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In Reply to: RE: Fulton FMI-80 posted by docw on January 11, 2017 at 15:46:48
I had a friend that worked at GM that had four of them running in his basement and this was in the mid 70s when I was in High School.I was lucky enough to get a pair used and they had bass cabinets with two woofers with one that fired down and the FMI-80s were in the middle and the RTR-6 electrostatic tweeters were on top.I managed to find another pair of RTR-6 tweeters later after I sold the Js and then I inherited a pair of FMI-80s later.
The FMI-80s are fantastic but Bob Fulton could set those up like nobody else could.When I sold the Fulton Js,I bought a pair of IMF TLS-80s. Talk about a step down,that was the dumbest thing I've ever done,up until that point.
Anyway,the FMI-80s do very well 6BQ5 PP amps or 7868 amps.I was running my Js with an original GAS Ampzilla that I built from a kit.I was driving that with a Dynaco Pat5. It sounded very good at the time.
Of course,most everyone was using a little south of the border herbal enhancement in those days so everything sounded good as I recall. LOL.
These were like my Fulton Js and you can see the FMI-80s in the middle.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" H. L. Mencken
Follow Ups:
My reference speakers are Fulton Js that I bought new over 30 years ago. I am driving them with a Margules U280 SC amp and the sound is fantastic. I have heard only a few speakers that can match what the Fulton Js effortlessly do.
I drive mine either with a Harman Kardon 730, or a Citation II. They do sing quite nicely.
Edits: 01/27/17 01/27/17 01/27/17
I recall asking Bob at Chicago CES once what J stood for. It was junior. So I asked if there was an S for senior and he said he knew what he wanted to do but he never built it.
Did you use the Fulton recommended "jumper cables" for speaker wire? He was one of the first to suggest that cables made a difference.
Dave
at San Jose's Garland Audio in the late 1970's, Bob Fulton walked in lugging a 28'-long pair of his Golds (not an easy task, given their bulk and weight).
"What do you have there, Bob?" grinned John Garland. "Suspension cables for the Golden Gate Bridge?"
Bob frowned. And then talked antenna theory as we bolted the lug ends into banana-plugs so we could attach the pain-to-maneuver cable to Maggie 1D's and an ARC D-150. We fired up the system, listened...and John didn't laugh at Bob anymore.
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
I used Fulton Golds(given to me by Bob when he was at Holt's in Pa) for years until I noticed they were turning green. Their biggest problem was the highs. But a friend showed me a trick that improved them noticeably.
What was the trick?
Dave
Wrap the cables in foam pipe insulation partly to minimize vibration affects. Then wrap the two cables together with ties. Then the positive signal goes down one set of cables. The negative down the other. The spacing caused by the insulation reduces inductance improving the top end(Fulton Gold had increasing inductance as frequency increased). Of course you need to use short lengths of other wire at each end to connect to the right and left on the amp and the speakers. That's not a bad idea with Fulton Golds in any format since it was so unwieldy and could be a pain to connect to amps or speakers any way.
Since the oxidation of my Fulton Golds I now use short speaker cables with my amp between the speakers and long interconnects from preamp to amp which is working quite well.
In those days I used Monster cable.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" H. L. Mencken
As most of us did. There wasn't much choice.
Dave
That photo really brings back memories. I would have given anything to have a pair of J-Mods but just didn't have the funds.
I was fixing TVs back in the mid 70s when I was in 10th thru 12th grade. Back then,most people still had tube TVs.I would put a classified ad in the paper and charge six dollar service calls when the shops were getting 15 to 20 dollars.I would buy tubes wholesale and in those days,there was a 65% markup and more.I would buy 100 6GH8s for 99 cents each in the summer special in June. Each tube sold for 3.90 cents and the RCA CTC24 had six of them in it.Usually tho,you would be replacing four to five tubes in the RCA and Magnavox TVS. The 6LQ6,the 3A3,the 6CJ3,the 6BK4,and the 6FQ7.I was doing two to three a day at times and it was nothing to have 250 dollars profit in your pocket by the end of the day.That's how I bought all those goodies.It's also how I met my audio mentor. He was director of the maintenance dept of St MARY's hospital in Saginaw,but he also fixed TVS for people at the hospital and others.He got stuck on a TV that he couldn't fix, a Magnavox color flesh tone problem so he called me and he knew much more than I did then.I saw these Klipsch horns tho with EV drivers and he was powering them with a knight KB85 and a Dyna Pat 5.That consumed my interest much more than that TV.We finally figured out what was wrong with that set after 2 weeks of messing with stereo because I told him if we replace every component in the 3.58mc circuit,we would probably fix it.I started changing parts until we fixed it and it turned out to be a pair of 1N60 phasing diodes.Anyway,if it weren't for that Magnavox TV with the color flesh tone problem,,I probably wouldn't be in high end audio.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" H. L. Mencken
Edits: 01/13/17
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