Component(s) you would induct into a "Hi-Fi Hall of Fame"?

[fpitas]

the JBL 2441s I have were essentially given to me

So I guess beryllium diaphragms are right out of the picture

 

[EJ3]

Has anyone listed the Crown DC300 ampmber?

A good one should make ~700 watts bridged into 8 ohms.
We ran 4 (2 with high pass filtering, [for the pair of 24" Hartley built into the floor subs, bridged mono]):

15 Hz filter
It's -1/2 dB at 20 Hz, -1 dB at 17.5 Hz, -2 dB at 15 Hz, -3 dB at 14 Hz, - 5 dB at 12 Hz and -10 dB at 10 Hz.

Then (for the top end of the pair of Dahlquist DQ-10's):
The 8 kHz High Filter is only active when the tone controls are engaged.
If the tone controls are active but the High Filter isn't selected, then the middle 40 kHz filter is active.
If the tone controls are defeated, then the -3 dB frequency is 150 kHz as seen in the highest curve.

For those that want to know: WHAT in the WORLD you were buying
when you bought a rather expensive pair of Hartley subwoofer in the 1970's:
HARTLEY 224 HS POLYMER LOUDSPEAKERS: 24 INCH WOOFER PAIR

The History Of Hartley Loudspeakers​

Founded in 1927, by H.A. Hartley in London, England, Hartley coined the phrase "high fidelity". This was a noteworthy beginning for a company who would innovate and change the face of the loudspeaker industry forever.

Hartley, with engineer P.K. Turner and ideas from Barker, Voigt, and Olson set out to manufacture speakers, preamps, amps and to establish an association with record players and phono cartridges. Most noted were the speakers – the model 215 full-range driver and an ingenious cabinet design called the Boffle. The Boffle (a cross between box and baffle) was the world's first attempt at acoustically eliminating the driver's rear wave. The inside was a series of panels with acoustic materials stretched over frames that had descending and ascending center holes.

Hartley became an exporter and in 1949 opened an office/installation facility in New York City owned and operated by Robert Schmetterer. With the assistance of Piers Powell, a noted writer for The London Times, the New York office set up retail and distribution channels throughout the USA. A prominent New York cabinet designer was retained to help innovate elegant furniture to house the Hartley drivers.

As the U.S. distributor was flourishing, founder H.A. Hartley decided to sell the rights to the company but maintain a working relationship with the U.S. facility. In 1953, Hartley Products Corp. of New York (the new American company) was established, owned and operated by Robert Schmetterer. The decision was made to manufacture speakers ONLY. However, Hartley Products Corp. was appointed the the first U.S. distributor of Ferrograph (mono) reel-to-reel tape recorders.

In 1958 H.A. Hartley published his most famous book, "The Audio Design Handbook". This book covered aspects of acoustics, electronic technology (tubes), speaker and cabinet design to name some of the many topics.

A few years later a most important association was established – the retaining Dr. Harold Luth, a scientist extraordinaire with a background in a number of disciplines: physics, acoustics and chemistry. His expertise led to the development of the world's first synthetic cone material, a unique control system, "magnetic suspension," and one of the first true coaxial speakers. Patents were soon forthcoming in the early 1960's. In 1967, the younger Richard Schmetterer joined the firm as Vice President and soon began designing drivers, enclosures and crossovers. Some 40 plus years later, Hartley Loudspeakers, Inc. is still hand-crafting speaker drivers with the same integrity of years past and is supplying the U.S. and international markets as well.

By the late 1960s, Hartley was a well-known name in the audio industry. Their electronics were mostly forgotten by then, and the company's own loudspeaker system (drive-units plus a cabinet) designs didn't made a lasting impression on much of anyone. But Hartley's drivers were a hit with audio tinkerers and sound-reinforcement specialists alike, and their promotional materials from that era leave little doubt that Hartley had a younger audience in their sights than their competitors did. AR had Miles Davis and Bose had Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but Hartley had the hippest ads and brochures of all: high-contrast black-and-white photos with lots of text, written with technical authority and dry wit in fairly equal measures. Volkswagen made history with ads like that — and so, in a smaller way, did Hartley.

