They had a really neat Walsh inverted dome tweeter. They could play loud. I used audiophile speaker cable then, too, "Monster Cable", a thick guage speaker cable. Back then didn't cost much.
They got me through law school 1975 – 1978.
Sold them finally 1991 and went “down” to Spica TC-60s (five) with
two Vandersteen 2Wq subwoofers.
In 19996 started home theater journey with new dedicated theater room, Aerial speakers, etc.
I believe those were Micro-Acoustics MS-1's. They were a radial array of four 1¼" Peerless cone tweeters.
Frequency response was 3.5 -30kHz with the idea of improved high frequency dispersion by aiming the tweeters at different horizontal angles. Very popular for AR3a's and setting on top of double Advents.
Micro-Acoustics also made full range speakers but were probably better known for their Micro-Point cutting stylus to the recording industry and their turntable cartridges.
I spent a couple of paychecks on Bose 901s after lusting after them numerous weekends in a bay area hi-fi store in the late 60's. After a couple of years their "honk" got old and I replaced them with Infinity 2000s that seemed to me to be all right but a bit rough in the upper midrange and low treble that was likely exacerbated by the amplification used - maybe a Dynaco ST400 and Dynaco preamp. I liked listening to my Koss Electrostatic headphones a lot more than the Infinities and those headphones are still sitting in a box in the basement. Then, circa Nixon impeachment hearings, I got Magneplanar Tympani 1-U's - I'd say those were my first "audiophile" speakers, at least as far as midrange performance - and critics more or less said they were primarily midrange speakers. Those lived in storage during a brief college dorm stint and I had them crammed into a Datsun 510 to Chicago, there they were the only thing in my apartment living room along with a mattress and preamp/amp/AR turntable during my med school days. They served well for about 12 years.
Then around 1985 I got a pair of Martin Logan CLS, with an update in the electronics and panels to CLS IIAs around 1992. They got mated with a Velodyne ULD-18 subsequently and RPG room diffusors/abfusors. These still remain the core of my current 2.1 channel system with a Martin Logan Cinema for center channel and four NHTs for surrounds for 7.1. I've given some thought to upgrading to ML surrounds. No doubt, cones have more punch and dynamism but I don't know if I could ever give up that midrange clarity.
Thanks for the correction and fill in. You younger guys have a much better memory than I have these days. We know so much less theory then and for whatever the reaon the sport of audiophilism was a lot more fun and satisfying then. It was all about what sounded good and real to you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark haflich /forum/post/19032200
thanks for the correction and fill in. You younger guys have a much better memory than I have these days. We know so much less theory then and for whatever the reaon the sport of audiophilism was a lot more fun and satisfying then. It was all about what sounded good and real to you.
It was more fun back then! I seems like there was much more to choose from and any good sized city or college town had multiple stores to shop in. It was a time of trial and error and design by empirical reasoning. It's also interesting that the really good stuff form the 70's and early 80's still holds up rather well even today.
It's funny how many speakers companies can be traced back to Acoustic Research either as spin-offs or designers coming form AR or former employees of the spin-offs. Sort of like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for audio. Winslow Burhoe and his EPI "Air Spring Tweeter" with the inverted dome comes to mind.
Boy did that tweeter have an sssssss sibilance. Like the old day male classical announcer sssss sound on on FM radio. In those days it was considered a positive of the EPI speakers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drapp1952 /forum/post/19032199
I spent a couple of paychecks on Bose 901s after lusting after them numerous weekends in a bay area hi-fi store in the late 60's. After a couple of years their "honk" got old and I replaced them with Infinity 2000s that seemed to me to be all right but a bit rough in the upper midrange and low treble that was likely exacerbated by the amplification used - maybe a Dynaco ST400 and Dynaco preamp. I liked listening to my Koss Electrostatic headphones a lot more than the Infinities and those headphones are still sitting in a box in the basement. Then, circa Nixon impeachment hearings, I got Magneplanar Tympani 1-U's - I'd say those were my first "audiophile" speakers, at least as far as midrange performance - and critics more or less said they were primarily midrange speakers. Those lived in storage during a brief college dorm stint and I had them crammed into a Datsun 510 to Chicago, there they were the only thing in my apartment living room along with a mattress and preamp/amp/AR turntable during my med school days. They served well for about 12 years.
Then around 1985 I got a pair of Martin Logan CLS, with an update in the electronics and panels to CLS IIAs around 1992. They got mated with a Velodyne ULD-18 subsequently and RPG room diffusors/abfusors. These still remain the core of my current 2.1 channel system with a Martin Logan Cinema for center channel and four NHTs for surrounds for 7.1. I've given some thought to upgrading to ML surrounds. No doubt, cones have more punch and dynamism but I don't know if I could ever give up that midrange clarity.
Seems like once you get hooked on electrostatics and planar speakers nothing else will do. I've had my affairs with various cones and use them in our HT for their punch. But my 2 channel is planar. I have Apogee's and I haven't found anything I like better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by b curry /forum/post/19032896
Seems like once you get hooked on electrostatics and planar speakers nothing else will do. I've had my affairs with various cones and use them in our HT for their punch. But my 2 channel is planar. I have Apogee's and I haven't found anything I like better.
