Old school stereo

NW-Bound said:
Found some more tidbits. The history behind these speakers goes back more than 70 years.

Acoustic Research (AR) was founded by Ed Villchur and Henry Kloss in 1954. The primary basis for the company was Villchur’s patent for the acoustic suspension woofer. Villchur also later patented the dome tweeter. In 1957 Kloss left AR and using a license from AR founded speaker manufacturer KLH along with two other former AR stock holders (Low and Hofmann). KLH was sold to Singer Inc in 1964 and AR was sold to Teledyne in 1967.

Kloss left KLH in 1967 to form a company (Advent) for the purposes of marketing an affordable, high quality projection TV. In need of funds for R & D, in 1969 he designed what became the best selling Advent Loudspeaker.
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Very interesting...Thanks for the insight. I knew some of that but most it was informed hear-say.
 
NW-Bound said:
Hmm... Never knew of the LST2, nor the original LST. I did know about Altec Lansing ginormous speakers though. But before one even entertains the idea of acquiring one, he must first upgrade his dwelling to have a listening room of 500-1000 sq.ft., and with cathedral ceiling of 15 ft, carpeted and heavy drapes on the walls for sound absorbing.

Anyway, about the acoustic suspension design, any Joe Blow can duplicate the AR3a now, even in his garage. Why not build a pair yourself? Ronstar can build a beautiful speaker enclosure that puts these speaker makers to shame. And I am sure you can study and find the right drivers to mount in that custom speaker cabinet.

By the way, as a kid I had a book authored by the founder of Wharfedale. He talked of a speaker cabinet with a double wall. In between is a sand fill to dampen vibrations. The alternative was to line the interior wall with corrugated lead sheets! He also talked of building permanent speaker enclosures with bricks. I guess back in those days, they did not have heavy composition boards.

And my lowly Mordaunt-Short tower speakers have a false bottom, with a fill cap in the rear. The idea is the owner can fill that compartment with sand for sound deadening. I think it takes 1/3 cu. ft. I have not done that. :)

So, these British guys are really into filling speakers with sand, even up into the present time.
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Sand, lead...sounds very bass heavy. I believe more benefit is derived from an equalizer. The Lansing speakers were great...the mid and highs were the absolute best as I recall.
I worked in Medical Acoustics for 37+ years. The speaker of choice was the Electro-voice (SP-8C or 12). These speakers were known for the flat response; and we used no tweeters or mids. We mounted them in Argos corner cabinets and hung them in sound rooms (audiometric booths). All of the frequency response was performed in the control booth. The flat response was pertinent to speech stimuli (testing). The pure tone et al stimuli was calibrated to the individual transducers.
As we age, our ears lose tremendous sensitivity especially to frequencies. Our range at age 10 maybe 70 -21000 Hz; whereas a typical 50 yo is 125 - 13000 Hz. So, much of the high end stereo equipment that provides 50 -300000 Hz provides sounds that most will never hear. On a similar note...many young folks spend thousands of dollars for some great auto stereo equipment; but with the inherent autoing noise, the great S/N ratio becomes muddy. Hence, most will crank up the volume in a small listening car interior and lose much of the sound premium. However the expensive car system is excellent when parked.
 
YellowSubmarine said:
Sand, lead...sounds very bass heavy. I believe more benefit is derived from an equalizer...
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What they were trying to do was dampening out vibrations of the speaker enclosure walls. This colors the sound. Modern speakers are made with high-density fiberboard that is an excellent material for the purpose. The speaker makers did not have access to this 70 years ago. Of course, the standing waves inside the enclosure still need to be dampened out using a fiber blanket no matter what material is used for the walls.

About hearing loss, I never had an accurate hearing test. However, I think I am not doing badly because I can hear my mother-in-law hearing aid whistling from 30 ft away, when it goes into feedback because she does not insert it correctly. What's amazing is that it does not bother her at all with the thing screaming in her ears, and she could be oblivious to it for hours if my wife did not help her to correct it. Makes me wonder what she really can hear.

I was also able to tell the highs were lacking from one of my speakers, opened it up and found the crossover having a failing cap as mentioned in an earlier post. But, but, but as I hooked up the signal generator to check the crossover, I decided to give myself an unscientific hearing test by hooking the generator directly to the tweeter and varied the frequency to see what I could hear.

As can be expected, my perception of loudness dropped as the frequency was increased, but what was interesting was that past 9.5 kHz, the sound loudness fell off a cliff, such that at 10.5 kHz, I did not really hear anything.
 
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/clip/ As we age, our ears lose tremendous sensitivity especially to frequencies. Our range at age 10 maybe 70 -21000 Hz; whereas a typical 50 yo is 125 - 13000 Hz.