But as the years wore on, and as magazines such as Stereo Review and High Fidelity began sucking the life out of our hobby by promoting the quest for good sound as little more than a numbers game—one in which a new breed of mass-market manufacturers had a built-in advantage—it became clear that the hi-fi industry could no longer continue as it was, and that most American companies would have to choose between shrinking and selling out. Hartley chose the former path, and, under the direction of Richard Schmetterer, who took over from his father in 1978, the company began to trim its product line. In 1986, the company moved away from the New York metropolitan area to a smaller manufacturing and sales facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, with Richard Schmetterer still at the helm.

We spoke to Richard Schmetterer in January 2021, who informed us that Hartley Loudspeakers Inc, ceased production around 2015.

THE HARTLEY POLYMER LOUDSPEAKERS​

In the past, very spl people have known about HARTLEY speakers. Audiophiles, engineers, musicians, recording technicians, scientists and other professionals who use sound or consider sound to be a very important part of their lives or careers. No matter what the price, HARTLEY speakers are considered among the best available anywhere in the world. Meticulous hand-crafting and unique problem solving of the physics of loudspeakers are the reasons for our long standing reputation. We don't sell a lot of speakers that way, but we don't have to compromise our standards either. In fact some of our drivers require over fifty hand operations to build.

THE CONE​

Only in recent times do we find companies using cone materials other than paper: polypropylene, kevlar, aluminum, synthetic polymers and other plastic formulations to name a few. Their more recent revelations was our understanding over FIFTY years ago! Starting with polmerization to paper cones, in 1956 Dr. Harold Luth, chief engineer and Master Chemist developed the World's First Synthetic Loudspeaker Cone. Until that time the only non-paper cones were that of bakelite paging speakers used by the Navy. To accomplish this truly revolutionary feat Dr. Luth had to invent a new synthetic to which the world had never seen. A series of monomers cross-linked became the solution which led to other problems and solutions. Platos' loudspeaker cone is one that has: no mass, infinite stiffness, perfect geometry and ultra-fast sound transmission time. Dr. Luth choose a molding process with a special fabric carrier and internally molded ribs. With his physicist hat on (and pipe) he designed a superior geometry never before seen. The cones were shallow, incredibly light and stiff and could withstand high molecular pressure without edge noding and bending.

THE SURROUND​

Most speaker driver manufacturers use foam, treated cloth or butyl rubber as their compliant surround. Foam, untreated will deteriorate inside-out from humidity and moisture in the air. Treated cloth is much less compliant, and exhibits more resonances. Butyl rubber a much better choice will break-down due to ozone in the air. The solution Dr. Luth determined due to his extensive background in chemistry was silicone rubber. Totally inert, extremely low resonance, proper durometer, impervious to moisture, as well as UV rays and a lifetime of greater than 99 yrs. Every other manufacturers surrounds are glued to the cone. This can lead to spurious resonances and even separation at the joint. Dr. Luth's solution was to change the chemical mix during molding from polymer to silicone rubber thus eliminating a joint completely. A seemless molding solution!

THE VOICE COIL (MSG Models)​

The dual voice coil in the HARTLEY speakers (220 MSG & 207 MSG) is based on a principle first developed by the British physicist, A.C. Barker, in 1938. Barker's "duode" coil consisted of two coaxial windings, isolated by a plastic film. By transformer action, high frequency signals imparted to the copper windings were induced on the aluminum shorted turn. The aluminum tube could move independently of the copper windings to vibrate the speaker cone to which it was connected. Barker's voice coil, although sound in principle, was never fully successful because he was never able to fully isolate the two sets of windings with the materials available at that time. However, developments in synthetic chemistry have enabled us to produce a highly compliant silicone compound, only 4 mils thin, which isolates the windings effectively and permits the inner aluminum tube to move independently at high frequencies. The HARTLEY aluminum tube is a complete circuit not slotted. It should be noted that in the HARTLEY speaker, the aluminum and copper windings are each connected to respective sections of a dual cone. In the Barker voice coil, the aluminum tube was the only part of the assembly fastened to the cone. Electrically, the dual voice coil may be considered an air-cored transformer, modified somewhat by the presence of a small amount of iron on the pole piece of the speaker magnet structure. The copper windings and aluminum tube comprise a voltage step-down transformer, in which the copper turns are the primary and the aluminum tube the secondary. Signals fed to the copper windings of the voice coil are induced by transformer action on the aluminum shorted turn. Because it is a step-down transformer, the induced voltages are lower and the current higher than the primary voltages and currents. Air-cored transformers are quite inefficient at low frequencies. Consequently, the current induced in the aluminum tube begins to drop sharply at 2000cps and virtually disappears at 1000cps. An elegant way of eliminating a crossover with its losses and distortions.

