I installed my vintage Altec Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers in my A-V room towards the end of December 2016, and I have really been enjoying watching my Altec A5 based A-V system evolve since then. 

Gary Fischer did a beautiful job of restoring my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers, and you can read more details about Gary's work with my A5's in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the posts I wrote about them. 

The Altec A5's were intended to provide ample sound for the specific needs of small-to-medium sized movie theaters, so their crossovers need to be redone to adapt the big beasts to a domestic listening environment.

To that end, my crossovers are an adaptation of Jean Hiraga’s superb 16-Ohm crossover design for the Altec A5’s, but with a few modifications recommended by Yazaki-san (SPEC Corporation, variable resistor) and Pete Riggle (Pete Riggle Audio Engineering, L-Pad) to help blend in the 1005B high-frequency horns I’m using instead of the 3dB less sensitive 1505B horns that Hiraga-san used.

I keep thinking I should get a pair of Markus Klug's beautifully crafted wooden KlugHoerner  Altec-style 15005B horns for my A5s, which are the ultimate 1500B horns these days, but it hasn't quite made it to the top of my wish list yet. 

The Altec A5's are impressive loudspeakers that are surprisingly flexible and room friendly. I have mine placed in room boundary positions (room corners), which works remarkably well with the big A5s in this room.

Somewhat to my surprise the A5s have adapted remarkably well to their new home (a spare bedroom in my home that I use as a TV room, with the rather small dimensions of 11-feet x 12-feet x 9-feet (ceiling), with a 6' x 3'5" x 9' foyer on one end).

To date, the most impressive results for A-V sound quality was when I had the opportunity to power my A5 Voice of the Theater loudspeakers with the Audio Note (UK) Meishu Phono Silver Tonmeister 300B single-ended-triode (SET) integrated amplifier. A mind-blowing A5 & 300B combo!

My associated equipment varies all the time depending on what I am experimenting with or writing about, and at the moment I am enjoying the cool running SPEC RSA-M3 Real Sound Class D integrated amplifier, which is a treat during the hot Summer months with its SET-like sound quality. 

Just as an aside, if you live somewhere where temperatures are unbearably hot during the summer, so it is not practical to use a hot-running vacuum tube amplifier, consider the cool running SPEC RSA-M3 Real Sound Class D integrated amplifier for those hot summer months, which doesn't add any additional heat to a room.

Just to be nerdy I like to run a vacuum tube amp like my Leben CS600 integrated amp in the A5 based system during the cold winter months, and then the cool running Class D SPEC RSA-M3 Real Sound amp during the hot weather months. It's fun to mix it up with the amps, and much more comfortable that way! 🙂 

My TV room has a 77" LG OLED C3 Evo television for enjoying movies or TV shows, and is kept company by an OPPO UDP-203 Blu-ray player for spinning DVDs or Blu-Rays, or an occasional CD.

I also stream channels from my Apple TV (connected to the LG C3 via HDMI), with surprisingly good results.

The LG connects via an optical cable connection to a Mhdt Laboratory Havana vacuum tube DAC, for sound output to the preamplifier/amplifier. 

I am continually surprised by how good digital sources can sound with vintage Altec loudspeakers, and they don’t have to be fancy digital sources to sound great.

Yazaki-san's Improved Douk Audio U4 Bluetooth DAC (below) sounds splendid when streaming Jazz24 from my iPhone over my A5 based A-V system.  

Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper speaker cables connect the amplifier to the Altec A5's, all interconnects are Belden 8402 tinned-copper microphone cable RCAs.

This makes for a remarkably satisfying and simple system for watching movies, endearingly evoking classic movie theater sound from the old days, and also sounds great when listening to music.

As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!