Altec 12" 417 series Speakers

[David Root]

I know there is the 417-8C, 75W rated, and earlier -8A and -8B versions with different frame design. All Alnico magnets. All 8 ohm except some very early ones at 16 ohms.

Then there is the 417-8H, 100W rated, aluminum dust cap, Series 1, all Alnico magnets, and later Series 2, ceramic magnets.

And now there is Great Plains Audio which is three ex-employees of Altec who bought the tooling from Altec when they went out of the pro audio biz. They are selling the 417-8H with aluminum or paper dust cap for (wait for it!!) $340.00! According to an e-mail I got on inquiring about it they said that "The 417 has a paper cone, but the dust cap is aluminum. Most guitarists prefer it, but we could make them for you with paper dust caps, if you prefer".

According to a post Funk made here back in '07, HAD preferred the Ceramic 417-8H, which is the Series 2 I believe. These have only aluminum dust caps as I understand it, unless you had it changed to paper.

Somewhere else I have seen that the 75W version has better tone than the 100W because it use a different coil former material (paper vs. fiberglass??). Paper being less inclined to ice-pick when pushed hard.

I'm looking for experienced opinion with these, further historical HAD references/info, and generally anything useful tonewise.

I certainly get sticker shock at $340, but perhaps the new ones are worth it? Used ones I have seen reconed at about $200 and FleaBay is always a risky proposition in my book. (Good place to sell but not so good to buy stuff like this).

[Structo]

And I thought the EVM's were expensive......

[marcos]

Hi David, FWIW:
My ODS amp came stock with the Altec 417 8H /Series 2 in 1979.
The way I remember it it sounded pretty good, especially for cleans,
the OD sounds had a metallic edge to it, but it worked ok with the fairly low gain of the 70s amps.
Later I had the aluminum dust cap changed to one made of paper,
EV replacement part I believe.After that change the metallic edge was
gone, but ,unfortunately, all the high end was gone as well,
I remember turning the treble up full to compensate for this.
So I wouldn´t recommend changing the aluminum dust cap on this speaker.
Overall, I think the Altecs are a little to hi-fi for guitar amps,
and for most tastes EVs, Celestions etc are a better choice.
You have to keep in mind that ,at the time, there were only a handful of speakers with power handling capacity above 50 watts

Have fun Marcos

[thyx]

David...you've got the Altec story correct, as far as you went. As for the sticker shock, colbalt (a component in alnico magnets) has shot up in price just this past week. A speaker I got new last week for $189 went to $269 overnight...literally. So $340 for a speaker that uses a large alnico magnet is not as rediculous as it might initially seem, given the current price of cobalt.

Mk Boogies and ODS Dumbles may prefer a more "hi-fi" speaker than the usual guitar amp. Without a speaker that is sensitive enough to pick up on the detail in a heavily compressed signal, the tone is going to turn to mud. (YMMV) I have a Boogie MkII I run with a JBL D120F or an Altec 417-8C...depending on what I'm going for. I personally don't like the H models with kapton voice-coil formers, but I think that's more a matter of taste. That said, the speakers are more similar than they are different.

[David Root]

Thank you very much Gents. I am currently looking at a pair of original cone 8H Mk 2s as a possibility.

I need one for a #13 50W build in a Princeton Reverb chassis, but that could use the -8C at 75W if I could find one.

Then I would have two -8Hs for an open back 2x12 like Avatar or Funk's source, for my just finished approx. # 124 x 100W and the Music Man HRM that is also on my build list. After those three basic lessons I will start to improvise.