Ancient Hi-Fi

[joetech]

My father-in-law was telling me about a speaker he and a friend built back in the late 50's or early 60's and it was down in the basement. I've been married to his daughter for nearly 24 years now and had never seen it and I've been is his basement countless times. Nevertheless there it was hidden behind some boxes and other stuff. We hauled it out and I brought it home. I opened the back and found a full range 15" Electro-Voice 'Wolverine' speaker. (see pics) The cabinet in very large, about 40" tall, 36" wide and about 24" deep. As you can see from the pics it has a parabolic slot in the front and the speaker in set at an angle with a slot in the top. He said he and his friend made two of these, one for each and got the plans out of some magazine like Popular Mechanics or something.
Anyway I hooked it up and it works quite well. With a 15 watt amp in a very large room (Classroom/workshop actually about 50'x30'x14'ceilings) it gets quite loud. Anyone know the name of this type enclosure? I use to have a 'How to build stereo speakers" book written in the 50's -long before T/S specs- that had a picture of this same speaker and the voice of the Theater and a large Bozak speaker and other fun stuff but I can't find it. Anyway, enjoy a stab from the past.

 

[Nature B0y]

Karlson

That's a Karlson. Over at audio asylum, there's an inmate with the moniker "freddyi", that not only knows a lot about Karlsons, but is very helpful and enthusiastic, too. I recommend you hook up with them if you want more information.

 

[KBR AudioVideo]

I thought I was the only person with a working set of Bazak's

 

[JoeE SP9]

I thought I was the only person with a working set of Bazak's

Check www.audiokarma.org . They specialize in vintage gear. There are lots of posters there who use or have Bozak speakers.

 

[highfihoney]

Nice pic every time i hear vintage speakers like that karlson i wonder how in the he!! they got them to sound as good as they did with so very little enginering,ev also used that enclosure.

 

[Brad Smith]

Mybe you all could help me out here im looking for and artical and plans that were in either popular mechanics or popular electronics back in the 70. these plans were for a large speaker with 4 15 inch woofers and 8 8 inch midrange i cant remember how many tweeters. thanks guys

 

[joetech]

Weems book

Look for a book on speakers by Weems. It use to be sold by Radio Shack years ago. Written in the 50's or 60's. It had plans for a Bozak speaker that sounds like what you describe.
Try Madisound or Amazon for the book.

 

[Rickster71]

Mybe you all could help me out here im looking for and artical and plans that were in either popular mechanics or popular electronics back in the 70. these plans were for a large speaker with 4 15 inch woofers and 8 8 inch midrange i cant remember how many tweeters. thanks guys

Brad, have you tried going to a library and looking at the magazine archives on micro-film?
Maybe you could use that to find the correct issue.
Below is a link to a Popular Electronics archive:
http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/PEIntro.htm

Also: You may purchase copies of current and previous issues of Popular Mechanics by mailing your written order to:

Single Copy Sales
Hearst Magazines
P.O. Box 7763
Red Oak, IA 51591

Or by calling 1-800-925-0485.

 

[haraldo]

Nice
What kind of loading is that for the driver??

 

[TLS Guy]

Nice
What kind of loading is that for the driver??

It's an unusual pipe loading. It is a pipe with an exponential split, to broaden resonance. If you are ever inside the works of a pipe organ, you will see some pipe ranks like that. I bet Karlson got the idea from talking to pipe builders and organ voicers.

http://home.planet.nl/~ulfman/