70's Ideology?

[mhardy6647]

Great ad, but they broke all the modern rules of good design (tweeters everywhere) and many folks still love them.

View attachment 137990
View attachment 137992

I think the "rules" of where to put drivers, and how many to put there, broken by the above-pictured RtR monstrosities were already pretty well established in the ERPI (Western Electric), RCA, etc. era.
Lafayette Radio Electronics (among many others) also sold loudspeakers in the '60s and early '70s with similar arrays of arbitrary drivers seemingly vomited onto the baffle board.

source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Lafayette-Catalogs/Lafayette-1970-700.pdf

source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Lafayette-Catalogs/Lafayette-1971.pdf

 

[gene_stl]

What is amazing is how good those Lafayette speakers still sound today. I am not enamored with the widespread two way system epidemic.
Reminds me of Advents and Epi and the aforementioned Rectilinear and many other brands whose main design parameter was profit margin.

 

[mhardy6647]

What is amazing is how good those Lafayette speakers still sound today

The ones I've heard were, to my ears and taste, terrible.
De gustibus...

 

[Robin L]

The ones I've heard were, to my ears and taste, terrible.
De gustibus...

The "70's" speakers I recall with fondness were the massive Sansui "Bookshelf" [it is to laugh, they were huge] speakers back in the mid-seventies. Louder than anything, Poo-Bah Records in Pasadena [CA] had a pair blasting out Punk and Electric Miles back in the day. A very solid speaker at high volume levels.

Back in 1973 I had a pair of Acoustic Research 3s, dynamically constipated but oh that bass . . .

 

[SIY]

Fulton Js. They had no right to sound good. I spent an evening with an immaculate pair a few years ago and it might be the best reproduced sound I've ever heard.

 

[EJ3]

It certainly is good to know Latin, no question there. It's how I found out that Gaul was divided into three parts. Latin was required course work in my high school, way back when. The language is highly structured, what with all the orderly declensions & conjugations, but, sorry, Latin is not common knowledge, and when used unnecessarily, can make the writer seem snobbish. Latin was originally taught in high schools because its structured nature was believed to be good training for subjects with math or science content. Turns out that wasn't true, and my high school, a Roman Catholic one of very high educational standards, (Jesuit priests are superb teachers) made Latin an optional course. As for the phrase you used, I had to look up 'gustibus' in my Latin dictionary. I suspect that most ASR readers are not Latin literate, nor should they need to be. I personally am not against the usage of Latin at all, as I am able to translate some of it. It's just not all that appropriate in a technical setting. In a literary setting, then more so.

H'mm: many Latin phrases are in common use in the English language. I'll site just one example (but there are many): Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware". It has become a proverb in English.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Fulton Js. They had no right to sound good. I spent an evening with an immaculate pair a few years ago and it might be the best reproduced sound I've ever heard.

Any chemical enhancements to that experience? I believe you, but I would never have guessed them to be good.

 

[SIY]

Any chemical enhancements to that experience? I believe you, but I would never have guessed them to be good.

None. They were really that good. The problem is, of course, that Bob liked to fiddle, so there's never more than one or two pairs the same. I remember Gordon Holt, Fulton's biggest fan, getting royally pissed about it.

 

[Robin L]

None. They were really that good. The problem is, of course, that Bob liked to fiddle, so there's never more than one or two pairs the same. I remember Gordon Holt, Fulton's biggest fan, getting royally pissed about it.

That's the company [Fulton] responsible for the first "audiophile" speaker cable, "Fulton Gold", the specific wire mentioned by Fanfare in the early 80's.

 

[restorer-john]

That's the company [Fulton] responsible for the first "audiophile" speaker cable, "Fulton Gold", the specific wire mentioned by Fanfare in the early 80's.

QED79 strand was launched in the UK in 1978. Monster in 1979.

QED-79 would have to be one of the earlier "audiophile" cables which was sold all over the world, apart from some Japanese manufacturers such as Sansui, who sold exotic speaker cables in the 1970s as options for their loudspeakers.

Sansui was all over "audiophile" speaker and interconnect cables in 1977.