LOL, reminds me of the device I heard about in the UK... high pitch so only the kids would hear it and keep them from loitering in front of your store...

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The Mosquito anti-loitering device. A safe, benign way of preventing anti-social behavior before it starts. Don't suffer in silence, install a Mosquito tod
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ls99 said:
Seems men loose the frequency range of women's voices somwhere around age 50.
Maybe it is just old wives tale.
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There is something to it. I had more difficulty hearing my wife's voice than anyone else's. She had spent her whole life deliberately talking softly, and couldn't break the habit just for me. That's what finally led me to get hearing aids.
 
If all you are going to do is listen to vinyl records you just need an integrated amplifier (power amp with pre-amp), a turntable, and speakers. If you want radio, CD player, tape, etc. it is more convenient to buy a receiver and the additional components for each format. There is nothing in my area that has anything worth listening to on AM or FM radio but it is built into the receiver which has the plug ins for the other components.
I have a 20 year old Harmon/Kardon receiver with a turntable and my older Pioneer and Coral speakers from the late 60s. It is good enough for me to listen to my late 60s and early 70s records occasionally and a few re-released albums on CD. Once disco got big I lost interest in most rock music.
 
My dad had an old, old, Marantz system with all the bells and whistles. When my dad passed away my youngest brother got it. He said he was going to keep it forever but was looking into seeing just how much it was worth. Haven't heard anything from him yet. :)
 
What is the best place to sell older stuff?
 
YellowSubmarine said:
As we age, our ears lose tremendous sensitivity especially to frequencies. Our range at age 10 maybe 70 -21000 Hz; whereas a typical 50 yo is 125 - 13000 Hz. So, much of the high end stereo equipment that provides 50 -300000 Hz provides sounds that most will never hear.
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I'm not too sure about this, at least not in my case. When I bought my 5.1 stereo setup a couple of years ago, the subwoofer manufacturer, Hsu Research, included a CD with test tones on it. I could easily hear down to 25 Hz and I also hear (and feel) 20 Hz, as could my house. LOL. My upper range crapped out at around 12,000 Hz.
 
YellowSubmarine said:
By that, you are saying that the 60 Hz transformer noise is prevalent in your daily listening experience. Honestly, you may feel low frequencies, but I never heard of anyone, at any age capable of hearing 25 Hz.
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What am I hearing if the test disc says 25 Hz, it plays for 20 seconds and I can hear it?

Also, when it gets to 20 Hz. I have wine glasses hanging upside down in a wine glass holder that vibrate against each other when I play the test disc.

YellowSubmarine said:
Many physiological functions are in the audio band...it would drive me crazy if I was to hear my heart beat or respiration functions. I will verify my convictions; after all it's been near 50 years for classroom orientation to that aspect.
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Qs Laptop said:
What am I hearing if the test disc says 25 Hz, it plays for 20 seconds and I can hear it?

Also, when it gets to 20 Hz. I have wine glasses hanging upside down in a wine glass holder that vibrate against each other when I play the test disc.
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I did delete my reply as AI has some contradictory information to mine. In my acoustic lab, our signal generator produced those low frequencies. As I recall, I always felt it well before I could hear it (if I even heard it). All ears are different; and you have some sensitive ears.
 
IMG_7951.jpeg
Made a wood top shelf for the rack. Got the receiver a couple days ago. Remote doesn’t work - Denon is sending me a new one. I hooked it up to my router with an Ethernet cable, played some streaming radio station- sounded great. Downloaded the Denon HEOS app. Haven’t played with that yet. Got the turntable yesterday, and went to a record store today. Bought Eagles greatest hits and Frampton Comes Alive. 2 albums I had many moons ago but lost in a house explosion. Everything running great, but I can’t crank it up because MIL is asleep. At 5 pm. Next up, Hook up existing in wall/ceiling speakers in various rooms. Then Bluetooth speakers for my office. And get my Apple Music streaming.
 
All that remains to my stereo system...Technics turntable and CD changer. I had this rack system since 1979 but sold off most of the gear. This is kept off line in the loft. It needs a new home.
1783036313009.jpeg
 
I had an SL-Q2 Technics that looked just like that. What a dependable workhorse. I passed it along to a very happy 20+ year old that was planning to get into the vinyl hobby.
 
