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I always wondered why companies stopped making lowboy style speakers .
Follow Ups:
...Star Trek looking silver mesh grille cloth with sparkles. Like on the front of the old Fender Twin Reverb amps...
Too cool for school.
shrunken musicians?
:D
It's all really just a matter of getting the axis right for the listener. Low boy, high boy, whatever.
Minimonitors don't create the illusion of teeny little musicians.
A well done, well aimed low boy should be just fine.
Plus, I guess we should discuss what constitutes a low boy!
Altec 19?
Rectilinear III?
Here are a couple of Bozaks in a 'lowboy' type of enclosure. Most manufacturers made some version in a lowboy style, including Altec and JBL.
so long as the speaker is capable of producing a convincing image size. The concert halls I attend create images far taller than the U-1s.
Minimonitors don't create the illusion of teeny little musicians.
Just very distant ones. I have some mini-monitors in the HT.
A well done, well aimed low boy should be just fine.
If you don't object to listening down to the apparent soundstage.
Rectilinear III?
That is a good example.
This was my one of my objections when I owned Dahlquist DQ-10 's and Quad ESL 57 's. I didn't like the balcony seat perspective they both gave.
Stands solved that issue.
You could just buy a bean bag chair - that might have worked too. Where is the hippie spirit? ;)
You make a good point. I indulged in plenty of hippie spirit back then, and frequently ended up on the floor, but not in a bean bag chair. [smiley thing goes here]
(I've heard both) do a more convincing job to me. Live music is not "small"!
I don't think I could have afforded the amplification necessary to drive four Dahlquists!
to a guy with an SP-4a and two D-100s when I worked for a shop in the late 70s. Unfortunately, you couldn't get far enough away for the speakers to blend optimally in his room. A small image, however, they did not have.
JWC and I traveled to a small town in Georgia to visit a toilet magnate - no fooling - and hear his HQD system. Four ML-2s driving the Quads, Decca tweeters and a Hartley 18" sub. Preferred the good doctor's Dayton-Wrights.
The only TAS'er who liked the Ortofon m/c I had (the model number escapes me). HP and PHD found it horribly bright, and suspected JWC's Dayton-Wrights weren't allowing him to hear it. It worked well with my Supex step-up transformer, and had it been bright, that DQ-10 piezoelectric tweeter sure would have let me know it. Not much talk about proper cartridge loading back then, as I recall.
The Dayton-Wrights...Another power hungry monster. I actually put a deposit down on a pair when I was about twenty years old. I got my money back when I had it explained to me why I couldn't drive them with a 70 wpc Harmon-Kardon receiver. The damn spec sheet said 50 wpc minimum, so I thought I was good to go!
Well those flawed but innovative beasts sounded their best when driven by the primary of the transformers
Mind you you needed bridged A75 ER's to do it-- but wonderous sound!
Ah the smell of Sulphur Hexaflouride in the morning--Ha!
Des
What did the dayton wrights look like?
I heard the rectilinear III's were a laidback speaker. Were they?
Plenty of pics there--XG8's-- laid back?-- a a little--no one had devised an Amp stable enough to drive them to potential.Des
Edits: 05/09/12
for a while. I used it with the Ortofon SUT and didn't find that combo was overly bright. A Sonus Blue replaced it.
I couldn't drive them with a 70 wpc Harmon-Kardon receiver.
The biggest issue was its nasty reactive load. The shop I worked for eventually picked up the line. The rep recommended using a Dunlap-Clarke amp with them. Bit of trivia here - the rep was Dan D'Agostino!
Then Nelson Pass released the 800A which was a great match for them. In fact, they were specifically designed to drive D-Ws. Pass used to demo his amps with double Daytons!
I later bought a Stasis 3 to drive Acoustats. Still have the amp 31 years later.
The SL15E. Thanks. I remember my dealer (Stereo Emporium in Buffalo NY) demoing it with the Ortofon SUT, then switching to the Supex SUT. I went with the Supex, which I still have. I loved the cartridge, but UPS lost it when it went back for a re-tip. My non-audiophile friends said I was nuts for spending $125 on a cartridge. How times (and prices!) have changed.
