Older Altec horn speakers

I'm familiar with them. They were a 1971 model, an "oversized bookshelf" of approx. 25"x14"x12"d. The 890C consists of a 10" woofer and matching 10" passive radiator (Altec called it a free suspension phase inverter) and a small rectangular (about 2"x6") aluminum horn packing a compression driver. Crossover is 2000 Hz.

Picture here and specs from catalog here.

My first stereo was an Altec 911A compact. I bought from an Altec dealer and listened to several Altec speakers. I had a pair of 874A Segovias for a couple weeks followed by a pair of 887A Capris, which I kept for a few years.

The Segovia was their top-of-the-line oversized bookshelf speaker. It was a great-sounding speaker for its time, all direct radiators and also very sensitive. The 890C was in a similar-sized enclosure and was a notch down in the model lineup, but was largely ignored. I remember auditioning the 890C and thought it sounded awful. It is really a 10" 2-way with a crossover at 2000Hz, a configuration no one would ever do today, as the high crossover frequency causes the 10" to lose all dispersion above 1K, imparting a thin, nasal, honky sound. The Segovia was a much better speaker, but it's 4 ohms. Actually, although the little 887A wasn't as sensitive and didn't go as low, it had a much more accurate tonal balance and consistent dispersion pattern than the 890A. Still, it sounded best with a high current SS amp.

I find it telling that the 890A was introduced in the 1971 catalog and didn't even make it to the 1974 catalog, while the much more expensive Segovia (about $560/pr in 1972 dollars) was still in the lineup.

For anyone interested in vintage Altec or JBL speakers, I've found this web page invaluable.

There are far better speakers from that era than the 890C.

"There are far better speakers from that era than the 890C."

Please tell!

Altec's claim to fame was their VOT speaker systems, aimed at auditorium use. We had several such units in our psychoacoutics lab, and I had one at home for a time. IIRC, the HF sectorial horn came in 2 sizes with 2 different drivers, one for 500 Hz and a smaller unit for 800 Hz crossover. For home use, if you want vintage horn I'd look to JBL or Klipsh. You should definitely listen first, because horns are not kind to all sounds, especially voices, but they do project like crazy and will do a fantastic job with the horns in Aida.

db

06-08-09: Mcgarick
"There are far better speakers from that era than the 890C."

Please tell!

--Altec Segovia 874A--not horn loaded, but very efficient. Same size and basic configuration as JBL L100, but more neutral. Sealed enclosure as opposed to JBL's ported one. Woofer crossover at a sensible 500Hz; L100 crossover was at 1500, which is ridiculously high for a 12" driver. Altec smartly used a near full-range 4" midrange in this speaker, covering the entire midrange.
--Altec Voice of the Theater variants, particularly the ones with 500 Hz crossover (800 is too high)
--Advent Loudspeaker
--Smaller Advent Loudspeaker
--Several models from Infinity
--Several models from ESS (and most were fairly efficient)
--JBL L100 (very efficient; voiced for rock and pop; work well also on country and jazz; not so good on classical)
--JBL L65 Jubal I think this is more what you're looking for.
--Dynaco A-25--ahead of its time with Scandinavian drivers and neutral tonal balance
--Klipsch Heresy, La Scala, etc.
--EPI 100, 200, and up (all the way to an omnidirectional tower, the EPI 1000). Good tweeter for its day. Woofers would no doubt need re-foaming
--Braun/ADS--introduced a new level of speed, clarity, and linearity at sacrifice of sensitivity. Excellent build quality with butyl rubber surrounds. No re-foaming needed.
--Dahlquist DQ-10. Very inefficient, so not a good match for low powered tubes, but raised the bar in linearity and phase coherency at the time, and still quite listenable.
--Electro-Voice: Their Century 3 monitors were great, and flatter than the ones coming out of JBL and Altec. They also had a nice little bookshelf speaker with an 8" plus matching passive radiator and tweeter between them. I can't remember the name or model number, though.

The Klipsch Forte is not from that era (it was introduced in 1985), but it's more like what you're looking for--easy load for tubes, sensitive to low power, and much better top-to-bottom coherence than the 890C.

By today's standards, many of the speakers back then sounded awful. For example JBL came out with the L65 Jubal, a 25" tall floorstander with a 14" woofer, 2" cone tweeter (about 15" below ear height) with a crossover at 2KHz. We had a pair of these in the high end room along with Ohm F's, Dahlquist DQ-10's, and ESS AMT 1b's, and except for retail price, the JBLs simply didn't belong there.

Altec model 19 are the best horn speakers for home use I have had. Better then Klipsch and JBL(unless you want to go for 4344 and multi amp...)With good tube amps the Altec 19 is un-beatable...