[Vintage-Audio] H.H. Scott Rocks With Paradigm Monitor 9!

[vintage-audio@mailman.qth.net]

Gee, Bob,

It's been a long time since I heard this kind of talk. 

Way back when STEREO was in its' infancy, I managed an audio room in 
Anchorage Alaska named EFFCO Electronics.

It was financed by a German Zillionaire who loved good electronically 
produced music. We had one of the first full fledged acoustically designed 
and built sound rooms in the country [if you can consider Alaska at that time 
(before statehood) as part of the country].

We used to import Bozak loudspeakers, in Bozak cabinets and out of them. We 
had an expert German cabinet maker build cabinets bigger and better than 
Bozak. I remember when I had a very large system designed for a custom 
Hammond organ. The Hammond is capable of extraordinary range, but you need 
the harmonic range. You really notice it when you try to record, or, playback 
recordings of the Hammond. Much different from the ordinary electronic organ.

I also worked with Doug Duke, the first jazzman to use a Hammond. He was 
white, but so good that Lionel Hampton featured him with his all black band. 
I built Duke a special modified Hammond, dubbed "The Coffin" by BS Pulley of 
"Guys and Dolls" (Broadway version). Then we had the "Duketron", a Hammond 
with an added piano keyboard and sound board. Wow, what he could do on that.

But I'm digressing from my original topic. I used to listen for 'presence' in 
a sound system. I would imagine that I was listening to a live performance 
with one, two, three, or, for scrims between me and the music. Extraordinary 
sound was NO scrims. Only one system ever came close. A Thorens turntable, 
fitted with a Grado arm and cartridge, feeding a McIntosh C-20 preamp into a 
McIntosh Mc-240 Amp, which delivered that wonderfully clean power to a pair 
of Black Altec Lansing 'Voice of the Theater' loudspeakers. I mention 
'BLACK', because if you bought the speakers finished and covered with grill 
cloth, you lost quite a bit of the presence.

I can't remember the name of them now, but we also had those big, six foot 
high speakers with the thirty (30) inch woofers in them. They could even come 
close. 

Today, everything is geared to the new 'you've gotta feel em' school. My 
first experience with them was in an RCA console with 75 watts of audio. They 
caused the floor to shake, but they were very definitely not "full range".

Well, my memory is dim to day, and so is my hearing, but you have brought 
back some very fond memories of pianos that sounded like pianos, guitars 
where you could hear the fingers sliding on the strings, drums that both 
rumbled with cymbals that tinkled and artists who knew ow to use the dynamics 
of sound. Boy, it was great!

As Bob Hope used to say, "Thanks for the memories"..................

73 de Ron K  --  W1ARS


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