Re: Living History?
It looks like a system that the owner paid off many years ago and is actually MAKING MONEY with it. Unlike a lot of guys in the business who are deep in dept trying to pay off the latest "toys".
It looks like Altec horns and the cabinet with the BOS on it is a dual 15" horn loaded Altec cabinet that was popular in larger venues back in the day.
The power capacity of the cabients 9if using the origional drivers) is not that high-but the fact that they have a high sensitivity makes up for the lack of power capacity. And usually results in a better sound. Because when drivers have to move a lot (due to lower sensitivity) they produce higher distortion than one that is not moving so far.
I don't know about the W cabinet below it. They are pretty large W cabinets. Therefore they should have a lot of gain and possibly (depending onthe design) a decent amount of low freq response.
Regarding the Altec A7 front fills, theuse of the large horn provides pattern control down low, so it is keeping energy off of the stage-unlike most of the "pea shooter" systems of today that simply spray sound everywhere.
I don't recognize the 70V amps, but they appear to have 6550 tubes in them and could be 100 watts each. That would be a solid 100 watts. Depending on the final load in the line-you can run 70V systems long distances-that is why they are a high impedance system (70V is a misunderstood term)
I would not automatically discount the sound of the system. It appears to have good quality (or at least what used to be high quality) components.
Of course we have no idea what actual drivers are in the cabinets-how it is processed and so forth.
If the operator knows what he is doing, it could work pretty well.
There are some systems out there that I would call a "pile of lumber", but this one does not appear to be one of those-assuming it is set up properly.
I ahve heard PLENTY of very modern-expensive-top of the line systems that sound like crap because the guys designing them and setting them up don't understand the basic of sound and simply think that gear is the answer to all the problems.
Give me a knowledgable guy who understands what is going on-with some decent gear (even old) any day over a young punk with all the latest toys who does not have a clue how to use it, align it etc.
There is a lot more to good sound than high tech toys. Yes the "toys" can help-if everything else is done properly and the person using them understands HOW to use them, but the tool itself does not guarantee the outcome.
It's not the arrow-its the Indian!
