Great drivers,
Russellc

cheers, Russellc

Bill had no 902B decals, so I said better to have a wrong one for looks than none at all.

The only reason Bill went home with them is because I have a pair of used 902B's with "push-terminals" and Bill sends them with industrial spade lugs that I can't use as I am always swapping out horns and drivers like most folks change underwear.

The 806 is a smaller magnet version of the 802(both having aluminum diaphrams). Putting a symbiotik diaphram in a 802 becomes a 808, and the same in a 806 becomes a 807. Better power handling, poor HF top end response. There is always a compromise somewhere. All 4 of these models are alnico. The 902 is a ferrite magnet/tangerine phase plug.

I just did a unofficial shoot-out with a JBL 2426 and found the 902 superior(to my ears). The 2426 is higher output in the upper midrange, the 902 is better on the upper HF area.

Ron

I worry about companies that have lessened in quality to make ends meet. There are companies who are falling by the wayside on a regular basis. And some of those companies are very big.

I don't know about the LF drivers you are looking at. Altecs lineup of 416/515 were their bread and butter series, but required large enclosures(416 - 8.5cu' - tuned to 28hz), and the 515 is even more of a midbass driver. Not a prob if you have a sub underneath.

Other topic here. I finally got my 2242H 18" JBL sub-woofer installed in a 8.8 cu ' box tuned to 28hz.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about moving some serious air!!!!!!

I have only hooked it up to test it out(heavy bass music-no mid or tweeter or crossover, just straight up to the amp).

Can't wait to integrate it with my 2226 and 902 on Edgarhorn(650hz).

My crossover is your standart 4 Pi-pro with .68 ufd MPP caps bypassing the caps in the PE 1.6khz hi-pass crossover.

Took some time to burn in the new crossover(drivers are already burned in). I think it will still smooth out with more time(only have 14 hrs on it so far).

By the way: Altec 902 beat out the JBL 2426 in my un-official shootout in my home. The upper HF response was much superior.

Time to quit wasting bandwidth now!!

Ron

As far as new production Altec parts are concerned, I'm interested to see what Bill and Todd have to offer at Great Plains and Iconic Manufacturing. I could see using new production Iconic Altec 416 drivers in cabinets as have been documented several times in this forum. It would probably make a nice four π speaker. Maybe build something else with a 515 too. The eight π design might be good for that, but it's close enough to an 828 that might not be cool. We'll see.

I'll be interested to check out their compression driver too. Todd seems quite proud of it, and your impressions are promising.

I also agree with your concerns about profits and quality. This is true for any of the speaker companies we deal with, of course.

I surely hope Iconic Manufacturing can remain competitive, and continue to make a good product with consistent quality control. I don't know anything at all about them, so they may have that all locked up. But if anything frustrates me the most about loudspeaker transducer manufacturers, it's a lack of consistency. If they change products around all the time, then you are always playing catchup and it's no good for product consistency. Some companies have QC problems too, and then you never even know if the part you put in the system will even work. That makes logistics a nightmare, and return freight costs can eat you alive. Not to mention the hassle of it all. But I'm hoping for the best.

Maybe a 1st order crossover might work better on the JBL than the Pi crossover.

I know you can't go wrong with a Altec 902 driver, the top end response has a little HF magic in it, even if it only goes to 18Khz.

Ron

That's what it will look like with a first-order crossover too. It's difficult to add compensation to a first-order network because filter peaking isn't cooperative for what you're trying to do. And you have to watch the power.

Use a π crossover, and this is the response you can expect:

Response above 4kHz is still reduced, but it forms a shelf that remains pretty flat from there on out.