From fluw
theaters still using altec VOTTs
QUOTE
( hi y'all
i am iching to hear the VOTTS again in a theater but i do not know of any. does anyone know of some or any in the US?
regards
todd )
Hi Todd I have good news . There's a theatre called LYRIC THEATRE
in Blacksburg, VA on College Avenue completely restored with 3 -A5
Altec Lansing Main Speakers.
http://www.thelyric.com/tour/start.php
Last edited by CONVERGENCE; 12-17-2006 at 07:33 PM. Reason: QUOTE
Totally Awesome! Crazy, we had a theater here in town called the Lyric Theater. There are alot of similarities. They closed it down, I believe in the 1950's.Originally Posted by CONVERGENCE
They tore it down in 1983. It could have been fixed up. What a great place it was. It just set there abondon. The owner got kicked in the head by a horse, and left him with a wicked stroke. Most people couldn't understand him, and kinda dismissed him as crazy. My father, brother, and I could understand him, and we helped him get his funeral flowers out of one of the rooms in there. He had a daughter that was killed in a car crash. Man, he was collecting everything in the place, broken markee glass, the works.
Now see, I had been in this theater before. When we were kids, we would crawl through the coal shoot, into the furnace room, and through a heating vent to get inside, and check it out. There were a huge stack of speakers. With a huge sectorial horn on top. I was intrigued, but didn't care much.
To make a long story short. I heard alot of noise on day. I went behind my house, that is where the Lyric was located. I saw a crazy man on a bulldoser. Just plowing away at it. I ran like hell over to the theater, to check on the speakers. To my suprise the owner was on the stage, with debri falling all over him. I ran, and stopped the dozer. We got the owner out with much reluctance. I then asked the guy on the dozer, if I could have the speakers. He said,"for $40.00" well I grabbed them. Vandels had taken the woofers. I got the boxes, horn, and drivers.
I still have the low freq. cabinets. They are International Projector corporation BIG W horns. I also got the sectorial horn and the drivers. But back then there wasn't PC's, and I didn't realize they would be worth alot someday. So I chucked the sectorial horn, and kept the drivers. They were huge. I traded them to a guy for some car part. I still have the double driver throat though. They are the same thread as the WE-555 drivers.
Later that day we helped the owner, take his valuables up to his storage shed. To my surprise, the hole big shed was full of the same low freq. horns, and the high end horns as well. He was trying to give the whole bit to us. But like I said,"we didn't understand there worth". We just said a polite no. Damn!
Later, when I knew a few thing's. I tracked down one of his daughters. I Salt Lake City, I asked her about the speakers. She told me that some guy from Provo came, and picked them up, and hauled them off. Along with all those Western Electric tube amp. Do you know what that stuff is worth? I can't win for losing. Drat!!!
Two Time "Kidney Transplant Recipient"
In FRONT of the Screen?
Well there you go, the rising mids were designed to be rolled off by the screen, so naturally they sound screechy without a filter in front of them...
Mike Scott in SJ, CA
Drive 'em to the Xmax!
We took a lot of these things for granted. Thought they were going to be there for ever. I lost track of Altec Lansing when their main Contractor closed down. Nobody new they had moved from Anaheim to Oklahoma.
Cinema's were still using Altecs . Then all of a sudden these theatres closed and Megaplex theatres started to spread in the suburbs.
It was the donught city sindrome. In late 90's New york city cleaned up it's downtown area and evry other major city followed the trend. Many old theatres have been restored and the trend continues.For medium size cities also.
We have severall more projects in the works around here.
The old cabinets if warped have to be reconstructed.Components are available at GPA as well as those huge Manntaray horns.
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The story of the A7 was short lived and Cinema owners reacted and changed quickly to A5. The reason was the 1" throat wich is to small.The word got out so fast that Altec Lansing Main speakers became the norm with models from A5 and up and remained in theatres untill the Early 90's.
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Just pony up $11,800.00 USD (ahhh, free shipping!) and you can have a pair of new A7's.
http://www.alteclansing.com/legacy/specs.asp
Thanks but no thanks. The Xo frequency is wrong should be 500 Hz not 900 Hz. Second for theatre application wrong horn and HF driver to small Need 1 1/4 "throat Driver. Large Driver.
The A-5 is the only acceptable Vott for theatre usage .It has the same unequalized frequency range as the A-4 and A-2 with wings.
If you get the parts and have the cabinets built you can get a better product for half the price.
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convergence
thank you for the information i will hav eto make a trip down there!
wish they weren't using using QSC power though.
surely there must be other vott theaters still out there!?
regards
todd
You have the Uptown Theatre in Washington Dc with Altec A-4 mains JBL subs and Altec A-7 Surrounds 12 of them.
You also have the Senator's theater in Baltimore with the same configuration.
There is an interesting article as to why 10,000 one screen palaces
closed. On the Senator's web site.
http://www.senator.com/senator2.cfm
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Last edited by CONVERGENCE; 01-02-2007 at 08:18 PM. Reason: SITE
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