Do You Recall......

[jvillas]

Do you recall way back when you had those speakers,your first really good sounding "high quality" set of speakers or so you believed to be truely awsome.I do. Back In the 70s' I owned 2 sets of Large Advents, They were stacked, one on top of the other, with an add on 3 tweeter array at the very top. Man talk about a wall of sound, and tremendous room shaking bass. These were power hungry animals yet I still managed to blow out a woofer and a tweeter. I would love to hear what other Ascend owners once owned. Don't be shy.

[BGHD]

80s: Sansui "stereo-cassette-turntable-in-a-box"
90s: Rogersound lab (local low-midfi dealer now defunct) mini-monitors + Onkyo 40w sub (from Japan)
Present: Full Ascend setup

[bikeman]

1971: Blose 901's
1976: Allison 3's
1979: ADS 810-II's
1986: Mission 761's
2004: Ascend 340's

There were lots of others but these were what I spent my quality time with. The Alliison's were special. They were corner loaded so they would only work properly under very limited circumstances which I had till I moved in 79.
I'm told the same is true of the Blose but I have never heard them sound anywhere near as good as their price tag.

David

[jvillas]

Hey bikeman, I recall when those Blose(ha! ha! ) first appeared, They made a huge splash, with there multi speakers enclosure, If I recall no crossover was needed, and they required a huge amount of power. The demo that I once saw at now gone, Pacific Stereo had them hanging from the ceiling. Were yours mounted this way?

[curtis]

Wow....Rogersound Labs brings back some memories......as does Pacific Stereo(but they are still around as Pacific Sales I think).

Growing up, my Dad was into mid-fi for a while. When I was a toddler, he had some kind of console unit. The story is that I spilled milk into it when I was 2 or 3 years old, and it stopped working for a week....but all was OK when it dried out.

In the 70's, he then had a some big RTR speakers with electrostatic tweeters that needed AC power to operate. These were fed by a Nikko integrated amp at first, and then when that died, he got a Technics integrated. I had a good time with these. My Parents gave these away a year or so ago, and got Ascends.

As my brothers and I got older, my Dad put some speakers in the family room. A trip to the Federated Group, and we came home with some inexpensive Electrovoice two-ways. These were fed by the "b" speaker outputs of that Technics.

I went away to college and lived with a couple of boomboxes for a while, but during my second year, my dorm roommate was a physics major and had made some HUGE speakers....they sounded pretty good. The only place we could put them was above our closets which was ment for storage space. They were powered by a Sansui receiver I think. We had some of the best parties!

Got out of college and wanted a nice setup. I got an Onkyo receiver and a pair of Klipsch KG4's.....and eventually moved to some Adcom seperates. Again...some great parties with those speakers.

Had some inexpensive Dalquists and Polks mixed in there somewhere too.

The past 3 or 4 years have been my Ascends.

[drewface]

i'm new to the "nice speaker" arena, so my current ascend setup is my first really great system. i do remember when i got my first major boombox of sorts, though. it was about 8 years ago, i got decent RCA combo unit that had four speakers (two mains, and two crappy little "surrounds"). eventually, the cd changer on the system crapped out, and that is when i started to get the itch to upgrade my system.

i started off with buying a sony es line 5-disc changer that i ran through the auxiliary input on the RCA. this got me interested in going with a component system, and i hijacked my mom's old kenwood stereo receiver and turntable (i had a couple 7"s from various shows i had been to) and started using that instead of the RCA unit. i eventually got my own receiver and turntable, "traded" my mom her old receiver and turntable for her cassette deck, and then started upgrading my speakers. it's been a hell of a run so far and i've enjoyed every second of it. :D

[jvillas]

Wow drewface, you've made some great decisions I"m impressed. Over the years I've had my share of mshaps, questionable decisions, and yes been ripped off a couple of times.(glad to say this has not occurred in recent years).

[bikeman]

The demo that I once saw at now gone, Pacific Stereo had them hanging from the ceiling. Were yours mounted this way?
Nope. They were on stands that the dealer recommended. Good information was hard to come by back then. I wanted Klipsch speakers but didn't have the room and the dealer fed me a line about the 901's and the promotional material made them sound like the best thing since sliced bread and I handed over the cash. Good learning experience for a young guy. I was a heck of a lot wiser the next time around.

David

[BGHD]

A trip to the Federated Group, and we came home with some inexpensive Electrovoice two-ways.
Yeah, in the L.A. area, before BB/GG/CC, my favorite places to window-shop electronics was The Federated Group (probably about 1/20th the floorspace of any retailer now) or Fedco, and then later Adray's and RSL. Oh yeah, and before the internet, the Crutchfield catalogs.

[curtis]

Yeah, in the L.A. area, before BB/GG/CC, my favorite places to window-shop electronics was The Federated Group (probably about 1/20th the floorspace of any retailer now) or Fedco, and then later Adray's and RSL. Oh yeah, and before the internet, the Crutchfield catalogs.
Oh wow...Fedco! Our family used to take what seemed like weekly trips to the one on La Cienaga. I got my very first album from there...I must of been in third or fourth grade.

Which reminds me....my very first audio system was a stereo record player.

[jvillas]

Here in Chicago back in the 70's the was an Audio dealer I use to visit and purchase from, the company was called I\O Systems(imput- output).It was not a storefront,it was his one bedroom apartment were business was conducted.The owners name was BASIL, and he had 2 passions music, and chess. HE had almost nothing that I could afford to buy, everything was strictly high end. Eventually I did manage to get an amplifier the Audionics cc2 which I still use to this day, it is almost 30yrs old, and still going strong and some used gear. Oh, he also smoked alot. he seemed to value my opinions on speaker sound,and would often ask me what my thoughts were about this or that speaker.When Basil passed away in the early 80's, so did his business.A great loss,I'll never forget him.

