Altec 416A (Unknown Years)

Name: Altec 416A
Brand: Altec

Little is documented about the Altec 416A. What the record shows: it's a 15-inch woofer, 16 ohm impedance, built for serious low-frequency work. It shares physical construction with the later 416-8B but has a flatter, smoother paper dust cap instead of the 8B's vented steel cap. The JBL/Altec community rates it highly. Usually used in pairs, it can produce prodigious amounts of clean, deep bass, often considered adequate for any home or even a medium-sized venue.

The 416A has well-established but informally published Thiele/Small parameters: a Vas around 320 liters and an fs of about 20 Hz. It saw service in A-7 Voice of the Theatre systems, A5 cabinets, and custom flat-pack enclosures well into the 1970s. The successor model was the 416C. A related version, the 416-8A, was listed in period catalogs as a 16-ohm, 30-watt woofer with a 20-1600 Hz response range, noted by HiFI-Stereo (1971, p.103). It's unclear how that variant's specs compare precisely to the 416A.

Most of the usual detail is missing: no production years, no original price, no dimensions or weight, no frequency response curve, no power handling rating, no sensitivity figure. If you own a pair and have measured them, the archive would welcome the data.