THE HEAT SINK (HS MODELS)​

All HARTLEY HS woofers employ a unique "heat sink" which is actually the aluminum tube the voice coil is wound on. The tube is cut so that a significant portion protrudes through the apex of the cone allowing the greatest concentration of heat (around the coil windings) to be dissipated through the tube outside the cone and into the air. During the coil winding a special high temperature epoxy, manufactured by HARTLEY, is applied to all layers of the windings and baked in with a temperature of over 450 degrees F. This extreme temperature far exceeds the rating of the copper wire itself!

THE SPIDER​

In the first HARTLEY speakers in the 1920's our spiders were made out of bakelite and had four legs that were bolted to the magnet structure. The shape defined the name "spider". Today we still employ the same design but with materials to meet 21st Century standards. Spiders for the polymer series are made from tri-laminate fiberglass which is impervious to adverse weather conditions and strong enough to withstand parallel and perpendicular forces.

THE FRAME​

Most driver manufacturers use stamped steel frames. These stampings are inexpensive but they exhibit unwanted resonances. Ringing is often used when referring to this steel frame. All HARTLEY polymers drivers use a sand-cast aluminum frame, light and strong, inert and then polished. Yes, an expensive way to make a speaker frame.......also the best!

 

[Timcognito]

 

[Salt]

Did not screen all mentions here ,but the Manger MSW should be worth to be cited.

 

[Soundproof]

Electrocompaniet "Otala" 25w
Koss PortaPro

 

[Michou]

That was not the case here. In Belgium you could buy one in 1982, and i heared the same in the Netherlands. My father was one of the first buyers in Belgium, and it was at the same time my brother was born (march 1982). Maybe it was not availeble yet in other parts of the world, but it surely was here. I was a little kid then, but it was something that i still remember, one of the first "hifi memories". My father was overly excited then.

The Sony became availeble here later that year i've red later on.

Yes, that makes perfect sense, especially given that we're talking about Belgium.

Philips was, of course, a Dutch company, founded in Eindhoven in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. The company became Philips Koninklijke Gloeilampenfabriek, literally Philips Royal Incandescent Lamp Factory. Gerard's brother Anton joined the company later and was instrumental in turning it into an international giant.

The CD100 was developed and initially produced in Eindhoven, but production was subsequently transferred to Philips' huge Hasselt factory in Belgium. Hasselt became Philips' worldwide supply centre for CD players, churning out Philips machines as well as players for its associated companies, subsidiaries and OEM customers. These appeared under a remarkable array of badges, including Marantz, Magnavox, Aristona, Erres, Radiola, Grundig, Siera, Dux, Hornyphon (sic), Sylvania and various other European brands and groups. In other words, a lot of the "different" CD players appearing across Europe in those early years were actually coming out of the same Philips production ecosystem in Hasselt.

Interestingly, this also brings Marantz into the picture. After Superscope acquired Marantz in 1964, it moved most of the brand's production to Japan from 1966, through Standard Radio Corporation, which became Marantz Japan in 1975. Philips acquired control of Marantz outside the US and Canada in 1980, while Marantz Japan remained the Japanese manufacturing and development operation. The original 1982 Marantz CD-63 was essentially a Marantz-badged Philips CD100, using the same CDM-0 mechanism and produced in Hasselt, Belgium. Philips eventually sold its interest back to Marantz Japan in 2001, bringing the brand back under Japanese control.

One small correction to the original post, though: the CD100 did not switch from the TDA1540 to the TDA1541. It used two TDA1540D 14-bit DACs, one per channel, with Philips' 4x oversampling system. The TDA1541 was a later 16-bit generation.