Pointby2 said:
View attachment 64676
$100 bucks with a new belt.
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Nice, I actually purchased mine at a garage sale 15 years ago. Prior to that I had the manual Acoustic Research XA turntable...that too was a real workhorse but required active, manual involvement after each record side. It was more suited for dance halls and radio stations.
I gotten lazy about placing Lps on the table as all of my music has been A/D converted on to 35 DVDs. I store it on a dedicated 1 TB hard drive as well and create 16 gb USB drives for pool, travel, parties and friends. Collection contains everything from Robert Johnson to Taylor Swift. I also need to unload three large boxes of Lps as I have not visited them for five years or so.
 
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I have to sit down to count mentally. Between 2 homes, I have 8 receivers, 4 pairs of floor-standing speakers, 5 pairs of bookshelf speakers, 3 subwoofers. I also counted 2 cassette players, 1 turntable, several DVD/CD players. Three of the floor-standing speaker pairs and 2 of the receivers are vintage with a wood enclosure.

None of the equipment is really expensive. I just don't throw anything away.
 
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NW-Bound said:
I have to sit down to count mentally. Between 2 homes, I have 8 receivers, 4 pairs of floor-standing speakers, 5 pairs of bookshelf speakers, 3 subwoofers. I also counted 2 cassette players, 1 turntable, several DVD/CD players. Three of the floor-standing speaker pairs and 2 of the receivers are vintage with a wood enclosure.

None of the equipment is really expensive. I just don't throw anything away.
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One house. 2 channel (Adcom GFA 545II) stereo power amplifier, a preamplifier/tuner (Adcom GTP 400) combo, a 1977 vintage Kenwood (KT 5300) silver faced tuner, a cheap Sony 5-disc CD player, 2 floor standing (Snell EIII) speakers, one center channel (Snell CC) speaker, a 3-channel (Adcom GSA 700) surround sound processor /power amplifier.
In the garage/shop: old cheap Sony receiver, 2 cheap (Bose101) speakers, 2 Wharfedale (low end) speakers, 1 Kenwood silver face tuner (same 1977 as in house) and a cheap Sony 5-disc Cd player. Also purchased a nice vintage Kenwood KA5500 stereo integrated amp on FB for $75 that is in great shape that for now is just sitting there, not attached to any music system.
If left to my own devices and with no argument from DW, I am certain I would have a few larger floor standing (Snell B minor for example) speakers as well as an amplifier or 2. :)
No vinyl collection and so no turntable required. Last had vinyl and turntable at least 30 years ago.
 
I am now at my high-country home at 7000' elevation, listening to "The Green Leaves of Summer", turning on loud. I am looking for "Greenfields" now. It's the right music for a summer day, looking out a sun-drenched deck down the hill below, sitting in the house still cool from the night before, sipping a spritz.

How can one live without music?
 
NW-Bound said:
I am now at my high-country home at 7000' elevation, listening to "The Green Leaves of Summer", turning on loud. I am looking for "Greenfields" now. It's the right music for a summer day, looking out a sun-drenched deck down the hill below, sitting in the house still cool from the night before, sipping a spritz.

How can one live without music?
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I can't and luckily DW is a huge music fan as well. We have been to many great concerts together over the years. I am out in the front right now rebuilding my porch, cranking up Earle Baileys Deep Tracks on Sirius XM. We have music playing in the house all day most days.
 
NW-Bound said:
I have to sit down to count mentally. Between 2 homes, I have 8 receivers, 4 pairs of floor-standing speakers, 5 pairs of bookshelf speakers, 3 subwoofers. I also counted 2 cassette players, 1 turntable, several DVD/CD players. Three of the floor-standing speaker pairs and 2 of the receivers are vintage with a wood enclosure.

None of the equipment is really expensive. I just don't throw anything away.
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finnski1 said:
One house. 2 channel (Adcom GFA 545II) stereo power amplifier, a preamplifier/tuner (Adcom GTP 400) combo, a 1977 vintage Kenwood (KT 5300) silver faced tuner, a cheap Sony 5-disc CD player, 2 floor standing (Snell EIII) speakers, one center channel (Snell CC) speaker, a 3-channel (Adcom GSA 700) surround sound processor /power amplifier.
In the garage/shop: old cheap Sony receiver, 2 cheap (Bose101) speakers, 2 Wharfedale (low end) speakers, 1 Kenwood silver face tuner (same 1977 as in house) and a cheap Sony 5-disc Cd player. Also purchased a nice vintage Kenwood KA5500 stereo integrated amp on FB for $75 that is in great shape that for now is just sitting there, not attached to any music system.
If left to my own devices and with no argument from DW, I am certain I would have a few larger floor standing (Snell B minor for example) speakers as well as an amplifier or 2. :)
No vinyl collection and so no turntable required. Last had vinyl and turntable at least 30 years ago.
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Geesh you guys are audio equipment hoarders. But in a good way!
 
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