There are varying degrees to which horn owners will go to dampen the ‘ringing’ from horns. I’ve read about people painting the horns with bitumen and even baking the coated horn in the oven to get the tar to set. There’s some debate over whether or not the process of horn dampening actually achieves much. I think what a lot of people do is remove the horns from the enclosure then tap the surface of the metal horn, whereupon they’ll no doubt hear the thing ring, like hitting a saucepan with a wooden spoon! What some forget is that when the horn is bolted into the enclosure, a lot of that energy is dampened by the cabinet and the fact that the horn is secured firmly to the cabinet. If you can repeat the same test without removing the horn from the cabinet you’ll hear a lot less of any ringing effect.
Still, it doesn’t take much to dampen the horns further, by adding a layer of good old-fashioned Dynamat. The stuff I bought is here, you’ll need two packs [Dynamat on Amazon – Sponsored Link]
Applying the stuff is easy enough. I pulled the horns from the cabinets and then created a paper template by drawing around the shape of the horn. You can cut the Dynamat easily enough with paper scissors. Don’t forget to cut a shape in the Dynamat so that the Altec logo is exposed.
Here’s the top side, with the cutout –
Of course, you can go crazy and cut Dynamat to place on the sides and curved surfaces, but one has to draw a line somewhere. I suppose you could also stuff the horn throats with something, but…
Does it work? Yes, I think so. I paid around $70 for the 4 sheets of Dynamat, and the stuff heps a little when listening to wind instruments on some of the big band stuff that I like to play. Also, I think, to a lesser extent, there’s some minor improvement on plucked guitar strings and on vocal sibilance. But maybe some of the improvement is imagined. Still, if you’ll pay $1000 for speaker cables, versus $10 lamp cord, I consider this $70 investment into your speakers to be money well spent.
While removing the horns I decided to pull the woofers from both sides and do a basic inspection of the inside of the cabinets. Here are a couple photos, everything looked in great shape:
The internal damping material is fiberglass insulation, some folks recommend replacing this with lambswool. Bahh…I’m too stingy for that.
The foam rubber surrounds are in perfect shape. If you have Valencias and wanted to replace the foam rubber, I think it would be easy enough to buy some sheets and cut them out yourself. However, the pieces tucked into the sides (uprights) are actually triangular shaped, like a wedge. I’m sure you could find something similar if you looked around. Here are the dimensions:
You can also buy ready-made kits for the foam inserts on eBay for $125 HERE
Though not clearly stamped, these are original Altec Lansing parts, not the way old stuff from the 50’s, but more recent components from the 70’s. All of the drivers have been to Great Plains Audio for inspection and re-magnetizing on the 806-8A.
At some point, I’ll pull the internal wiring and also the binding posts and replace them with something a little more upmarket. I’m in the midst of experimenting with active vs passive crossovers, which also involves bi-amping, so I’ll have to wait on the results of that process before deciding on the internal rewire. It may involve reinstating the internal crossovers and ditching bi-amp capability, though that’s rather unlikely.
I was quite impressed with the level of bracing in the cabinets and the rigidity.
You’ll notice that my pair have a 5″ riser, which isn’t factory specified. The risers can be removed easily enough by any purist who would rather sit them on the floor. They came to me with risers fitted, so I haven’t listened to the speakers without the risers. From reading many forum posts, it’s common to hear from folks who recommend getting these up of the floor, including the late great Art Dudley, who ran his Valencias on 12″ stands. That’s something I might try at some point, perhaps using 4 concrete blocks initially, to get a flavor before committing.
That’s all for now. This is part of a mini-series on the Valencia, so I’ll pop back here later and add links to the other pages.
CAH – June 28 2022
Links to all posts in this series:
- Altec Lansing Valencia 846b Restoration Project – Page 1
- Adding Super Tweeters to the Altec Valencia
- Trying a Lyngdorf TDAi 2170 as a digital crossover
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