And Philips itself has gone through quite a transformation since then. It gradually divested its consumer-electronics businesses, with many product lines transferred to other companies and the Philips name subsequently licensed to various manufacturers. Today, Royal Philips is essentially a health-technology company, concentrating on areas such as medical imaging, patient monitoring, image-guided therapy and healthcare informatics.

So your story fits very nicely with the history of early CD in Belgium. And having one of those first-generation players in the family around the time your brother was born must have made quite an impression. No wonder it remains one of your first hi-fi memories.

 

[Sal1950]

Phase Linear 1000 Autocorrelator Noise Reduction System & 6000 PreAmp which included the Autocorrelater circuit.
IMHO A near "must have" for vinyl playback before the modern digital pop-click-rumble-surface noise reduction units came along.

 

[PristineSound]

The Benchmark AHB2 hasn't shown up in this list yet? Really? Any HiFi hall of fame list without the Benchmark AHB2 has no credibility.

 

[OldHvyMec]

I'll have to add the Mcintosh MC225 for its classic sound that is attributed to the orange drop caps and, of course, the topology introduced in most of McIntosh's transformers. I want to add the one-of-a-kind MC240 not only for its rare transparency at the time but also for its reliability over decades of use by me and several people I know. All of my Macs have proven a point: somebody knew what they were doing and did it over and over and over.

I'm listening to an MX110z, MC225/240 on a switchbox hooked to some restored classic Infinity RS4bs. A Fosi streamer, Thoren TD 124 I, and a refurbished Sony ES5400 to make for some very fine listening.

I think I'll put a little Dolly Parton on; we lost a classy lady today. She added as much to the industry as every piece of equipment on this thread. RIP Mrs. Dolly, you're sure gonna be missed.

Regards

 

[Count Arthur]

How about?:

You can argue about whether cassette was ever "Hi-Fi".

 

[EJ3]

How about?:

View attachment 554376

You can argue about whether cassette was ever "Hi-Fi".

I'd say that a very few "TOTL" cassette decks were, indeed "Hi-Fi".
However, few people ever saw one of those (except in pictures or store displays) and those decks are almost like unicorns, extremely few had them in their "Hi-Fi" system.
In my audio interest life, I have only seen one in that category in somone's home system.
So, 99.999% were not even close to "Hi-Fi" (and those are the ones that many more people have interacted with.
The Walkman changed the convenience aspect, making the the desire for better + more portable exist, which helped the CD acceptance from the moment that they came out.
So the Walkman was an incredible agent of change and for that, should be in the Hi-Fi Hall of Fame.

 

[Count Arthur]

I'd say that a very few "TOTL" cassette decks were, indeed "Hi-Fi".

I did have a rather flash AIWA Walkman at one point:

AIWA HS-G08 - The Walkman Archive

I also had a nice AIWA cassette deck:

 

[EJ3]

I did have a rather flash AIWA Walkman at one point:

View attachment 554537

AIWA HS-G08 - The Walkman Archive

I also had a nice AIWA cassette deck:

View attachment 554538

Aiwa made some very good units: My current SONY deck (a sort of middle/upper middle dual bay unit):

 

[Count Arthur]

All my cassettes and players have long gone, along with the LPs and the turntable. I still have CDs and occasionally buy new ones, but I haven't had a dedicated CD player for quite a few years. I rip CDs to to a hard drive and add them to a library along with downloads.

 

[EJ3]

All my cassettes and players have long gone, along with the LPs and the turntable. I still have CDs and occasionally buy new ones, but I haven't had a dedicated CD player for quite a few years. I rip CDs to to a hard drive and add them to a library along with downloads.

At the moment (and for the foreseeable future), I have too many projects going to do that (but ripping my stuff to a NAS is in my future). Restoring the functionality of the main house that I am in (insulation, stopping air leaks, fixing an area of it that is an inch and a half lower than the rest of it), etc and rebuilding a lower millage (141,000 miles) engine for my 210,000 mile 2004 truck (so that I can keep driving the truck until such time as the newly rebuilt, more powerful engine can be swapped into it and then taken to a tuner who can make the computerized stuff work correctly), take precedence.
That way I can get away from having $430 a month power bills for my 1100 square ft. home & use the savings to buy an RV home to pull with the newly repowered truck.
As well as have some time & money to set up a NAS & move my stuff to digital.

