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 loudspeakers that were custom made for conductor Leopold Stokowski in the 1960's, and incorporated the apogee of loudspeaker developments for cinema and hifi sound of that period, with the stunning state-of-art Duelund Coherent Audio CAST tinned-copper capacitors, inductors, and resistors, built into a Jean Hiraga inspired crossover circuit.
"Stokowski" Altec's
The resulting combination of the early 1960’s vintage custom "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers with the state-of-art Duelund CAST tinned-copper components has completely reset my expectations for what is possible for loudspeaker performance in terms of musicality, live-like musical realism, and the natural rendering of sonic artifacts from the recording process, like imaging, soundstage, sense of recorded acoustic, etc.
Honestly, I can’t think of any loudspeaker I’d rather own at any price that is available on the market today.
Duelund Sn-Cu components for the project.
I’m sorry to tell you that you can't buy these custom one-off vintage "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers, however, I will try to provide you with enough information in the course of Duelund-Altec Project article for Positive Feedback to where you could build – or have built for you – a very close analog of them should you be inspired to do that.
The Duelund-Altec Project is a hifi dream come true for me, being a vintage hifi enthusiast, but more importantly, I hope it allows you to dream along with me about the possibilities it represents for a Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossover project for your own loudspeakers, and of course the good news is that the Duelund Coherent Audio CAST tinned-copper capacitors, inductors, and resistors are available right now.
If you want to see what others are doing with various Duelund projects, stop in and check out Pablo Pass' Duelund & Mundorf Fanatics site on Facebook, there's lots of good stuff there to inspire you!
Keep in mind that the Duelund CAST tinned-copper components are custom orders based on your particular crossover components needs, so be sure to allow plenty of time for your order to be built, because every single component is completely hand-crafted by real people instead of cranked out by machines, and it takes a fair amount of time to build them.
The cost of the Duelund CAST tinned-copper components are about 20% more expensive than the Duelund CAST pure copper components due to the additional cost of tinning the copper used in them.
After having lived with these "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers with the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers for a while now, and even though the cost of duplicating them would be relatively expensive, I can tell you that if your tastes run similar to mine, I think you would find the result to be eminently satisfying, the money well-spent, and likely they would be the last pair of loudspeakers that you would ever want to own - I'm positively giddy about the result!
Gary & Tineke Dahl.
It was a real treat to have husband and wife musical duo, Gary and Tineke Dahl, visit Jeff's Place. Gary and Tineke are musicians and their life revolves around music, and they have a passion for audio as well!
Gary is an Associate Conductor, Principal Timpanist, and Personnel Manager at the Bremerton Symphony Association, Choir Director at the Summit Avenue Presbyterian Church, conductor of the Kitsap Opera, and in his free time Gary teaches music to elementary students in the Central Kitsap School District!
Tineke plays principal 2nd violin for the Bremerton Symphony, and regularly plays in the Take4 String Quartet (Tineke Dahl (Violin); Pete Wiggins (Violin); Larry Nyquist (Viola); and Ingrid Peters (Cello)). Their favorite gigs are to play for retirement homes and the Veteran's Home at Retsil. Tineke also sings in Gary's church choir, and in her spare time teaches special education in the Central Kitsap School District.
Gary and Tineke are musicians who also enjoy audio, but the real reason Gary wanted to stop by for a visit was to hear what a pair of loudspeakers sounded like that were built by/for fellow conductor Leopold Stokowski, who was rather well known for his avid involvement in developing audio and film electronics and loudspeakers.
Just as an aside, I thought I'd mention Peter Qvortrup's perspective (Audio Note UK) - which I happen to share - on when the branches of music reproduction chain in audio were at their peak points of development, with diminishing returns, or diminishment in performance since then. I'll be visiting Peter and Daniel at Audio Note UK in the not too distant future, so expect to be reading more about this topic before long!
Peter believes that the recording quality peak occurred during 1950-1960, the software quality peak occurred 1950 - 1960, the amplification quality peak occurred 1920 - 1930, and the loudspeaker quality peak occurred in late 1930s and was lead by cinema sound research & development.
