Allen HC-15 speakers

[Guest]

<SPAN class=postbody>Our organist just upgraded his home organ speakers and donated a pair of Allen HC-15s to my cause.

So what's the skinny on these speakers? Are they worth using and should I be on the lookout for another pair so I could possibly use them in a 4-speaker group?
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[TexDW76]

Re: Allen HC-15 speakers



Hey bcollins,</P>


I bought a pair of HC-12s off ebay about a year ago off EBay and drove 300 miles one way to pick up mine ! The HC-12s have a 12 inch foam surround woofer, TWO 6 inch mid-range and a soft-dome tweeter. I have added them as the primary speakers in my stereo system, especially for playing my pipe organ CDs, </P>


My HC-12s were in commercial cabinets. I repainted them in the orginal factory chocolate brown and installed new black grill cloth. Not a pretty piece of furnature, but sure do rattle the walls ! </P>


My guess that the HC-15s use simular components, just a larger woofer. Be prepared to pay upwards of $200 each !! </P>

[jbird604]

Re: Allen HC-15 speakers



Bob,</P>


The HC-15 was the standard Allen speaker cabinet from about 1983 or 84 until sometime in the 90's, when Allen changed over to the "Herald" line of speakers. It is an excellent all-purpose organ speaker with outstanding audio characteristics. It carried a "list" price of around $600 back then, but of course cost the dealer less than that. It makes a very good organ speaker even today and you should definitely welcome the gift.</P>


(There was also an HC-14, which is identical to the HC-15 except that the crossover network was on the front instead of on the back. There werealso somecompact models that were used to supplement the HC-14 or 15, but they had the same components except a smaller woofer.)</P>


Unlike the HC-12, the HC-15 is not a sealed box, but has a tuned port. Also, the HC-12 has a foam-surround woofer, but the HC-15 uses a textile ("accordion") surround on the woofer. (Both models have 15" woofers, not 12" as Tex reported, in spite of the "HC-12" designation. There was a model "HC-11" that had a 12" woofer.)</P>


The HC-12 used a pair of 4" mid-ranges speakers, but the HC-15 only has one. The second mid-range is not needed in the HC-15 design because the crossover of the woofer to midrange occurs at a considerably higher frequency. Both the HC-12 and the HC-15 use a very nice soft-dome tweeter.</P>


The HC-12's are capable of generous output down into the range of the 32' octave, but the HC-15's roll off more quickly in the bassand Allen generally sold their organs with HC-15's on allchannels EXCEPT those with 32' stops. Those channel would come equipped with an HC-12, unless the optional active crossover was included to put the 32' frequencies into a sub-woofer.</P>


The HC-15 is considerably more efficient than the HC-12 because of the tuned port and the textile surround on the woofer. The different crossover network also contributes to its higher efficiency. Even though it has the same tweeter, it is also "brighter" than the 12 due to the way the crossover operates.</P>


I think Allen has always used good speakers, especially since the mid-70's when they replaced the old open-back units with audiophile quality units such as the HC-10 and its descendants the HC-12 and the HC-15.</P>


John</P>
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[TexDW76]

Re: Allen HC-15 speakers



Hey John, Thanks for the info about the HC-12 and the HC-15. I was thinking mine were 15 inch woofers, but I could not remember. I even tried to shine a bright light thru my black grill cloth to make sure. Your report about the low 32' octave makes me appreate mine even more ! </P>


C Ya, Doug </P>

[jbird604]

Re: Allen HC-15 speakers



Doug,</P>


You're most welcome! Glad you're enjoying those HC-12's. They do indeed have an awesome bass range. I was selling Allen when thechangeover from HC-12 to HC-14/15 occurred. I was disappointed that they knocked the bottom octave out, but the higher efficiency was a plus. Made even the smaller 2-channel organs sound much "bigger" in a medium-size church. We compensated for the bass roll-off by tweaking the bass controls and found the new models quite satisfactory.</P>


Nothing really beats that foam-surround woofer in a sealed box for truly profound bass. Hope yours will last for many years to come. If the foam rots out, you can have them repaired by a competent speaker repair shop.</P>


John</P>
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[Guest]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Thanks John,</P>


I feel really stupid now because upon closer examination I see they are HC-12's</P>


But you have most sufficiently answered my question. One thing though... what would be the vintage of these speakers?</P>


I can check the tag again for the assembly number.</P>

[jbird604]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Bob,</P>


The date of manufacture is probably on the back. Disguised as a serial number, it will simply give the month and year plus some other numbers.</P>


John</P>
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[cpv]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Hi</P>


I have about a dozen HC-8F speakers that came with an Allen 965-TH. Unfortunately, someone made off with the HC-12s, HC-20 and En Chamades. I hope to replace this church setup with something that fits in my house. Would anyone like to buy these off me? What do you think they are worth? I've been searching for specs on them to post them for sale but have been unsuccessful.</P>


thx</P>


Cecilia</P>

[Guest]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



From memory only, I believe it said 906-nnnnnn</P>


So I assume perhaps 6th month of 1990, not 9th month of 2006</P>


?</P>

[jbird604]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Bob,</P>


Look at the backs again. You may see something like: "7Nov89-5664"</P>


I know that in recent years they've started putting a "real" serial number on speaker cabinets, but in the old days it was very obviously a date with some random numbers following. (Maybe the numbers were truly a count of the units built in a given month.)</P>
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[circa1949]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



jbird, thanks for the awesomely informative writeup on allen's speakers...</p>

I'd always wondered what the difference between those 2 models was.</p>

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[Clavier]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers

How do the HC-10s compare to these? What kind of drivers did they use?

[cpv]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Holy Moly. I measured a woofer in one of those HC-8s, barely touching the rubber edge and it started crumbling! Gee, wouldn't feel right selling something like that.</P>


But the boxes are beautiful and they are Solid. Don't the boxes have some value to someone who rebuilds speakers?</P>


I'll post a picture in my gallery so you can see.</P>

[Clavier]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Actually, re-foaming speakers is easier to do than most people think. It's common practice to re-foam the cones of speakers older than twenty years. The need to re-foam in no way, demotes them to "speaker boxes". Again, I wish I was in respectable driving distance.</p>

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-Joe
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[jbird604]

Re: actually Allen HC-12 speakers



Clavier,</P>


As to the HC-10 speaker . . . IIRC, this was the first sealed-boxdesign from Allen. It came out in the late 70's and replaced the various open-back speaker models Allen had used until that time.</P>


The woofer was a 15" high-compression/long-excursion driver with a nominal 4 ohm impedance (as in the HC-12). It had the soft foam surround, which made possible a solid bass response welldown into the 32' octave. Like all such foam-surround speakers, it was subject to eventual deterioration.</P>


The HC-10 had a much more advanced crossover network than the previous open-back designs, withwell-defined and steepercrossover points, making possible the use of higher-quality drivers. The mid-range driver was a closed-back cone about 6" in diameter. The tweeter on the HC-10 was a good little 3" cone with a prominent dome in the middle. Not a true dome tweeter, but much better than the stiff-cone tweeters they'd used before.</P>


There was nothing really bad about the HC-10, and the HC-12 was pretty much just a refinement of that same design, with improved mid-range and tweeters and a slider resistor for the tweeter level instead of the troublesome rotary control used in the HC-10.</P>


BTW, even though the woofer in both the HC-10 and HC-12 is technically 4 ohms, the cabinets function in a circuit more like 8 ohm speakers, due to the sealed box and the aggressive crossovers. There is no problem paralleling a pair of them on a single Allen amp.</P>


John</P>
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