 

[mpw]

BBC Ls3/5 speakers, Advent(large) original speakers, Conrad Johnson premier 10 tube pre-amp,
Linn Lp12 turntable.

 

[jkasch]

A person, perhaps?
Henry Kloss:
The Man Who Changed Audio and
Video -- Time and Time Again
Henry Kloss died early this month at the age of 72. If you're an audio- or videophile to any extent,
you probably owe him a huge debt. I know I do. When I first became interested in hi-fi, I was lucky
enough to purchase a pair of Kloss's Larger Advent Loudspeakers. No, that's not a typo -- that's the
kind of company Advent was. At the time it made two models of loudspeaker: The Larger Advent
Loudspeaker and The Smaller Advent Loudspeaker.
Combined with my beloved AR turntable (post Kloss), those remarkable speakers hooked me on the
sound of reproduced music and gave me thousands of hours of musical pleasure.
Later in life, after having sold all my hi-fi gear to go and live in Peru, I purchased another AR
turntable, an Advent receiver, and a pair of AR-3A loudspeakers upon my return to the States. Now
that was a system to reckon with!
More recently, I reviewed Kloss's valedictory effort, the Tivoli Henry Kloss Model One Table Radio.
One wasn't enough. Now I own two.
I couldn't even begin to guess how much musical pleasure I've derived from Kloss's well-designed,
reasonably priced products over the years. But I'm not alone -- the man revolutionized the audio
industry.
Let's go back to the early 1950s and survey the audio scene. Hi-fi was a burgeoning hobby and the
LP record had newly arrived on the scene -- making it possible for enthusiasts to reproduce sounds
across the sonic spectrum. Dynamic loudspeakers were huge boxes -- one capable of reproducing
40Hz needed to be about 14' tall. Movie theaters had 'em, but homes?
Edgar M. Villchur, a teacher at NYU, hit upon a novel approach. By sealing a speaker's enclosure,
he could use the springiness of the trapped air, rather than the mechanical spring of a driver's suspension.
"All I needed to do," he told Steve Birchall years later, "was to decimate the springy stiffness
of the speaker suspensions, and reduce the size of the enclosure until the air spring was
strong enough to replace the springs we threw away. It also turned out that within the compressions
and rarefactions this air spring would undergo, the response was almost perfectly linear." Thus was
born the compact, full-range, air-suspension speaker.
Except for one small detail. Nobody wanted it. After having been rejected by the two established
speaker manufacturers he'd approached, Villchur was discouraged. Then he received an expression
of interest in the design from a former student, Kloss, who was building Baruch-Lang speakers for
mail order in his Cambridge workshop. In late spring 1954, Villchur demonstrated his prototype to
Kloss, playing, among other LPs, an E. Power Biggs record with massive pedal tones. Kloss immediately
grasped the possibilities and offered his Cambridge loft as a manufacturing facility. Acoustic
Research (AR) was born with $4000 Kloss raised from his friends and $2000 from Villchur.
Kloss immediately threw himself into the partnership. Villchur credited him with 75% of the produc-
tion design of the AR-1. Villchur and a physicist friend, Tony Hoffman, contributed the rest. They
managed to assemble two AR-1s in time to demonstrate them at the New York Audio Show in
September 1954. Astonishingly, the critics didn't "get" it. Although they were impressed by the
speaker's clean 32Hz bass response, they didn't understand why anyone would want "miniature"
loudspeakers. Julian Hirsch was particularly puzzled, noting "The AR-1 had the lowest electroacoustic
efficiency of any loudspeaker on the market," but at least he recognized that "at 25Hz and
below, it was more efficient than the Klipschorn, which had the highest efficiency of those tested."
He grudgingly allowed that the AR-1 "established a new industry standard for low distortion bass."
The public, however, had no problem grasping that the AR-1 delivered big speaker sound in a small
package. And, while the speaker did consume a lot more power than the efficient designs it outsold,
this was the golden age of great 40-50W tube amplifiers, which were easily capable of driving it.
Villchur and Kloss had succeeded in taming hi-fi for the masses. With the AR-2, they lowered the
price of the speakers to $89/each. The model AR-3A introduced the dome tweeter -- which is now
nigh unto ubiquitous.
Kloss left AR to found KLH in 1957. In the early 1960s, Kloss built the first high-selectivity FM radio -
- the KLH Model 8, now considered a design classic. He also designed the first successful audio
product to employ transistors, the KLH Model 11 portable phonograph.
In 1967, he founded his own company, Advent, where he offered well-designed loudspeakers
employing premium-quality components. His speakers were the reference standard of their era. In
fact, the first issues of The Abso!ute Sound touted a pair of stacked Advents (an upside-down
speaker on top of one standing right-side up) as its reference.
Kloss always claimed that the audio side of Advent was merely a means to produce the funds to
develop his true passion, projection TV. Advent produced a two-piece projection system that ended
up primarily in bars, where it displayed sporting events - ironically, this was before the VCR and the
concept of watching movies on video existed. Kloss refused to take credit for "inventing" projection
television, insisting that it was less an invention than a collection of practical electrical engineering
knowledge. Despite this avowal, he is considered the creator of the industry.
Kloss also developed the Advent Model 200, the first cassette equipped with Dolby B noise reduction
-- which, of course, was the missing element that made music recorded on cassette listenable.
One of the two times I met him, he described his cross-country flight to persuade Ray Dolby to
license him the technology. "I knew that if I didn't get some sleep on the flight over that I could never
be sharp at that meeting," he told me. "So I went back to an empty row of seats in the middle and
slept on the floor under them. The stewardesses thought I was insane, but I got eight hours of
sleep!"
Kloss later founded Cambridge SoundWorks, a company that pioneered direct-to-the-consumer marketing
before the creation of the Internet. The company advocated small satellite speakers and modestly
sized centrally located woofer units, as well as surround-sound and computer speaker systems.
Kloss sold the firm in 1997.
He wasn't done. While at Cambridge SoundWorks, he had developed a high-quality radio -- the
Model 88 Table Radio -- which was reminiscent of his classic Model 8. In 2000, he went back to
table radios one more time, creating the Tivoli Henry Kloss Model One Table Radio, a design that
exploited advanced engineering techniques that allow cell-phones to deliver crisp, clear sound from
marginal signals. To a generation raised on disposable portables, it's a revelation -- a $99 radio that
looks good, sounds good, and is built to last for another 20 years.
It's a fitting legacy for the man who never set his sights on anything less.
...Wes Phillips
[email protected]