That's part of what makes the "Stokowski" Altec's so important from a historic perspective, as they were developed and built during a time when they could benefit from knowledge gained during the peak period of recording technology development, software technology development, amplification technology development, and loudspeaker technology development, all of which Dr. Leopold Stokowski was intimately involved in refining while working with audio & film companies through the process of comparing live music to what he heard through a stereo system, and then fine tuning the results to get as close as possible to the live music experience. That apogee in the "golden age" of audio is what the "Stokowski" Altec's represent, and I only wish the good Dr. Stokowski could hear them with the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossover components, which I think represent the greatest advancement in passive crossover performance in the history of audio.
We had a good time listening to the "Stokowski" Altec's while consuming a very nice bottle of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon.
Gary - a conductor himself - said about the "Stokowski" Altec's, developed by fellow conductor Dr. Leopold Stokowski, "I didn't expect them to sound like that!"
We then did a little listening to the Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers with a bit of vinyl, and then some video cuts from The American Epic Sessions that were recorded on some of the only surviving and well restored examples of Western Electric recording equipment from the early days of recording in America (1925). If you haven't yet watched the award winning The American Epic Sessions I really encourage you to get a copy of the Blu-ray discs and check it out. An all-star cast and lots of cool Western Electric gear to learn about, plus great music - guaranteed to blow your mind!
All-in-all, a fun afternoon of hifi games! Thanks for stopping by Gary and Tineke, it was great to have you visit Jeff's Place!
While Gary and Tineke were visiting we listened to the First Watt SIT-3 stereo amplifier providing the amplification for the "Stokowski" Altec's.
Pete Riggle (Pete Riggle Audio Engineering) also stopped by on a couple of occasions over the past few weeks, and Pete was able to hear both the First Watt SIT-3 and the Pass Labs XA25 stereo amplifier on the "Stokowski" Altec's.
Pass Labs XA25 stereo amplifier with McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifier.
The XA25 sounds pretty wonderful on the "Stokowski" Altec's, and Pete preferred it to the SIT-3, which also sounds pretty wonderful, but more laid back. By the way, thanks for stopping by, Pete, it was great catching up with you!
I'll try to write up some more detailed impressions of the Pass Labs XA25 for you in the not too distant future as its getting pretty close to being fully run-in, but suffice it to say that it sounds brilliant on the "Stokowski" Altec's, and this is a single-ended Class A amp, and like the SIT-3, is a true reference for what is possible in musicality & sonic performance with solid-state these days, and an amp that I could easily live with for the long term as a solid-state reference.
If you were to compare the SIT-3 and XA25 to SET tube amps, I suppose that power-wise the SIT-3 would be the most like a 300B amp (9 watts on the 16 Ohm Altec's), and the XA25 perhaps more like a 211 or 845 amp (12.5 watts on the 16 Ohm Altec's), but that's a pretty rough analogy, as they are both unique and don't really sound like typical SET tube amps.
Both the SIT-3 and XA25 make listening mesmerizing and emotionally involving, and the XA feels incredibly powerful on the Alec's even though its only putting 12.5 watts into 16 Ohms! I'm really looking forward to giving it a workout on my Westminster's as well when the time comes.
One of these days I want to put my hot-rodded vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers in the system for a comparison - a crazy comparison!
By the way, if you read my post (HERE) about the new Duelund plastic-free DCA16GA interconnects, they are a fantastic match to the Pass Labs XA25 (I haven't tried them with the SIT-3 yet). Take note if you have Pass Labs amps. Already the new Duelund interconnects are starting to run-in, getting smoother and richer in the process, while still doing all those wonderful musical & sonic things I've come to expect from tinned-copper interconnects.
It's been a nice couple of weeks meeting new audio friends, catching up with ol' audio pals, and just generally being impressed with the music emanating from the Duelund-Altec Project "Stokowski" Altec's powered by Nelson's First Watt SIT-3 & Pass Labs XA25 stereo amplifiers, and the new Duelund DCA16GA plastic-free interconnects - what a treat!
As always, thanks for stopping by to visit me here at Jeff's Place, and may the tone be with you!