The Canadian Dayton Wright dealer really should have explained to me that my HK receiver wouldn't handle the load the speakers presented. They were nice enough to give me back my deposit when I asked for it though.
I remember the name Dunlap-Clarke, but don't recall ever hearing one. Interesting about Dan D'Agostino selling them!
I still have my SAE IVDM (a pre-Ampzilla James Bongiorno design) 36 years later too. An engineer I work with gave me his wife's Infinity 7 Kappa speakers, and I've thought about rehabbing the SAE (new caps, etc.) but don't want to invest in it if it's still going to sound as harsh as I remember it.
Stereo Emporium. On Delaware Ave, I believe. I am originally from Grand Island as was fellow AAer DTB300. The stuff there in the late 70s was killer. They had fine equipment for every budget.
Deleware Ave., you are correct.
Transcendental Audio was my first experience with high-end, but the attitude was decidedly cool towards a broke college student.
Emporium, on the other hand, was as helpful as you wanted them to be, but never (in my experience) pushy. Occasionally, I used to hang there on my day off, playing records for myself and other customers who might walk into the listening room. More than a few times I'd be talking to someone for fifteen minutes, playing this speaker or that amp for them. Eventually they'd ask, "How much can I get a pair of those speakers for?" and I'd reply "I dunno, you're going to have to ask somebody who works here."
...with the Ortofon SUT, and I never thought it was bright, either. In fact, it was one of my favorites and I used it through much of the 70's --it was part of many good memories involving several liberal coeds, too.
I happened across the paperwork some years ago, while trying to answer a question for a guy over on Vinyl. I couldn't believe the low the output it had, 0.015 mV.
My Denon 103R, Dynavector DV-20XL and my Zu 103R all have an output of 0.3mV. I had no idea the Ortofon was so low, but it seemed to work just fine with the SUT's we used.
I think I've done enough thread stealing of this man's lowboy question!
The Dunlap-Clarke amp was quite forgettable. It was powerful and could drive the speaker, but sounded like a Crown.
Bongioro, you say! The good doctor drove his Daytons with an Ampzilla for some time.
I've thought about rehabbing the SAE (new caps, etc.)
SAE stuff sure was cool looking though, especially the nixie tubes. I replaced the big Mallory PS caps in the Stasis a couple of years back. It gets daily use in the garage system.
it would have taken just two hafler 500s. that would sound good even today. just add one or two JL Labs subs.
...regards...tr
The Haflers would have worked. I was using an SAE IVDM (100 wpc) with mine, which worked OK. The SAE was the baby brother of another SAE, which Absolute Sound recommended. Same circuit, but half the power.
When I found out how much better tube amps sounded, I started looking for another speaker.
big tube power would be wonderful with the dq10s such as 400wpc VTLs or 200wpc ARCs. then the price is beginning to be out of reach.
...regards...tr
I'd have liked to hear them with that much tube power. That was way out of my league though. The cronic unemployment situation in Buffalo made those toys impossible for me to consider.
And for the record, no, I'm not anti solid state. But this was the mid to late 1970's, and in my estimation, transistor amps have improved greatly. A guy loaned me his Bryston amp once, around 1988, and it made the SAE sound nasty (on the DQ-10's) by comparrison.
Try finding a console TV or stereo these days. (And I've heard a lot of people, particularly older folks, express frustration they can't buy a new one.)
I think they were cool.
It's not like they couldn't successfully be made now.
Throw a couple of those babies in the room with a sofa in the middle as an audio tweak and you get a real stealth Hi Fi effect sitting in the listening recliner!
Hey Enophile - I have that poster framed in my family room, with the Maxell logo/info at the bottom. Classic!!:)
Edit: Oops! Forgot that I replied already the other day! Sorry!
Edits: 05/05/12
Ha! I have that poster framed!
:)
"It's not like they couldn't successfully be made now."
Indeed, much more is understood now about controlling directivity than when lowboys were in style. For instance one could use a horn with an asymetric pattern to project mids and highs with an upwards tilt. If you don't like horns call the devices "waveguides".
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