Altec Model 9862

Altec launched the 9861, 9862 and 6041 studio monitors to front JBL and Urei's respective successes on the japanese market.

Since these monitors were intended as market-specific adventures, there is no doubt that some input from the people of said market must have been taken into account but they were however all produced by Altec and at Anaheim.

Most remebered (if only for its near-Invisibila status) the 9862 saw four versions which however all kept the same original name ; for the sake of clarity, I will chronologically name them S1 through S4.


S1
Presented late in 1978 ; had all-Alnico magnets except for the super-tweeter ; the bass unit was a 416-8BXS modded for 180l. enclosure ; the S1 was only distributed in Japan and cost 730,000¥ apiece - 1,600,000¥ per pair.


S2
1981 variant, shown here from a may 1981 US sell-sheet. Replaced Alnico with ferrite and saw a change in mid to high-mid crossover frequency (originally 1,6Khz, changed to 2,5Khz) ; the bass unit was the 416-8CD ; the S1 was distributed in Japan, France and Switzerland.


S3
The S3 is an S2 with a modded filter to allow bi-amplification.


S4
The S4 is a c. 1981 Japan-only S3 commemorative version with the front baffle painted in 1960s Altec green instead of the regular black ; some S4 however did keep the regular filter (of the S2)...


The main strong point of the 9862 is the T-950 super-tweeter with its 3500Hz...27Khz frequency response.
Altec offered to distributors worldwide the distribution of it as a stand alone driver but the manufacturing costs were so high that the resulting list price forced everybody to turn the offer down...
The 9862 monitors were spec'ed for 9862L and 9862R matched pairs.


The last remaining pairs available in the US were in fact sold in France sometime circa 1985 ; they were not 9862s but two pairs of 9861s ; one of the latter was stolen after a show in Lyon.

The production run is anyboy's guess : a number of 100 pairs is around but whether it comprises one market, one version, all markets, all versions or anything in between is... anybody's guess.

An S4 with a regular filter here.
An S4 with a bi-amp filter here.