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Altec lansing
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Radio broadcaster Art Crawford suggested that Altec Lansing design a 2-way coaxial loudspeaker embodying the company's leading technology. What eventually emerged as the model 604 combined a small multicellular horn mounted concentrically on a 15-inch woofer, with an 801 driver mounted behind and firing along the axis of the system. Introduced in 1944, it soon gained a leading reputation as a broadcast monitor and became one of the most successful monitors in recording history. It continues in production to this day.
The A-4, co-designed with John Hilliard, inaugurated the Voice of the Theatre series which kept Altec Lansing at the forefront of the motion picture exhibition industry until the mid-1980s. Similar in overall size to the earlier Shearer MGM system, it consisted of a large ported low frequency section with its dual woofers additionally front-loaded with a straight horn. The multicellular high frequency section was driven with the 288 driver, a 3-inch diaphragm design with aluminum ribbon wire. The low frequency drivers were the model 515, a 15-inch diameter design with a 3-inch aluminum voice coil, the first 15-inch low frequency transducer to make use of flat wire. The Voice of the Theatre systems used Alnico V magnets.
During the war effort the company also
worked on a magnetic airborne detector, a submarine detection system of
extreme sensitivity. This represented the company's first application of
Alnico V, a material that would later revolutionize the loudspeaker
industry. During those years, Lansing's energies and talents were channeled
solely into transducer and systems engineering.
© 1981 John Eargle |
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