As I mentioned it's the opposite for me. I flirt with planars, have owned them (Quad ESL 63s) and I've listened to most of the planar offerings over the years. But I keep going back to dynamic speakers for the most satisfying over all experience (to me). My pal has a nice new pair of Martin Logans right now. I love listening to them as a "place to visit" but I wouldn't want to "live there" as it were.
That said, the ribbon speakers, like Maggies and to a degree Apogee, have always struck me as a half-way zone between dynamics and electrostatics.
They have a lot of the transparency and boxless sound of the electrostatics (although maybe not quite as refined as the best electrostatics in some regards) but they also have more body to the sound. I certainly can see the attraction to ribbon speakers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark haflich /forum/post/19032827
Boy did that tweeter have an sssssss sibilance. Like the old day male classical announcer sssss sound on on FM radio. In those days it was considered a positive of the EPI speakers.
Yes it did. But it was a step up the ladder compared to what was available at the time.
It maybe difficult for some of the younger guys to relate to but some of the best "audiophile" sound came from Monaural Hi-Fi or monophonic sound reproduction; Mono for short or single channel, in the 60's through the early 70's. Stereo 2 channel then was a bit like Blu-ray today. Not as wide spread in user base, quality of recordings and pressings was all over the map, and it was expensive as you essentially had to have twice as much equipment as mono had. Mono recording was "mature" and would often present a better sound stage compared to the stereo offering of the same artist.
Witness the recent re-issue of the Beatles catalog on CD in mono. I still have Beatles, Cream, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin , Yardbirds, etc. on mono vinyl. They don't have the ping-pong recording technique with weak vocals on top of drums in one channel and every thing else squeezed into the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by R Harkness /forum/post/19033104
As I mentioned it's the opposite for me. I flirt with planars, have owned them (Quad ESL 63s) and I've listened to most of the planar offerings over the years. But I keep going back to dynamic speakers for the most satisfying over all experience (to me). My pal has a nice new pair of Martin Logans right now. I love listening to them as a "place to visit" but I wouldn't want to "live there" as it were.
That said, the ribbon speakers, like Maggies and to a degree Apogee, have always struck me as a half-way zone between dynamics and electrostatics.
They have a lot of the transparency and boxless sound of the electrostatics (although maybe not quite as refined as the best electrostatics in some regards) but they also have more body to the sound. I certainly can see the attraction to ribbon speakers.
This is a fun thread, as some have said, brings back a lot of memories. Not sure if they were 'audiophile' speakers, but my first 'real' speakers were Advent Legacy's driving by Luxman equipment (early 80's). Those were the simple days of audio and a lot of fun.
Without googling I will attempt to answer many of the questions.
Dimensional Purity-Vandersteen Audio
Telarc used ATC speakers I think
Abbey -- used B&W speakers. maybe 801s or 800`s? could also have used Kefs in those days
Lucas used M&Ks-the pro division I think
Bud Fried was a famous speaker designer. looking at some realold literature from the 70s, he designed a transmission line loudspeaker for some company, IMF? And he beieve in series xovers.
Stewart Hegeman did lots of electronic things. He among other things built a modular preamp that did its amplification in the current mode, converting voltage to amps and then back again because it was cleaner. Krell copied him I think claiming it some marvellous technique on their own. hegeman did many other audio related things. the preamp cpst about $2500 with all modules. Stewart did not believe much in phase aspects. One of the blocks was a filter placed before the preamp gain module to filter out frequencies below 20HZ and above 20Khz.
john bau was the spica speaker designer. He used his own computer programs to desinn the xovers.
mike wright was known for electrostatic speakers using a bag filled with gas as part of the design. he alsomanufactured a speaker that looked a lot like a spica and he also designed a contact cleaner enhancer that Sumiko marketed for many years. sumiko called it Tweek or something like that.
arthur jensen designed electrostatic pasnels and electrostativ speakers using multiple small electrostatic panels. wison used these in his Wham.
After googling, Ii discoved this list of questions was lifted from some forum in 2007 with many answers appearing there, some different from the answers I gave.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark haflich /forum/post/19035622
after googlin i discoved this list of questions was lifted from some forum in 2007 with many ansers appearing there,some different from the answers I gave.
Yes, I used that quiz and added a few. Certainly no secrets, especially if you google. What I find interesting about the correct answers is that they point out how small the world of audio is.
The business model for successful people in the industry seems to be to start a company around a good idea or the evolution of an existing design or circuit topology, bring it to market, generate cash flow, sell the company to a corporation who end up running the business into the ground, and repeat.
For instance the woofer section for the Dahlquist DQ-10 is the same driver that was used in the Larger Advent. In fact if you look at the woofer section of the DQ-10, it's a Larger Advent turned on its side with the midrange and high frequency drivers mounted on top, dipole configuration. The dipole configuration and overall cosmetics of the DQ-10 emulate the QUAD ESL 57. Dahlquists brilliance was to use common, low cost, off the shelf components that sounded good and add time alignment to the drivers. The result was a legendary speaker that has direct influence on many of the speakers we buy today.