I realize I’m replying to an 18 month old post, but I have to agree. He innovated like very few were able and produced great bang for the buck components. I started with the original large Advent, then the New Large Advent (these 49 year old speakers still play in my workout room with only having had a refoam). When I bought a CSW Ensemble for in ‘89, it came with a registration card that had space to ask a question or make a comment. I asked why he chose a cone tweeter when domes were now so popular.

He called my house to explain. I wasn’t home but he left a message to call him collect (long distance wasn’t free then). We talked for about twenty minutes. I felt like the Henry Ford of the home audio industry had given me a call.

 

[Sal1950]

All my cassettes and players have long gone, along with the LPs and the turntable. I still have CDs and occasionally buy new ones, but I haven't had a dedicated CD player for quite a few years. I rip CDs to to a hard drive and add them to a library along with downloads.

Same here, only I never had any cassette unit. The better ones were capable of a recording/playback path of fairly quality recordings, but since I never had a car with a deck, I had no need to copy my LPs that way. I did own a very nice Pioneer RT 707 RTR deck for a number of years but sadly pre-recorded tapes for either mostly sucked so no interest there. When the CD came down to a affordable level, all the analog gear was put block to support the purchase of my most loved music in digital form as it became available.

 

[PristineSound]

I'd say that a very few "TOTL" cassette decks were, indeed "Hi-Fi".

If you go by technical definition, no cassette tape media can be high fidelity, just like no vinyl media can be high fidelity.

The players can still go on the hall of fame list though.

 

[geol]

The TEAC V 1030 cassette player (1010 was good too), better that any vinyl. Toshiba SB 404 S, a JVC CD4 demodulator, a Sony DAT, Sanyo TP 1000 turntable (some speed problems sometimes).