Loudspeakers
Way back in 1957 my half brother Louis had built a Briggs' Wharfedale 3-way speaker system. It comprised a W15FS 15 inch foam surround woofer, a W10FSB foam surround 10 inch midrange with a bronze coil winding and a Super 3, a 3 inch cone tweeter with a very thin foam surround and a spider concentric with the inside of the voice coil. By today's standards these were archaic, but I won't delve into their defense here as that can rapidly overwhelm the scope of this page. Suffice it to say that that was the seed that started me on a love affair with loudspeakers that persists to this day. At that time, my Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry never sounded so good. Louis didn't mind my coming over to listen to my music, but I can still hear him say, 'Go easy on the bass." That 9 cubic foot reflex could shake the 7 room duplex on Somerled and Jane & Grace would have been quite upset if their dishes crept off the china cabinet shelves.
Louis also got me interested in jazz, the old stuff, unbeknownst to himself. Of course, that interest in jazz didn't manifest itself until years later. To this day, however, I still have tape recordings made of his and Jimmy's old records. Much to my surprise one day, I discovered remakes of these old recordings at Tower Records, and on CD; all digitally re-mastered from original tapes and wax disks. They sound as of they were just recorded. I compared the CD's to the tapes I have and it's incredible. Some of those recordings were done as early as 1927. Oh, if Louis and Jimmy could only hear them.
I didn't get serious about loudspeaker systems until years after I moved to Arizona. It was here that I met someone who operated a repair shop. Oh. I messed around with loudspeakers in Montreal and New York, but the interest peaked when I attended some monthly meetings in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. The first was interesting, hosted by Dynaco, when they demonstrated their new quadraphonic system. They played Flight of the Bumblebee, and one would swear there was a huge bumblebee flying around the room. The following month, they demonstrated their new 400 watt per channel arc welder. Back in '72, that was considered gross overkill, despite a recent article in a popular magazine asking if a thousand watts was really enough. The action of the crowbar circuit in that brute was demonstrated by turning the preamp to full gain and dropping the phonograph stylus on the record. Everyone gritted their teeth and plugged their ears, but we were amazed to hear - nothing.
The third, and final meeting I attended was given by one Paul Wilbur Klipsch. The name rang a bell from years back and I remembered seeing a picture of the Klipschorn® in an audio magazine and thought nothing more of it except it's different appearance. I won't ramble on any more about that memorable experience here as I have dedicated a special page to Mr. Klipsch and one of the finest loudspeaker designs created. Being practical and with all things considered, they are nothing less than awesome. And, get this, the design was patented in 1941 and was offered for sale just after WWII. To the best of my knowledge, they're still in production.
Briggs' Wharfedale Three Way System
My Room - aka: Chamber of Horrors
Corner Horns - Photos taken during construction
Jensen F12N and C12N comparison
Electro-Voice T350 diaphragm replacement
Electro-Voice T35-T350 analysis
High Frequency Roll-off in Large Speakers
Effect of Volume Change in LF Response
L-Pads, Potentiometers and Resistors - ATTENUATION
Western Electric Field Coil 1923
The above page on the Scott is now listed in the Table of Contents (see below) as this has no direct pertinence to loudspeakers. This link is left here also just in case anyone out there has bookmarked it from this page.
A little on crossovers - Coils, Caps and Tolerances
Effect Of Power Applied To A Loudspeaker Field Coil
Effect of Variations of Theile/Small Parameters
Papyrus and Wood Cones - A Comparison
Two Way System Using Bass Guitar Twelve Incher
On The Linearity Of A Loudspeaker Suspension
DynaVox Line Array & Wharfedale Super 8 and Super3 - A Comparison
A Pair of Sixes - A Comparison
Comparing the T35 and T350 to a Focal Tc90Tdx
Horn Loading the Faital 3FE22 ADDENDUM
University Cobreflex and HF-206 - Used in the Classic and Dean
Thooper Dooper Whizzer - another Walsh variation
Budget Three Way Taming a nasty midrange
A Practical and inexpensive 3-way
A Simpler Version of the Above
I can be found on AudioKarma as klipschorn and Tapeheads as Reevocks