A pair of Altec's most useful woofers from the late 1960's and early 70s -- a pair of low resonance 12 inch woofers. The 414 16B is a 414 without the cosmetic tin cover. The 414 16B's found excellent use in many famed Altec studio monitors and Cinema systems (like the A8 Voice of the Theater). All throughout the 1960s .. like the Seville, Avalon, Malibu and the 9844 -- which housed these nice black fram models -- 2 of these paired with an 811A and was one of Altec's best ever sounding Studio Monitors -- used to master some of the best recordings of the 1960s and 1970s
The cones and speakers play perfectly, centered OK, no rubs when pressed on center -- they were swept 20- 20,000 hz, and I heard no problems.
Nice cosmetics. Unit # 1 has a slightly amber tone in appearance vs unit #2, as it was next to a sunny area for a few years. The paper on both units is supple and nice, no tears or flaws I could find. These particular Altec 414's came from clean Studio Monitor, -- very old institutional installation, and were kept beautiful in tightly sealed cabinets, saw very little use, and always in climate control -- are clean, very old and sound nice.
Original cones and 16 ohm edgewound voice coils.
Cosmetics of the cones are excellent (see exhibit B,C) the frames are of the black type, indicating these are from early around 1970s
Speakers DCR unit #1 is 11.5 ohms, unit #2 is 13 ohms. Nominal impedance is 16 ohms for these, and unloaded on the bench they exhibit normal and expected behaviour with peak resonance in the 50 ~ 60hz region (see charts with Impedance vs Frequency curve). They sounded nice.
You've probably seen the 414 A as well .. these 414 16B "Z syle" speakers are more well known, as they were paired with many Altec systems of the 1960s. The 414 Z (and 16 A & B) were excellent performers, thanks to the unsually heavy (over 8lbs) Alnico V magnet's that concentrated 10,000 gauss in the coil gap -- unusally high for any woofer -- and especially a 12". The powerful motor structure of the 414 gave it excellent dampening, for nice bass dynamics.
Fortuantely, these are all original cones -- reaping all the benefit of the classic quality of vintage Altec. These are fast and efficient woofers, they are not full range -- these will pair excellently with many varieties of high efficiency horns, like the Altec 802 / 811A, Jensen cone mids, Magnavox, JBL 175, and even Electrovoice 8HDs.
Check out Exhibit A,B & C -- you'll see what a nice pair this is. These are perfect for your next 2 or 3-way high efficiency DiY project.
The have been fully swept, down to 20 cyc -- to 20,000cyc….
Top-notch, as good function no rattles, no buzzes.
Please seeing my 100%, five star feedback from happy overseas customers.
All speakers are professionally packed in heavy double box with full protection, and shipped out ASAP after payment has been received. The Altec 414 16B woofers are very heavy, 30lbs packed in strong double box, bolted face to face.
Give them a try, even though these don't have original Altec cones, they sound nice -- you won't be disappointed if you need good 12" woofer.
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Your happiness is assured (please see my feedback, both here and at HiFiTown website)