 

[Chrispy]

What the hell is 70's ideology? Limited gear? Stuck with vinyl? While I enjoyed the 70s as that's when I started, I don't miss the 70s and wouldn't buy gear from that era again....

 

[mocenigo]

I was referring to the TIM stuff.

Ah, ok. As you can see from another reply, I am very aware of what it is, and how this becomes a “non problem” if the stages are properly designed with the proper slew rate. I was using the “TIM” acronym in its historical ( ? ) context.

 

[mhardy6647]

The "70's" speakers I recall with fondness were the massive Sansui "Bookshelf" [it is to laugh, they were huge] speakers back in the mid-seventies. Louder than anything, Poo-Bah Records in Pasadena [CA] had a pair blasting out Punk and Electric Miles back in the day. A very solid speaker at high volume levels.

Back in 1973 I had a pair of Acoustic Research 3s, dynamically constipated but oh that bass . . .

Re: almost all of the Sansui loudspeakers I've heard (then and later):

Yes, you hit the nail on the head re: the AR3 -- but, I will say, they do have a nice sound (if somewhat reticent) and, as a New Englander (albeit a transplanted one) I do own a pair. Because, I mean, blood is thicker than water, you know*?
I do (still) like the AR/EPI/Genesis/Kloss/Allison/ads 'sound', even though it wouldn't be my choice for everyday listening. Great for string quartets, e.g.

___________________
* Of course, by that logic, I should also own a pair of Bose 901s... but I don't. As that ol' New Englander Emerson wrote:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do..."

 

[mhardy6647]

H'mm: many Latin phrases are in common use in the English language. I'll site just one example (but there are many): Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware". It has become a proverb in English.

Indeed. Calls for a little quid pro quo, in fact.
e.g.,
Veritas vos liberabit.*

Ad hominem attacks by some folks notwithstanding.



_______________
* My alma mater's motto, as it happens.

 

[Robin L]

Re: almost all of the Sansui loudspeakers I've heard (then and later):

Yes, you hit the nail on the head re: the AR3 -- but, I will say, they do have a nice sound (if somewhat reticent) and, as a New Englander (albeit a transplanted one) I do own a pair. Because, I mean, blood is thicker than water, you know*?
I do (still) like the AR/EPI/Genesis/Kloss/Allison/ads 'sound', even though it wouldn't be my choice for everyday listening. Great for string quartets, e.g.

___________________
* Of course, by that logic, I should also own a pair of Bose 901s... but I don't. As that ol' New Englander Emerson wrote:

I think a cousin on account of marriage dragged a pair of Sansui "Bookshelf" speakers, along with some other classic mid-seventies Japanese gear, back from his tour of duty in Southeast Asia. Usually got pretty ripped when I visited him, so there's some associative stuff going on. Throw on top of that the Poo-Bah experience, hope you can see the attraction.

On the other hand, I'm close [tonally] to the AR-3 experience right now with a/d/s 400s in a desktop configuration, a Sonance powered sub filling in the bottom two octaves:

 

[egellings]

Caveat vendor, too.

 

[mhardy6647]

Caveat vendor, too.

Cave canem.

Muggs died quite suddenly one night. Mother wanted to bury him in the family lot under a marble stone with some such inscription as "Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" but we persuaded her it was against the law. In the end we just put up a smooth board above his grave along a lonely road. On the board I wrote with an indelible pencil "Cave Canem." Mother was quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph.

(James Thurber)
https://bclearningnetwork.com/LOR/media/EN11/Forums/Dog_Bit_People.pdf

 

[Wes]

What the hell is 70's ideology? Limited gear? Stuck with vinyl? While I enjoyed the 70s as that's when I started, I don't miss the 70s and wouldn't buy gear from that era again....

maybe a better thing to do would be to think about various claims or concepts that were part of the '70s zeitgeist* but are not viable claims today

maybe things like damping factor or slew rate


* see: no Latin!

 

[egellings]

That hound! That hound!

 

[mhardy6647]

maybe a better thing to do would be to think about various claims or concepts that were part of the '70s zeitgeist* but are not viable claims today

maybe things like damping factor or slew rate


* see: no Latin!

Zeitgeist. good, good ... absolutely no Angst over that choice of vocabulary!