My first real speakers were when I swapped out my White Van speakers for a pair of Bang & Olufsen RL60s.
I remember at one point I disassembled the White Van speakers and while doing so poked a hole in the woofer with the screw driver. There was no impact on the sound quality
Somehow I turned a profit on the White Van speakers selling them to a fraternity. They had metal grills to protect against the random thrown beer bottle...
Move aside youngsters. My first audiophile speaker was an Acoustic Research AR-2, purchased in 1957 for the princely sum of $89 (that got you a cabinet in unfinished pine; I "finished" my speaker by wrapping the cabinet in black Contac paper, which made for a rather handsome appearance).
AR and its offshoot rival KLH were just beginning to make a splash in the high-fidelity world. A few years later (1959) they would be boosted to more prominence by a seminal Consumer Reports test of loudspeakers (back then CR actually did credible audio testing). CR found only four loudspeakers worthy of being called "high-fidelity" - the AR-1, AR-2, KLH-4. and KLH-6. They dissed such big name brands as University, Bozak, Electro-Voice, Jensen, Hartley, James B. Lansing. Needless to say, the report caused an uproar in the speaker industry, but it put AR and KLH on the map.
Of course $89 was a lot of money back then for a struggling college student. This speaker was for my first real "high-fidelity" system - a mono system. The buzz about that newfangled stereo thing was just beginning to take hold among audio hobbyists (can you believe that when stereo was first introduced in the mass market, the salesmen called the second channel speaker a "slave" unit).
That system got me started in a hobby that has gone on for 50+ years. Spent tons too much money, but had a ball all the way. Still an audiophile, but very happy with what I have, and don't plan to buy much more.
Its been a long time I've been thanked for anything here at AVS other than for fomenting trouble and trying to get rid of DW (as you know, he gets reincarnated, but oh well).
I've been thinkin' that this is a real fun thread, going back years ago when many of us had little $$, some of us were in college, and a system costing under or a bit more than grand sure gave us a great deal of enjoyment! In law school, a friend would bring over his classical records and say that my stereo was so outstanding that it talked to us. My good ol Infinity 2000 II speakers, Pioneer turntable, and Pioneer SX-1010 receiver. I drove that receiver so hard that after a year of law school, when it was less than 2 years old but out of warranty, it crapped out on me, and a local stereo repair place fixed it, but had to put in a larger heat sink and the repairs were not cheap at all. I remember living on Washington Circle in law school, studying with my stereo on LOUD playing the Rolling Stones, and a few of the homeless folks from the park across the street would come knock on our door wanting to come in, drink beer and listen to loud music. But I only allowed the local cop to do that!
Spica TC-50's and a Vandersteen sub, powered by a Musical Fidelity B-1 (35 watts per channel ).........I think that falls way short of $20,000+, or you could just say you'd have $19, 450.00 left over...
KG
PS mite as well throw in the Teac X-1000R R2R, and the Denon DP 62L TT mid 80's
It was Saul Marantz who was best friends with Jon. I met Saul shortly before he died. He was the front panel designer for an electronics line that some ex Dahlquest people and John Curl were staring to start up. I was John Curls lawyer for his contract of employment with the company. A stock market crash that year killed off raising the venture capital the company needed to get rolling. John Curl and Brian Cheny, Mr. VMPS, shared work space together I believe back then. I first met John when I did some work for the Dennesen Electrostatic Company which garnered fame with the Dennesen Cartridge Alignment Protractors, an air bearing tonearm, and the JC-80, a preamp designed by Peter Madnick and John Curl with a little power supply assistance from me based on some work I did with Stan Warren from the original PS Audio days. It had to do with utilizing oversized transformers to reduce primary impedence which increased the recharge or refresh frequency. John and I would fight about this incessently. John finally in later years came around to the concept of over designed power supplies. John in those days was a pioneer in utiling J fets in a very tight surface area design. We played around with various caps based on the seminal article on caps written by Richard Marsh and published in two parts in the now defunct Audio Magazone. Frank Dennison died a few years back. Those were the good old days but my legal career and starting an audio store (not trolling, maybe I should throw in a meraningless graph, say of a DC voltage with no ripple),so I am not accused of trolling) kept me away from circuit design. I did some work on turntable and tone arm design for a while with my friend Herb Pappier of Wheaton Triplanar fame, long dead now too.herb lived only a few miles from me and many nights he would call me at 3 AM to tell me about another fantastic minor change he made in his arm design and that I should come right over to hear the unbelievable improvement. I would beg Herb to give up on balsa wood for the arm tube arguing for a rigid metal tube with increased thickness in the middle (cigar shaped)and damping to get rid of the ringing caused by a metal tube. After many years, Herb gave in to me on the metal part. John and Peter remain good friends of mine. Brian, I haven`t seen often in recent years. but he is a genius.
I have many stories from those days of being a young man but they will await another day.
Rich. I don`t do pictures, I have to ask a friend or an employee to post them for me. And most of this stuff, I no longer have so pictures would have to be found on the net and then reposted. And this was so long ago, maybe it didn`t happen but just is a fading dream. I am not taking this growing old very well anymore. Technology is passing me by.
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