Altec 605A coaxial bench demonstration.

Copyright www.HiFiTown.com - A brief demo of an original Altec Lansing 605A (1960s era) - all alnico, coaxial loudspeaker. Entirely in the league of all great USA made sounding vintage coaxial drivers. Our long standing opinion is the "605A" is a much more informed and tamer choice for most audiophiles considering a 604B,C or E. Explained in this video as to why the smaller HF driver keeps the proper balance in small to medium size rooms. This is a "green" era unit - late 1950s-1960s production. White paint came after these. Tested with a NAD 3020 and vintage 16bit DAC CD player. This is a vintage the 1960s speaker and utilizes all alnico components.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• NAD
• 3020
• Tannoy
• Silver
• Gold
• Altec
• 604
• coaxial
• dual
• concentric
• tube
• amplifier
• western
• electric

[JimsGeminiTube]

I have Altec 9849-8A speakers dated Oct. 1979 on the back of cabinet. They have a 12" driver with a horn driver. I was offered $200 per speaker 12 years ago I turned it down & still have the speakers today. I was told that they sold $500 per speaker in it's day. Anyone know if this is true?

[HiFiTown]

@JimsGeminiTube Altec drivers of the 1970s-80s were very expensive. In general by this time, main buyers were institutions and studios. Inflation adjusted, $500 could be very likely. Perhaps somebody quoted a MSRP. $500/ea sounds a bit high for 1979. The offer you receive was very fair, much more that you'd expect to see on eBay for any modern Altec 12". The 50s & 60s drivers are more respected, more tube friendly and quite a bit smoother. Hang on to them, they'll appreciate.

[JimsGeminiTube]

@HiFiTown Thanks for the fast comment back. I also had some A7 "The Voice Of The Theatre", klipsch la scala & QSC pro amp. I sold the A7's on ebay for $700 & klipsch la scala's for $1100. They were just too big to have around I still have the QSC. I worked as a projectionest 14 years ago & the theatre closed down I got to keep some stuff.

[hlmmoore]

I had mine on a NAD 7240.I can't imagine any speaker sounding any better.And I've heard a lot of them.JBL comes the closes I loved them

[hlmmoore]

I had a set that I lost gambling. They were unbelivable

[Meteotrance]

there was actualy used for monitoring on US studio that's why there sound so Hifi ^^

the design was realy advance for the time. like the French Elipson speaker.

[transdetendal]

epic sound,thanx for sharing

[49kasey]

OMG! That thing needs to be treated with kid gloves. An 8" version of that today would be priceless! Can you imagine?

[goatskindreams]

holy cow man, thats crazy. sounds unreal

[ExpertOfSound]

Awesome :D

That sounds super clean on my KOSS UR29's!