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112.120.26.26
This German company claimed that their A1.1500 electromagnetic woofer is tailored made for Altec A5, anyone has experience with this electromagnetic woofer on A5?
Follow Ups:
I heard Wolf's woofers in numerous setups. They are super good and very well made, not cheap. Wolf is a quality maniac.
Maybe a bit subjectively "faster" and "snappier" than a PM 416. Hard to say but that is my impression. I believe that the Altec woofers to have a somewhat darker and weightier sound, which is a beautiful thing too.
I had Lansing field coil 415s and 287s back in the early 90s (1505 horn and A5 cab, then Onken cab) and I must say they were better than Alnico 416s and 288C, but these go for stupid money today.
GIP in Japan is now making 415 reproductions but these are double stupid money, although very good. GIP is working on a Lansing 801 copy and I saw the maching. Expect these will cost more than my car also.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
What is your comment between following gip drive unit and EMS B15EX for Altec 828 application?
http://www.gip-laboratory.com/seihin415english.html
http://www.gip-laboratory.com/seihin815english.html
Don't know what an EMS B15X is.
As for GIP, my comment is EXPENSIVE but some of the best you can get.
I heard the GIP 415 and it is really good. On par with original, maybe better. I find that the GIP drivers are usually "better" than the WE originals, probably because they are new. The WE 555 and 597 in direct comparison with the GIP, sound more vintage and "more mature" which the hardcore WE guys like, but the GIP are more transparent and smoother.
Much depends upon the condition of the moving parts in original units. There are a lot of bad, worn out, and repaired units around. The best ones don't get sold.
No hardcore WE collector/user will say that GIP is better because it is unimaginable that anything could ever be better than Western. Their mouths refuse to speak those words.
I own GIP 18" with no dust cap like the GIP 815. What he does here is extend the voice coil former out from the cone to make a sort of whizzer, adding a little air. Not a massive shift but it can add to certain setups.
I'd probably go with the dustcap 415 model in most situations.
I heartily recommend GIP drive units to rich crazy people. The prices are crazy and you have to be rich to pay it, but they are super good.
Disclaimer: Mr. Suzuki of GIP is a friend of mine but if I didn't like his stuff I would not volunteer to recommend it. For poor people like me, I say just get a nice pr of PM Altecs and enjoy, because standard Altec can provide excellent performance in its own right.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Regarding technical parameter, what the differences between the gip 415 and EMS B15EX?
Is that a.k.a. Fertin?
Never heard one, in any case.
Probably excellent.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Yes, same company that used to named fertin.
They claimed that their B15EX can be replaced the 515 on Altec AT without any crossover modification.
It is probably a superb choice.
At a certain level, one should expect very high performance and it becomes an issue of flavor preferences or jewelry fashion decisions.
Von Langa, GIP, Lansing original, Fertin....all surely very fine.
You will never find anybody who has heard all of these selections in the same setup. In the end, you will have to make a leap of faith.
I wish I kept my vintage Lansing field coil gear but it is now safe in the Silbatone museum collection.
It is nice to hear the fancy new stuff when I have the opportunity, but good old AlNiCo Altec is really fine enough for me to be very happy with at home.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
I'm curious the sonic differences between Altec 287 and Western electric 555?
Any thoughts?
555 and 287 have nothing in common.
Different throat size, different frequency range.
They come from very different system concepts, "full range" vs. two way.
They are both electrodynamic compression drivers but that is about it for similarities.
A comparison between WE 594A and 287 would be more apt. These are both from the "two way" galaxy.
Take the 594A!
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
So the 594A better than 287 with 1505 horn??
No, because the 594A will not fit on the 1505 horn. it is a 2" driver.
Therefore, a 287 would be a much better choice.
594A on a 26A horn, however, is very difficult to surpass.
I appreciate the notion of research but where do you expect to buy all of these incredibly rare treasures? It is almost impossible to even hear most of this stuff.
287s are quite rare also and if they don't have the original single roll suspension heat treated diaphragms, they won't be up to the legendary performance.
A pair of good 594A on nice 26As will cost about $75000-100000 USD. If you can afford it and find them, that is the top of the food chain right there. Best I have heard.
