[Vintage-Audio] Re Speakers From Yesteryear

Fri Jul 12 23:41:00 2002

Hi Ron, 	

	Pete Fountain, heh? Now there is a talent. Right among my favorites of Floyd
Cramer, Chet Atkins and Boot Randolph. Now mix in some Al Hirt, the Anita Kerr
Quartet and Charlie McCoy on the harmonica and it is downright heavenly. 	

I noticed with sadness, that James B. Lansing was not mentioned. Why? 	

I ran a pair of J.B.  Lansing 8 inch full range for my first system. Built the
bass reflex, ducted port, cabinets from white Birch and hung them from the
cieling angled down to ear level on the couch at the other end of the room.  	

Recently I went speaker listening. I listened to speakers from $600 a pair to
$15,000 for the pair. I listened to solid state and high priced tube amps. I
insisted they run them all flat with no loudness compensation, EQ or other
enhancements. I took my own music to listen to. 	

Truthfully, I came away convinced that the sound from twenty to forty years ago
was superior to what is there now. Some of it is because of better quality
recording in the past, such as RCA Nashville, as opposed to the generic sound of
today. The warmth and depth that used to be there, is not present in todays
systems. 	

What do you now have Ron? What about the James B. Lansings of old?	

Duane W8DBF	

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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Vintage-Audio] Re Speakers From Yesteryear
Date: Friday, July 12, 2002 11:07 PM

Hi Duane,

The answer to your query is. It varied.

I managed the first complete stereo demonstration room in America, complete 
with patch board and the ultimate variety in equipment. Everything from 
Harmon Kardon to McIntosh; Electro-Voice to BIG BIG Bozaks.

After listening for a couple of years I found the ultimate setup to be a 
Thorens turntable with a wooden arm Grado and Grado cartridge fed into a Mac 
C-20 pre-amp, into a Mac M-240 amplifier, feeding a pair of Altec Lansing 
'Voice of the Theater' loudspeakers in raw black plywood (no grill cloth, it 
dampened them too much).  

We had every loudspeaker manufactured in the room and some were quite good. 
Burt, none of them had the presence of the Altecs.

We even had the seven foot high Electro-Voice cabinets with eighteen inch 
woofers I think they called them the "Princess," but, the response was too 
soft and rubbery to properly reproduce crisp guitar and piano.

We used to play the 1812 overture a lot, but my favorite listening music was 
the Oscar Peterson Trio, with a little Pete Fountain thrown in from time to 
time.

Ah, those were the days. Ya got me droolin' again, Duane.

CUL es 73 de Ron K  --  W1ARS
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