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NAME SOME RARE AUDIO ITEMS THAT DID NOT TAKE OFF BUT SHOULD HAVE & WHY.HERE'S MY LIST

I thought that this would be a good one to post, since I am a new member and hopefully it will be interesting and give some background.

 First off let me say that I first became fascinated with audio as a pre-teen.A relative of mine called me over.His brother was in the service overseas and he was able to get both he and my relative a great deal on some brand new stereo equipment at favorable country of origin prices..He turned it on and I didn't even know what it was.I had heard a few stereo rigs before.The ones where the speakers fold out on hinges and revealed the record player and the amp inside the box.But this was something completely different.Each piece was separate.It sounded like the floor was moving.Voices sounded like they were in the room.I didn't know what to make of it.Very impressed and intrigued.My first job was only a temporary summer job but I did make enough money to make my first major purchase; a component stereo.A Sherwood receiver,a turntable and a pair of (2 tone grill) Jensen Speakers.Had a nice few months listening and eventually traded it in for a Yamaha guitar.I wanted to become involved with the music,not just listening.To this day I have musical instruments around the house; it helps me in my modding stereo equipment.It helps to know exactly what sounds a guitar,banjo,sax really make and just as importantly what sounds they don't make.My first true high end speaker was the Goetz Systems GMS 1.They were a beautiful floorstanding speaker which looked similar to the KLH Scxa.Perhaps KLH's  most exotic offering ever along with the model 9 panel speakers.The Goetz were not well known.A beautiful 3 way made in Georgia with beautiful imaging & a beautiful crossover which made them sound effortless on conveying transient detail.They did some shows,took out some display ads in the old Audio magazine,but never quite made it in the market.One of their dealers put in some line ads for them,proclaiming them "Speakers made by Hillbillies".That might be what did it.I heard a Koetsu cartridge for the first time through the Goetz,and I Don't think I will ever forget that wonderful experience.Many people liked them better than the Thiel,Celestion,Spica models of that era (early 1980's).Goetz later came out with pre and power amps which through the grapevine might have easily been the best sounding SS amps on the market,but the market was not there for them.These are among the rarer items out there.I have never seen Goetz on ebay or Craigslist.

 Another item from around the same era (a few years earlier)that was really interesting were Watson Labs speakers.The model 7 through 10 had separate cabinets for the woofers & the cabinets were filled with lighter than air hexaflouride gas.Their bass speed,authority and definition surpassed even transmission line speakers like IMF,and from my still vivid memory they would still be a marvel in that way today.They were designed by Dayton Wright,(actually same company)and they might have been the first speaker with dynamic drivers and an open baffle dipole arrangement that reminded you of the clarity of good electrostatics.The local dealer for a long time demo-ed them alongside Dahlquist DQ10's,and they sounded better in every way to the DQ10,which were a really good speaker themselves.Mike Wright the owner,stopped production and the company after a few years when Audax stopped making the tweeter they used.I have never seen Watson Labs for sale used on ebay or Craigslist.Don't know if deterioration factors would make them worth seeking out,but their sound was something I had never experienced before and will always remember. It would be interesting to know if their bass modules still retained the hexaflouride lighter than air gas after all these years.

Mod Squad phono cartridge tiptoes.Circa early 1980's.This was a flat black thin piece and on the top it had 3 sunk in b b size balls,made of what looked like ping pong ball material which made contact on the three points against your headshell with the cartridge underneath it.This amazing gizmo actually made my dismally tracking moving coil track like a champ.The sound was incredibly faster,cleaner,clearer and more open.Wish someone still made it.Tiptoes for your cartridge.I used too much torque on the cartridge screws one day and one of the b b size ping pong balls caved in giving it an uneven tilt and made it unuseable.

Finyl CD spray.Really liked the stuff .Unplayable scratched cds would start playing again with improved sonics.

Eon pod LP disc clamp.A light as a feather plastic clamp that exerted downward pressure on the record label by gripping the spindle and lunar module type feet putting pressure on the record label.Impressively better transients and detail.Was made in Canada.
 
What's on your list?

 

supertweak

Showing 2 responses by trelja

trelja
3,223 posts
 
Transmission line loading actually has far more impact on midrange than bass. But traditionally, folks have concentrated on low frequency performance, considering it the sexiest part of loudspeaker design.

The very many posts on amplifier distortion in these threads come across as splitting hairs when compared with loudspeaker distortion. Listen to any ported loudspeaker back to back with a true transmission line, and addition to absence of quality musical reproduction, the amount of hash and trash heard will leave an impact not soon forgotten.

Series crossovers also fall into technology that did not take off, but should have. For whatever reason, folks cannot get their heads around them. Initially, they seem exactly backwards, until you think about how the circuit actually works. The obviously more seamless integration of drivers jumps out as most apparent, as you no longer have a loudspeaker made up of drivers speaking on their own. I find so many loudspeakers poorly integrate midrange drivers and tweeters (classic example: midrange to ribbon tweeter or cone woofer to a horn driver) due to such inherent variation between the two, which parallel crossovers of almost every loudspeaker ignores. Other factors such as the ease of generating slower or faster roll off into first order crossovers to soften or sharpen the sound parallel networks strictly tethered to 6 dB / octave (or whatever their slope) simply cannot also makes a compelling argument
trelja
3,223 posts
 
@lewm thank you for relaying your experience with the IMFs. I smiled when reading you reacquired your incredible homegrown pair.

Bud (Irving M.) Fried was one of the true pioneers in audio, and a lion of this industry. Doubtless you know, but after WWII, he brought over the Lowthers, then the Quads, the Decca cartridges, introduced companies like Dynaudio, KEF, etc. to North America. They certainly don’t make them like Bud anymore.

I actually became close with Bud, and am blessed that he gave me his own personal loudspeakers a few months before he passed away in 2005. They are a Valhalla System ** plus ** with standard C satellites with true TL midrange and not the D (8"), but the O (10") subwoofers, and obviously more than a couple of other upgrades. Bud felt more than happy when I talked about TL midrange being much more important than the lows, as many forget he coined the phrase that 85% of the music lies in the midrange.

Anyway, not to understate true TL bass... Other than perhaps the single pair of correctly implemented Ohm A loudspeakers with their 18" full-range drive, the O subwoofers produce some of the most impressive bass I’ve come across, though they sound VERY different. I’ve personally watched more than a few bass freaks come as close as it gets to jumping out of their skins playing the beginning of a Fiona Apple track. Needless to say, that’s a heck of an introduction to TL, and certainly fuels the conversation from there
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