In Part 1 I started telling you about swapping out the vintage Altec 804A compression drivers (below left) in my vintage "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers for the vintage Altec 802D compression drivers (below right) from my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers.  Vintage Altec 802D compression drivers are highly regarded by Altec aficionados, but you don't hear... Read More »

Vintage Altec loudspeakers generate a lot of enthusiasm among audio nuts like me because they run circles around many modern loudspeakers in terms of musicality, at least once you get some Hiraga-style crossovers installed in them, and they are so sensitive that you can easily drive them with low-powered single-ended-triode or single-ended-pentode amplifiers to live-like... Read More »

I think most of you know that my usual way of getting an adequate amount of run-in time on a component  is to put it in either my vintage Altec 832A loudspeakers based bedroom system or in my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre based audio-visual system and let it accumulate hours until I... Read More »

It's always exciting to hear from our friend Yazaki-san, and this time Yazaki-san really outdid himself! You all know how much I love my humble vintage Altec loudspeaker collection of the A5 Voice of the Theatre, Corona 832A, and the "Stokowski" Altec's. Well, our friend Yazaki-san sent me a special issue of Stereo Sound from 2006 that... Read More »

In my most recent Today's Fresh Catch post (HERE) I told you about the arrival of  the much anticipated Pass Labs XP-12 preamplifier. This Saturday morning I installed the Pass Labs XP-12 preamplifier ($5800 USD) into my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers based bedroom system to get some run-in time on it, along with the Pass Labs... Read More »

There's been some big changes in my vintage Altec 832A Corona based bedroom system recently. It started with me loaning my treasured Almarro A205A Mk1 EL84 single-ended-pentode integrated amplifier to my buddy Chad to use for a couple of months in his cabin system up on Lake Chelan as his cabin amp was on the... Read More »

My buddy Chad borrowed my Almarro A205A over the weekend so he could give it a listen in his cabin system up on Lake Chelan (Chad's already got the Almarro A205A MkII in his main system).  I've been using the Almarro A205A Mk1 integrated amplifier to power my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers in my... Read More »

I've gone completely bonkers over vintage Altec loudspeakers, which comes as no surprise to you if you're a regular reader of Jeff's Place.  It's not that there aren't other speakers I enjoy listening to, like my Westminster's, for example, but there's just something really special about the way Altec loudspeakers play the music. Ok, so... Read More »

I've been wanting to write an article about the "musicality magic" of vintage Altec loudspeakers for a while now, so consider this a mini-installment towards that goal, with - I hope - much more to come. Let's start with a short Altec history lesson. Altec's origins are inextricably linked to the Western Electric movie theater loudspeaker systems... Read More »

In a special mid-week treat for you, it is with great delight that I welcome back Shirokazu Yazaki to the pages of Jeff's Place to tell us about his latest adventure in Real Sound with his good friend Alan-san! Welcome back Yazaki-san, and thank you for sharing your latest adventure in Real Sound with us - I loved reading about... Read More »

I think most of you know I've been having a "love at first listen" affair with my vintage Altec Corona 832A loudspeakers that I purchased from LA Jazz Audio. It is a little hard to tell in the accompanying photographs, but the Altec Corona 832A's are fairly large loudspeakers, being about as wide as my... Read More »

I was hoping to get the Positive Feedback review of the Soundsmith Carmen Mk II phonograph cartridge finished up this weekend, but it's looking like it is going to be next weekend instead - it's turned out to be a busy weekend! Also, something very interesting happened during the review of the Carmen Mk II - in a... Read More »

It is always such a pleasure to hear from Yazaki-san, he is such a gracious and kind gentleman, and he has more good audio ideas in a day than most of us do in a year! I have a fascinating multi-part story of serendipity and intrigue to relate to you about Today's Fresh Catch, the Spec RSP-AZ9EX Real... Read More »

An old high-school buddy that I reconnected with recently, Mark, asked me for a recommendation for a HiFi system for $10K or under. Mark is actually the person who introduced me to enthusiast audio way back when we were in high-school together, but he's been out of enthusiast audio for quite a long while. As... Read More »

After a couple cups of coffee this morning, I sat down and practiced my fingerstyle guitar lesson for about an hour. I'm enjoying working my way through a beginning fingerstyle guitar course book, in hopes that I'll become a better guitar player (it wouldn't take much! 😉 ). One of my goals in retirement has... Read More »

It's been a nice weekend of just kicking back, relaxing, and celebrating. To celebrate my Mom's majority Irish ancestry that we didn't know she had until after some recent DNA testing (oral tradition isn't always accurate), we celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Saturday with me cooking a traditional St. Patrick's Day feast of corned beef,... Read More »

I went a bit wild today and decided to rearrange all my bedroom furniture so I could set up the new-to-me vintage Altec Corona loudspeakers as my bedroom system. The speakers look small in the photo above because of the size of the room, but they're really 3.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, so... Read More »

It turns out that with my purchase of a pair of vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers, that there are now four of us local friends that have vintage Altec loudspeakers with 800Hz (811B) horns that were designed for domestic use (Valencia's, and now the Corona's). Altec built a lot of loudspeakers that were designed for... Read More »

The vintage Altec Lansing 832A Corona's arrived from LA Jazz Audio this morning via R+L Carriers, who were very helpful and polite, and brought the pallet with the Corona's right up to my front door for easy unpacking -great service! LA Jazz Audio did a nice packing job, and I was able to quickly remove... Read More »

Today's post was inspired by Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,  one of my favorite pointillist impressionism paintings, showing Parisians relaxing in a park on the banks of the Seine (below). In a silly oddio variation on a theme, you get my music, film, literature, and audio impressions while I'm relaxing... Read More »