stopped making them when Audiovox bought them out and destroyed their name. These will take 250 watts continuously. The WAF (Wife Approval Factor) on these are probably around a 2 so normally these would go in your man cave...or garage...
These are probably the smallest that they made for this final series of VOTT's, but trust me, weighing at 104 lbs. a piece, they are not small at all. They are in pretty good shape. They were pulled out of a movie theater that was being remodeled, so they basically sat behind the silver screen all their life. They came with an extra 3154 woofer and 909-8A compression driver.
Because they are VOTT's, they have to be tweaked and tamed a little bit for home use. They are voiced to where the mids and highs tend to be a little hot to help push those frequencies through a silver screen. The High Frequency Emphasis needs to be turned off. They are also a bit bass shy for home use despite having a 15" woofer mounted in a 16" basket, so I plugged 3 of the 4 ports with 3" Oatey mechanical plugs. That really helped out the bottom end nicely. I may eventually modify the crossover, but right now they sound so good, I don't think I need to.
I have them hooked up to my QSC amp, Marantz 3300 pre amp and an older Magnavox CD player. To see how these would sound, I wanted to play some music that would really give them a test. I played some Korn and Phoenix with a little bit of volume yesterday and boy do they sound great! These speakers are known to have great imaging and a wide soundstage. They are generally the benchmark for that.
They generally are gray in color, but Altec did make a few models for home use. Valencia's and Model 19 are a couple of them. Good luck trying to find a pair of 19's for under $2000....
Glad to know that I am not the only person that appreciates these things.
I love to connect excellent speakers to mega watts of power. It creates a smooth sound that will eliminate most any other noise.
Few years ago I had 26 pairs of a variety of Klipsh speakers hooked up to 5 different Pioneer Stereo Receivers tuned to the same FM station to a signal from a Bluetooth transmitter and controlled by my smartphone.
Was testing different combos for all the gear I had collected for me to enjoy. Since I have passed two systems on to grandkids for their first sound machines.
Do your neighbors still speak to you?
HC's comment reminded me of a passage in a book I have by James Langham, High Fidelity Techniques, Gernsback Library No. 42., 1950. Note the date. Audiophilia is not new. I think he might be exaggerating a bit, but the tale is amusing...
"I built a [50 Hz cutoff] horn once in a garage. It sounded lovely, but the neighbors and the police objected to the amount of sound that came out. It was approximately 7 feet long and its mouth was about 7 feet square, but it had the cleanest bass I've ever heard outside of a recording stage. It was driven with a pair of 2A3's [vacuum triode tubes capable of a few watts], and the police claimed they had complaints from folks clear over in Santa Monica (over a mile and half as the pelican flies), and we finally had to move. We were packing up for the moving when an old Scotsman with bushy white eyebrows walked all the way over from Santa Monica to tell us how much he had enjoyed the concert and what a shame we were moving. I had played a lot of bagpipe records on it."
hahaha! Are you talking to Mr. Harris or me? Or both?
These Altecs, and Klipsch too, are very efficient-meaning they don't need a whole lot of power to be driven. The average person listens to music at about something like 5 watts per channel.(continuous not peak) Any more and it would be hard to hold a conversation and hear each other with your wife, friend or dog.... 30 wpc continuous and your neighbors are knocking at your door... 100 wpc, your ears are bleeding and the cops are at your front door....
My QSC MX1500a amp will output a max of 350 wpc continuously... I have never played it that loud. One half and probably one third volume and it's already too loud for the home. But the thing with a big pro amp like that, think of the Star Wars scene when they are racing around in that rain forest. The big amps will handle that kind of sound, and sound much better than an amp rated at 50 wpc., which would have a harder time playing that type of a scene accurately.
Oh yeah, these speakers would make excellent home theater speakers....
Bill93, post: 326973, member: 87 wrote: We were packing up for the moving when an old Scotsman with bushy white eyebrows walked all the way over from Santa Monica to tell us how much he had enjoyed the concert and what a shame we were moving. I had played a lot of bagpipe records on it."
Yeah. I can understand why he got the boot...
Beer Legs: Congratulations on your speaker find. You said "They are also a bit bass shy for home use despite having a 15" woofer mounted in a 16" basket, so I plugged 3 of the 4 ports with 3" Oatey mechanical plugs. That really helped out the bottom end nicely." I was thinking that plugging ports in a speaker would reduce, and maybe tighten up the bass, with the plugs basically making the speakers a step closer to a sealed box. I'm asking because I picked up a pair of Pinnacle Classic Gold Towers and was thinking of playing with plugs in 1 or more of their 3 ports.
The bass ports are there for quick response and to add power to the bass reflex. This allows the sound to penetrate and carry.
I had a pair of three way speakers that was sounding erratic and found the outside ring was deteriorating and while it looked in good shape, that actually during response it was actually separating from the speaker and was vibrating out of control. They were fixed with a patch from an old pair of jeans.
Not everything is supposed to sound like Star Wars effects by mere volume alone.
I have a pair of Klipsch Heritage speakers that I pair with a set of Peavey Monitor speakers and even at low volume they can be heard 200ft away. There is no reason to need to turn the volume up high when it is possible to apply the proper amount of watts will cut thru the ambient noise.
It is like an article about the Indy Speedway sound system "One million watts of power making normal voice capable of easily being heard over the roar of every race car as they pass the stands"
Hey, it is not really stereo until the walls in more than one house are vibrating B-)
"Hey, it is not really stereo until the walls in more than one house are vibrating B-)"
That's the main goal right? To terrorize and torture your poor neighbors....:whistle: Seriously though, GENERALLY a sealed cabinet will give you more tighter and controlled bass. A ported cabinet (if done right) will give you deeper, extended lows. I say if done right meaning it's easier to screw up building a ported box than it is building a sealed box. Most speaker manufactures will list certain specs for their drivers. There are a number of speaker box building calculators out on the web. All you need to do is plug in the size of the driver, if it's going to be a sealed or ported enclosure, and some of the other specs and the calculator will tell you how big the box needs to be, how big the port needs to be etc. Ported enclosures are usually bigger than sealed ones. That's kind of a basic explanation without going into a lot of details. There's a whole lot of science in speaker building if you would want to get carried away with it. A lot of it can be found on the web.
These Altecs are kind of voiced for theaters. Where you'll be listening to them from 50-100' away. Well, my living room isn't nearly that long and the bass isn't that great from 10-12' away. It was suggested to me by someone who is more into the know that plugging up a couple of the ports should help out the lower end for home use. I started off sealing two of them and ended up sealing three of the four ports. That seemed to help out a lot. And it's a 3" port so it is far from being completely sealed.
I forgot the sarcasm font
[sarcasm]Hey, it is not really stereo until the walls in more than one house are vibrating[/sarcasm]
It is so rural around here, I am not worried about the neighbors and they don't worry about me.
Not a headbanger here. When used together, I cannot tune the Heritage and Peavey speakers for use in the house. The Peavey monitors do not have a low volume, it is all raw power. Klipsch Heresys produce a sound that will carry a long way without turning up the volume and will handle more volume than ears can handle. Both, like your Altecs are capable of filling auditoriums with plenty of sound....
Inside, I use multiple speakers types from tweeters to 12in woofers and three different types of amp powered speakers in four different rooms on computers and tv and never have a need to operate them above conversation levels. The sound does not usually overtake that of what is going on in the next room unless someone is rockin' out.
It is just nice to have the power to make that happen and not hurt anyone's eardrums.
Many times with theater speakers, it takes sending everything thru a sophisticated mixing board to bring out their best sound.