One day on a visit to play chess, he had some new speakers he wanted me to listen to. Basil always kept his opinions on speakers to himself. To this day I cannot recall the name of these speakers,any ways he rolled out these monsters and hooked them up. What was incredibly unique about these speakers was that they used a large tube type tank of gas, that fit into a slot on the back of the speaker to operate the top end sound of the speaker, along with that there was a flame that was burning. He said the principal used for the top end was similar to thunder and lightening , instant excelleration and massless. Needless to say they sounded fantastic.They ran $25k for the pair. Has anyone ever heard or seen these speakers. i don't know if they were a prototype,and never were put into production.

[JohnMichael]

In the mid 70's I would visit Carlin Audio in Dayton, Ohio. I purchased a pair of Smaller Advents as my first speakers. My source in those days was a white marble Kenwood turntable with a Shure M91ED cartridge also from Carlin. Back in the days when you could buy a ttable and add a cartridge for under a $1. A friend had given me a JVC receiver that powered the system.

[Urban Ninja]

Here in Chicago back in the 70's the was an Audio dealer I use to visit and purchase from, the company was called I\O Systems(imput- output).It was not a storefront,it was his one bedroom apartment were business was conducted.The owners name was BASIL, and he had 2 passions music, and chess. HE had almost nothing that I could afford to buy, everything was strictly high end. Eventually I did manage to get an amplifier the Audionics cc2 which I still use to this day, it is almost 30yrs old, and still going strong and some used gear. Oh, he also smoked alot. he seemed to value my opinions on speaker sound,and would often ask me what my thoughts were about this or that speaker.When Basil passed away in the early 80's, so did his business.A great loss,I'll never forget him.

One day on a visit to play chess, he had some new speakers he wanted me to listen to. Basil always kept his opinions on speakers to himself. To this day I cannot recall the name of these speakers,any ways he rolled out these monsters and hooked them up. What was incredibly unique about these speakers was that they used a large tube type tank of gas, that fit into a slot on the back of the speaker to operate the top end sound of the speaker, along with that there was a flame that was burning. He said the principal used for the top end was similar to thunder and lightening , instant excelleration and massless. Needless to say they sounded fantastic.They ran $25k for the pair. Has anyone ever heard or seen these speakers. i don't know if they were a prototype,and never were put into production.Old thread, but most worthy of a reply...

Yes, I knew Basil; awesome fellow. University of Chicago grad in mathematics, fabulous sense of humor, extremely well-read, wicked chess player (I played him many, many times and never won, audio guru extraordinaire. I would love to know his approximate tournament chess rating if anyone knows. Owned a little orange Fiat roadster that never seemed to meet a speed limit it liked. He was related to the folks who started American Invesco (same last name). As you mentioned he smoked a lot -three packs a day, he said (Kent regulars); he died at age 52 of a heart attack having developed lung cancer in 1982, which I think first turned up when he was 51.

The speakers you are referring to were Hill Plasmatronics, which were manufactured by a physicist named Alan Hill (from Arizona I believe?); I recall an initial $10,000 or $15,000 for the pair rather than $25k, but am not sure. That was high for speakers in the 1970's/early 80's. They used large helium tanks which were fitted into the back -owners usually rented these from a welding supply shop, refilling them as necessary; the helium was superheated to a purple plasma energy "flame" which conducted electricity and moved air. Because the helium/plasma was lighter than the air medium it pushed when making sound it surpassed practically the theoretical ideal of a driver whose mass did not hold back precisely what the electrical signal "wanted to do." The low frequencies were covered by a conventional driver; the plasma driver did highs and mids. Massive cabinets; when you turned them on they clicked and sparked until the quiet flame came on -it was amazing just to *see* those things, and the sound... (!!!!)

A customer of Basil's once joked of having gone into a competitor's showroom (Basil had little *real* competition in those days, even in a market as large as Chicago!) and asking the owner if he had heard the Hill Plasmatronics, remarking also on how unbelievably impressive they were. A deeply concerned expression broke out on his face, and he remarked loudly and passionately: "they are a dangerous experiment which should never be sold!" Of course this was nonsense, though it is true the speakers produced ozone as a byproduct in one's living room... some of Basil's competitors were prone to saying some of the most nonsensical negative things they could about even great products like Threshold etc. which *they* did not happen to carry. Basil was by contrast one of the last honest men.

I would love to hear more about your reminiscences about Basil and I/O Systems. He carried lines like Audio Research, Threshold, Koetsu, Linn Sondek, Coloney (later Mapleknoll) air bearing turntables (the best I have heard to this day, and I have heard a many), Berning, Paragon, Magnaplanars, with which he coupled a pair of massive subwoofers about 7 feet long *each* (which Basil personally designed BTW -he made one pair into a sofa for a customer!!!) that he said had been measured to go down flat to 6 cycles(!!!), well below the ability of human beings to hear, but which even at low volume levels seemed to make the entire building vibrate gently, and when the volume was pushed, well, forget about it! There was a fellow named Joe who worked for him, and his son lived with him for a while. He also had one of the smartest dogs I have ever seen before or since, by the name of Dusty.

[pegleg]

I had the large single Advents, but a buddy of mine had the double Advent setup. Great sound for rock but not the best overall sound clarity. We put fuses in the lines to avoid blowing the speakers (easier to just blow, and replace, a fuse).
I still have a great review of those double Advents.

Pegleg

[sonicboom]

I started my "nice speaker journey" later than most guys here, I think. As a result, I started off with the right speakers, Ascend CMT 340SEs and CBM 170SEs. Wanting to upgrade to the towers though.

BTW, Rogersound Labs is back as RSL Speakers. They sell their products internet-direct like Ascend.