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I looked him up out of curiosity. If nobody remembers he had some kinda radical ideas on speakers. He was into it seem trying to eliminate room acoustics from the sound, as such of course I believe all his speakers were closed systems.
I heard a pair at an audio place and they were good, but expensive. He also had a pair specially made for corners, which makes many speakers boomy. I happened over a guy's house with a buddy for some other deals that did not concern me, a Black guy and they don't all look the same to me so I recognized him as one of my customers. In the TV business back then with some audio I didn't hear from him in a while and that was because he bought a new set. A really good RCA I mean razor sharp. Apparently he was also a bit picky on speakers. I saw them (Allison corner model) and said something, got him to play something on them. DAMN talk about clean bass for being smack dab in the corners, and I mean right in there, not a few feet away like most people have to do to keep from the boomy bass.
In looking I see someone has a pair of his speakers, forgot the model or they didn't say but they are like $2,300. I lucked out and got good speakers for $400 but that was a fluke. These were more and back then I simply could not afford them.
I did buy a set of four speakers made for corners but returned them, they would not handle their rated power and they were enough under eight ohms that four of them made the amp cut out, and that amp "does not cut out".
He was one of the last engineers for AR or somebody until he took off on his own.
So another one bit the dust in 2016, did anyone notice ?
Follow Ups:
Heyser reviewed an Allison speaker in AUDIO Magazine and in the manufacturer's response, Allison vehemently disagreed with the results.
Heyser calmly replied that he would be willing to repeat the measurements in whichever lab and location that Mr. Allison would prefer. that was the end of that.
Heyser was a pioneer and promoter of impulse testing and was one of the first users of MLSSA.
...regards...tr
One way to control room interactions is to limit the speaker placement and design for the placement. That's what Allison did. He was especially interested in a frequency dip a bit above 100 Hz and placed drivers and picked the woofer/mid crossover point to solve for this.You'll get a sense of the sound he was looking for from his demos at shows. I recall 80s CES shows and he mostly played classical music at moderate levels. There was always a sense of calm in his room compared to most rooms trying to grab attention.
For info and sense of bass his speakers were always acoustic suspension, not just closed box(not all closed boxes are acoustic suspension).
Edits: 03/02/21
I remember Allison Acoustics speakers' introduction and the good reviews they received at the time. I am, truly, an old dude!
He was at AR, as another poster mentioned, and struck out on his own.
In the beginning, there were four models. Models One and Two were both equilateral triangles with the hypotenuse on the wall and matching sets of drivers in the other two faces. The model one had bigger bass drivers (10-12") and the Model Two had 8 inchers, I think. Both were three-ways with mid-range and tweeter domes.
As was mentioned, the Model Three had one set of drivers and was set in the room corners. There was another "bookshelf" model that was intended to be placed with its back up against the wall. The woofer was on the top to couple with the wall.
If I recall correctly, all of Allison's speakers were developed after research Allison did while at AR on the interactions of loudspeakers and rooms. This work resulted with the AR 10 pi which had switchable settings to account for differing room placements. They also introduced the AR 11, which was the same speaker minus the switchable settings.
I can't remember whether I auditioned them at the time, but I suspect they had refined "New England" or "Boston" sound as it was called at the time--smooth, flat frequency response, deep acoustic suspension bass and inefficient, as compared to "West Coast" sound represented by JBL--big boomy bass, ported, more efficient, etc. "All boom and tizz" as the Brits would say.
Fun to recollect this bit of personal audio reflection.
.
Edits: 08/14/23
A pair of Allison 3's.
'A lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on'. -Mark Twain
I really liked and almost purchased the Allison 9's back in the day. I'm sure I still have the brochures kicking around somewhere. A friend has the model 8's.
The 9's had a unique angled down firing woofer. Nice look to them as well.
Cheers!
Jonesy
"I know just enough to get into trouble. But not enough to get out of it."
I got to meet Roy Allison at a CES once. He was a real gentleman.
The corner speakers you're talking about are the Allison Three's. If you could buy a new pair.... I would.
'A lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on'. -Mark Twain
A short story in the link ...
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
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