The feature review of the Duelund-Altec Project at Positive Feedback was published one year ago, on October 1, 2019, and today is the Duelund-Altec Project's one-year anniversary. Now that I have a year's worth of experience and music listening under my belt with the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers I installed into the "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers,... 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 »

Everything is a bit topsy-turvy at the moment, with much of Planet Earth being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as I write this. I live in Washington State, which was the epicenter in the USA for the COVID-19 outbreak that has now spread around the country. As you might imagine the situation is rather dire... Read More »

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series of posts, 2019 has been a rather unprecedented year in writing about audio and music, with the year-end number of blog posts published at Jeff's Place coming in at 210, and 5 feature reviews for Positive Feedback.  I feel really fortunate to have had so much... Read More »

It is good to reflect back on a year and consider all that has happened in one's life, both to appreciate the good things that have happened, as well as to gain insights from one's dumbo moves. I feel extremely fortunate, for my 2019 was truly an amazing year in music, audio, and life generally.... Read More »

2019 has been an outstanding audio and music year for me, and I thought a retrospective of its high points would be fun to reflect back upon and share with you, as 2020 is already knocking on the door and demanding attention. In 2019 there were all those little adventures and discoveries I wrote about... Read More »

Being the vintage Altec enthusiast that I am - I have 3 pairs of gigantic vintage Altec loudspeakers in my modest sized home - you can imagine how excited I am by this particular "Today's Fresh Catch", the Great Plains Audio (nee Altec) 802-16G Series II compression drivers and the 416-16B low-frequency drivers. First let... Read More »

It was a really enjoyable Friday this week, with a splendid visit from Paul James, who came all the way from Australia to visit Jeff's Place. Paul is a super nice guy, as well as a really knowledgable audio guy who likes to build valve preamps &  amplifiers, and loudspeakers from scratch, and it was... Read More »

THE DUELUND-ALTEC PROJECT! I am so inspired and pleased by the way the Duelund-Altec Project turned out that I practically have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming! Be sure to get out and read the feature article at Positive Feedback at the above link, as I think you'll really enjoy it, and it will... Read More »

I love to write posts for you about audio and music, but my project management gene just kicked in, so I thought I'd tell you about what to expect to read about in the next few months of scheduled audio adventures here at Jeff's Place. My first goal is to transfer the Duelund CAST tinned-copper... Read More »

The Duelund-Altec Project is really something special, a lot of fun, and it's definitely not your typical audio project or review, but rather is intended to be more of a "dream" article that is decidedly outside of the usual audio mainstream, one that involves a story about the marriage of the historically important vintage Altec... Read More »

It's been a nice couple of weeks here at Jeff's Place, first with the solid walnut "cutting board" plinths arriving for the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers, and my buddy David helping me getting them ready to mount the Duelund CAST tinned-copper components on them, but the real treat this last week was a visit from 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 mentioned in my last "Today's Fresh Catch" post (HERE) that the Pass Labs XA 25 power amplifier (below) had arrived here at Jeff's Place for me to listen to, blog about, and write a feature article about for you at Positive Feedback. After hearing Nelson's First Watt SIT-III power amplifier (below) and how impressive... Read More »

It's been a while since I checked in with you and gave you a little behind the scenes glimpse into what's going on here at Jeff's Place, so I thought it'd be a good time for a short update. I've been working on the Hanze HiFi HAT turntable power supply review for Positive Feedback, and... Read More »

Between travel, jet-lag, and getting caught up on audio and domestic activities, it's been a while since I've posted a comprehensive update on the Duelund-Altec Project (overview HERE). A couple of posts ago (HERE) I reported on how much the "Stokowski" Altec's with their Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers (below) reminded me of the sound of... Read More »

As you know if you've been reading along, I've been experimenting with different combinations of the Duelund DCA tinned-copper tone cables for the Duelund-Altec Project (HERE), both as speaker cables and for connecting the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers to the Altec 804A 16-Ohm compression drivers. I've already settled in on the Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper cable for... Read More »

It's time for another update on the Duelund-Altec Project. In my most recent updates of the Duelund-Altec Project I discussed the overall project context HERE, the selection of speaker cables for the most complementary voicing HERE, and I wrote a just-for-fun post about the musicality magic of vintage Altec's HERE.  I've never been enamored of... 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 »

I've really been enjoying listening to the "Stokowski" Altec's with their Duelund-Altec Project Duelund CAST Sn-Cu crossovers over the last week or so since my last update. For those who are just finding out about the Duelund-Altec Project, I thought I'd include an overview of the project for you, as well as an update for... Read More »

I finished wiring up the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers on Thursday last week, and they probably have about 12 hours of run-in time on them now. It's probably still a little early to say too much about what to expect during the run-in process with the Duelund CAST Sn-Cu crossovers, but I thought I'd go... Read More »

With all that was involved in moving to the new location of Jeff's Place at Positive Feedback, and with some other responsibilities that demanded my attention, it's been a while since I've been able to work on getting the Duelund-Altec Project up and running. That changed today! 🙂  Before I tell you about the progress... Read More »

It's time for some system maintenance, with my Classic 301 turntable off to visit Ray Clark in the UK for a little tune-up, and my vintage McIntosh MX110Z's volume pot finally died, so it's getting a new volume pot installed. So in the interim I've put together a really sweet combination of hifi gear for... Read More »