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Altec 344a Quartet amplifiers, Amazing Junk...

Posted by soundchaserkt66 on February 27, 2017 at 15:54:32:

I've gotten pretty familiar with the Altec 344A Quartet amplifiers. I have a handfull of these Amplifiers and have always heard they were nice amps. I've been planning on getting involved for awhile now. Well I got around to it and found they're both beautiful and junk at the same time.
These amplifiers are now 60 years old.....
So I start playing with them and made all kinds of repairs to a pair of them. What I got was Beautiful sounding Junk,,,,,,( Yep, I found out with this experiment that I had only just begun My Marriage to these amplifiers. And the Honeymoon was over!.....)
They farted, spitted and popped at me while sounding gorgeous in between..... Yes, If you're interested in these amplifiers, Far as I'm concerned, There's only one way to do it. And that's to rewire them. The circuit boards are 60 years old now... The traces are junk and even cracked, boards are warped, Sockets suck and everytime you push a new tube in a socket, You damage the boards more.
With all that said, These are some pretty Gorgeous sounding amplifiers. So if you like nice sound and rare-ish amplifiers. I definitely recommend these amplifiers. But be warned that you either need good experience with tube amps or a quality tech at the ready.
Here's my pics of what I thought should be done with them. Note, The one amplifier is waiting for a JJ at this point in the project. Which has since been installed. I know I'm not Altec or anything, But I think I hit the Nail pretty square on the head with my build and these run solid as a rock now.....
I think these are a Very incredibly worth while project! hope this helps somebody out there.