The Altec 843A, marketed as the "Malibu," was a full-range home loudspeaker system that showed up in Altec's lineup in the mid-1960s. It used the same drivers as the monitor-style 844A, in a different cabinet. At $356, it was Altec's compact consumer alternative to the enormous Voice of the Theatre systems. Period ads in High-Fidelity (November 1964, p.16) pitched it as the same no-compromise big sound in a package suited to the home.
The Malibu measured 40 by 25 by 18 inches. High-Fidelity (June 1965, p.59) reviewed the 843A and noted that deep bass below 40 Hz took substantial power to reproduce. Even so, the system responded cleanly and evenly down to 35 Hz at normal listening levels in a large room, with a gentle rolloff below that. Advertisements from 1965 said the speaker's no-distortion midrange, which Altec claimed covered 90% of the musical spectrum, was the key to its performance.
Advertisements from 1964-1965 show the 843A positioned alongside models like the 838B and A7W. Altec stressed that the engineering from their professional Voice of the Theatre systems could now be had in a domestically scaled cabinet. The "Malibu" name suggests it was aimed at the style-conscious home market of the era. Surviving records are thin on production years and total quantities. The 844A, identical electrically in a monitor-style housing, sold for $327. Beyond the period ads and that single High-Fidelity review, little else has been documented about the 843A.
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