Might as well go with a full WE Mirrophonic system then, forget Altec and Fertin.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
First no interest to build a high costs WE system.
I know line magnetic audio now is offering 4181a driver, and GIP has 594A on production list.
My friend says a German company offers the 26a horn in wood.
I guess setup like this make more sense to my pocket.
No experience with the Line Magnetic copies.
The GIP 594A will be very very expensive, not much cheaper than WE drivers.
I don't know these as well as I know the GIP 555 or the WE 594A. I have used them at one CES show with 24A horns and they were nice but the room acoustics were extremely horrible.
The WE 594A I have heard for hundreds of hours. If you can spare 50k for real ones and find a pair with perfect original diaphragms, buy them.
Again, the sensible and least expensive thing to do is AlNiCo Altec $$
Plain Altec is really very good if you do it properly.
Next, probably Wolf's field coils and maybe Fertin. $$$
Field woofers and Alnico 288s would probably work nicely.
If you intend to use VOT bass cab, having the ability to tune the woofer via field voltage might help you out. I could never get that cab to sound great and I hate it, but I heard Jean Hiraga's pair and they were super, so it is possible.
M. Hiraga uses vintage Westerex woofers I never saw in the US. Plus he is a master at crossovers and filters and a specialist in getting 604s and VOTs to sound better than expected.
Then GIP, $$$$$
Then WE $$$$$$
It comes down to budget. If you can spend tens of thousands you can get good field sound. Or you can spend a few thousand and get nice Altec sound.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
I have listened to several Altec A5 system with Alnico drivers many times, and WE horn system couple times.
I found the approach of both systems are very different, the Altec sounds more "raw" and more crunch, especially with push pull amplification.
The WE system I listened has single ended amplification sounds quite pure and natural.
The Altec sounds more HiFi compare with WE, IMHO. They are quite different. I would not say the WE is better, they are just different.
There are very different approaches in WE systems, even though they only spanned about 10 years in the cinema market.
Which ones have you heard?
The Mirrophonic is very different from the 555 based full range setups and the various 555 systems are extremely different from each other depending on the horn.
I think if you heard a proper full Mirrophonic system you might like it a lot more than an A5.
I personally really like 288s and 1505s and used them for 20 years. Not crazy about the VOT bass cabinet. That thing was originally intended to be built into a large baffle, or at least be furnished with large wings, which would totally change the bass character. As a standalone cabinet, the low bass isn't great and there is a 125 hz bump. Sounds ragged and slow to me.
The open back WE horn baffles with electrodynamic woofs turn on and off in an instant. No stored energy. Crazy dynamics.
Also, the original Altec crossovers aren't great sounding. I think a lot of the rough flavor you are feeling may come from that junk part.
But I still love Altec, even though I like the late model WE systems better, especially Mirrophonic and 757A....which I will never own.
Most WE collectors and users like the 555 systems most of all, for their emotional performance on strings and vocals, but as a blues and jazz listener, I like the 2 ways. The two way stuff is much more rare, unfortunately, and most people never get a chance to listen to it.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Actually this is the Altec 287 I want to give a try.
As the woofer section, I guess the Fertin's EMS B15EX still a very good for Altec 828 bass bin.
An Altec 287 in name only.
Who knows, it might be decent at 10% the cost of originals.
Might be even better with a real Altec diaphragm.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Here is another option.
you could write Wolf Von Langa (he should reply pretty quickly) - do you already have an amplifier ? - just curious what might be employed in such a high-end system.
Karlson Evangelist
McIntosh MI200
If you in Europe this ight be an option, as Altec stuff is hard to there.
In North America I would opt for Altec or GA drivers.
idlers and tubes....life is good
But funny part is that some claimed electromagnetic sounds better.
electromagnetic may well be better than a static permanent magnet - but any improvement would come at a money increase then add a good power supply for the field coil. I can tell Wolf Von Langa is hip (he likes Karlson stuff - LOL) - for buying in the states, GPA would be logical.some audiophiles feel the amplifier is the most important part of a good system.
Karlson Evangelist
Edits: 09/09/17 09/09/17
Monarchy AC regenerator plus Paul hynes regulated power supply should be perfect for any electromagnetic drive unit!
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