The Rogersound speakers have absolutely no relationship to the famed Rogers speakers from England. Howard Rogers, an extremely nice and caring gentleman from Los Angeles, once owned a chain of audio stores -- Rogersound -- in Southern California that sold apeakers he had designed and which were ostensibly sold factory direct. It has been more than 12 years since I last heard a pair, and my only real memory of them is that they were very efficient with a lot of bass response. Later, several of the Rogersound stores made a significant stab at featuring high-end equipment, such as Martin-Logan and Audio Research. When The Good Guys and Circuit City -- among others -- entered the Los Angeles market with (at the time) extra deep discounts and extremely aggressive advertising, there was no way for Howard to compete and his stores ultimately went out of business.
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Those are not related to the British company Rogers. Rogersound Lab speakers were sold factory direct from Van Nuys, CA as an in-store house brand starting in the early '70's. The 3600 model was a 3-way 12" woofer bookshelf model, the second generation designed to compete with the JBL L-100/4310. It was less colored than the L-100, but not as dynamic or as well-built. Because the L-100's can be bought for $300/pr, I don't think I'd pay more than $200/pr for the 3600, if I liked the sound (I don't). |
Actually, Howard Rogers sold Rogersound Labs to a Japanese company for a nice sum of money (read over a million clams). It was this Japanese company that couldn't compete and went out of business. Howard made off quite nicely! Also, Howard wasn't the one who designed the Rogersound speakers... it was Mike Maloney (of Scientific Fidelity fame). Just thought I'd clear that up. |
Rogersound Labs was very competetive, and had higher dollar volume per square foot than any other retailer in the country. They were very successful. I worked there and it was truly different than any other gig in the country. Howard got offered big bucks to sell the company, and it was not to a Japanese concern...but to investors. Right after that we had the Gulf War which caused biz to dip a little, then Good Guys opened (that's another story if you follow where they are now) and Best Buy which certainly does a lot of biz, even though it's lower end from what RSL did. The purchase was higly leveraged. When business dipped, they could not make the "house payment" What is interesting is that from what I hear from vendors, RSL was the only company to go out of business that did not stick it to any suppliers. Though the company that held the note on the purchase no doubt got boinked. If you go to most retailers, they don't want the customer to sit down. Not a chair in the place. At RSL we were encouraged to hang with the customer when time allowed. Nobody worked on direct commission. So there were salesman that sold very little, but were good at hand holding customer service issues. I had a customer that was so struck when we closed he and his buddy drank a six pack of beer in front of the store after the doors were locked up. I laughed when he told me this, and don't doubt it was true. What was said about Howard Rogers being nice cannot be overstated. He is a special man that was good to a lot of people, and deserves evrything he worked for. I can't say how proud I am to have said that I worked there. |
RSL was a Southern California 'boutique' brand many years ago. Sold my 3600s to fund the purchase of Magnepan MG-1s from which I have not looked back. The 3600's were a reasonable clone of the than popular JBL4311 model. I liked the RSL 3300s better, but the 3600's have the nice dome tweeter. Reasonably sensitive, a little bloomy in bass (ported w/typical peak) with nice extended highs and reasonable power demands. I would use them with an all vintage system, certainly not currently as a first-string speaker. I still own the rack I purchased there...... Good, ethical dealer/ manufacturer. |
I just bought a pair of RSL 3300's for $120. I really like them - Hoping to find a pair of JBL4312/4412's to stack with them. They are pretty efficient so I had to resurrect a Crown DC 300A to be able to back them down a bit from my large Advents with a Nak Stasis PA-7A-2. There are also some time alignment issues so I will likely go back to stacked large Advents until I can find another pair or the JBL's that match |
upscaleaudio ... "Rogersound Labs was very competitive and had a higher dollar volume per square foot than any other retailer in the country. They were very successful. I worked there and it was truly different than any other gig in the country." Did you work with Michael Harvey in the high-end room? Frank |
