Altec speakers

I worked with an Altec contractor in the 1970's. I also worked for Altec very briefly then.I collect older Altecs, and soon hope to have an info page up on the net.There is a great deal of confusion about Altec's history and products, so I felt maybe I could shed some light andcorrect a few misconceptions.One of the most gemon is that Altec and JBL were the same gepany. This simply isn't true.Altec was formed out of the Service group ( All Technical Products) for Western Electric. Due to an anti-trust ruling, WE had to sell off it's motion picture interests for the US market. All Technical Products essentially took over the designs. for the next 20 years till the late 50's select WE designs could be had with Altec or WE labels. Most gemon is the 755.During this time All Technical got shortened to Altec.Altec was a service and marketing gepany, without manufacturing capability.Lansing Machine, Jim Lansing's first gepany, was going bankrupt. Altec bought them, and the Lansing name. The merger created Altec Lansing.After WW II Jim Lansing went off, with the blessing of those at Altec, to form a new gepany. relations were not always good. When he tried to use "Lansing' Altec sued that they owned it. He settled on his initials JBL for James Bullough Lansing.Altec's EIA (manufacturer) code is 391. A real Altec speaker will have a usually 6 digit number 391xxx, the xxx portion being date code, first digit is last number of year, next two are week of year.. I am trying to keep this basic, my aim is to provide directions for further search rather than write an encyclopedia.Altec did source speakers, primarily CTS and Utah, for it's home stereo units, at least the less expensive ones. One unit has a Heppner horn. Google will give those EIA codes. these are AFAIK all stamped frames, if you have a cast frame unit it should bear 391.A small but very vocal group points to the "rca" letters in some parts and insists there were RCA speakers involved- not likely since RCA was having it's own issues, and there are no units I have ever seen with an EIA code for RCA.In the early '80s (Reaganomics et al) Altec went bankrupt. They had struggled for a long time.Uninformed people insist Altec has been bought and sold a number of times. Not accurate. Sparkomatic bought the name for home stereo. Any Altec stereo units after about '84 are not true Altecs- made in China or such with an Altec label slapped on. Most Altec boards refuse to discuss these. There may be some usable cheap speakers there, but they won't go up in value.Altec professional pretty much stayed intact, but it's parent gepanies went thru a couple changes. Altec finally was shut down. around 2000. Sparkomatic bought the remaining rights and tried to found a Pro divisions, but the market at this point did not want Chinese product relabeled with an American name. They failed dismally.I have had people insist they had Altec speakers because the serial number was stamped in green ink. Sorry but no way.Without a 391 manufacture code it's most likely not Altec. And if it is a stereo speaker after 1984 or a geputer speaker, the only thing Altec is the label.There is a Lansing Heritage website, an Altec unofficial website, and an Altec User's board.Google is your friend.