Old Altec tube stuff: Questions

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I ran into some old Altec stuff at the new room I'm working. I was
wondering if anyone had any general info on them;

1566A Amplifier

436C compressor amp

9473A Limiter

1567A Mixer amp.

1568 A Amplifier

Just wondering if The 1567 can Have Outputs modded on each channel.
That might be really hip. The 9473 Looks to be a very cool old mono
limiter.It appears to be a two band deal as there are two gain
reduction meters ,one for below 250 hz and one for above 250 hz. I have
not had the time to wire any of these up but, will do so soon after
this HUGE console/Patch-bay cleaning job.

I understand that Mr. Dorsey might have some insight on these units.

Thanks loads folks.

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On 31 Mar 2005 17:49:26 -0800, "ivis" <ivan40@comcast.net> wrote:

>436C compressor amp

Some people like these a lot for a different kind of flavor.

Al

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ivis wrote:
> Thanks guys, Yeah I didn't get that good a look at the stuff. I have
a
> couple of old opto solid state units in my home rig that I love on
> Bass. I thought it would be fun to have at least the comps in working
> order and in the rack. Maybe we can make use of one of the mic pre's
> just run through the mono buss as designed.
>
> Thanks again.....


Although the 436 and 438 limiters are the Ebay favorites, my 1566a is
one of my "secret" weapons. These things have a less than stellar
reputation, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that 95% of
the units you see have spent 45 years on the front end of a PA system
in an inner city junior high school, and went straight to Ebay as
"vintage toob preamps" with zero maintenance. New caps, fresh tubes
and a grounded AC cord and you've got a real tube preamp that just
loves ribbon mics and other "hard to match" microphones. (gear
"purists" give me strange looks when I hook up my BLUE Bottle to the
1566a, but it just sounds GREAT!) Robert at VintageLoop
(www.vintageloop.com) up in Michigan does a complete rehab on these
things for a reasonable price. (at least it was reasonable 7 or 8
years ago......) Back when I got mine, the total price to purchase
(from surplus) and have the complete overhaul totalled out at under
$300, so the numbers might not pencil out quite as favorably today.
But I think that they are great little preamps.

steve
lex125@pacbell.net