I haven't heard them much because the distributor who has them doesn't have a very good setup for demo, but the latest top model from Jamo sound pretty good.

Before the sale to Klipsch, I went to Chicago to buy some speakers and see the head of their US operation and at that time, I was told that all of their stock had been put in a holding company "so they know where it is", since several people had shares in the company. I voiced my concern that the company would be sold and was told that the founders (Preben Jacobsen and Julius Mortensen) wanted to retire and spend some time with their families/personal activities. They're still on the board, but Preben is a blue water sailor and he wanted to do more of that.

They were already diluted by the mid-'90s- it seemed that they were more concentrated on in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and accessories than speakers in enclosures and that brought the numbers, but the brand slipped. I worked for the second US dealer signed by Jamo and we sold the hell out of those speakers- I still have a pair of their J-101 (bought in early '80) and they still sound excellent.

I really liked the Boston Acoustics Pro car speakers- I did a lot of great systems with those.

Complete receiver to complete receiver, using Ortofon cartridge, quality (not over the top) phonograph, playing Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town by Emmy Lou Harris through EPI 100 loudspeakers with an a/b selector between the two, using a radio shack RTA to ensure same spl.

I'd like to add Polk Audio to this list. Back in what seems another lifetime, I sold a laser product, an electronic speckle pattern interferometer, which could measure surface deflections in microns. A big market for this product was in the design and engineering of speaker drivers, and to this day, I have very fond memories of an entire day spent in 1986 with Matthew Polk and his team at their Baltimore HQ. They didn't buy one ($100,000, even then), but could not have been more gracious nor engaging. I went right out and bought a pair of their Monitor 5's after the experience.

Those, and my first pair of real speakers, Boston Acoustics' A70's, will never be forgotten . . .

Ja and Mo. One minor mystery solved.


Go to a high end show (THE Show, for instance) and you'll find people playing some whacked-out recording, making a change in the listening environment, playing a different whacked-out recording, and then saying "see how much better it sounds?" The last guys I heard do this were trying to sell little aluminum pyramids that were to be placed in several locations in a room. These somehow were supposed to improve the sound of the room and they didn't perceive that they were making comparisons impossible.


Ah, the energy that's been put into ensuring same spl. It only comes as close as trying to ensure.

You can't make non-identical speakers have the same SPL. Consider two speakers that magically have the same response, except one has a +3 dB bump at 100 Hz.

How do you make those "the same SPL"? If you make them the same at 100 Hz, the entire rest of the spectrum will differ by 3 dB. When you say that one has a 3 dB bump means you're thinking of most of the spectrum as being at the same volume but having a louder volume at 100 Hz. Using an RTA, the speaker without the +3 dB bump will be lowered in volume slightly all across the spectrum, with a slight bump left at 100 Hz. This is also not the same volume as the other speaker. Also, the distribution of energy of the test sound throughout the spectrum influences the eventual volumes of the different frequencies.

The best thing you can do with speaker tests is to try honestly to make the speakers "the same volume" and then listen to the quality of the sound. This takes some experience with the sounds of the real instruments so you'll know if they sound "right."

But with pop music? Rock? Everything is so processed that in many ways, judging speakers with pop or rock is like judging TVs using cartoons. Just exactly what color is Scooby-doo supposed to be, anyway?

edit: why did I write all that? Because there are newcomers here who haven't run across this before.

Speaking of cars.... ADS and PPI

Cars - M&M Godfather Subs! Lifetime warranty! I actually had a DENON deck in my truck in highschool.
Alphasonic Sub amps with (4) Autotek 22 watt amps that were unbelievable with audiocontrol crossovers, precision power EQ, MB Quart mids and JBL T06 titanium tweeters. man that takes me back!

Damn right! ADS should have closed the gap on the 320i woofers to prevent debris and dust getting in, but those were great speakers.

The store I did business was on Beach Blvd in Westminster, Ca. Supposedly it was the first building built especially for RSL. Before that they used buildings that were some other store previously. 30 years later I moved to within a block of that old store, in a city that is disappearing, Midway City, the store location is now a Skechers shoe store.

edmund,
The founder of the company, Howard Rodgers, and his VP, Dennis Varga, wanted to invest some of your money, so they partnered up with a good name for a real estate venture: Sound Investments. One of the first things they did was to build the building that became the Westminster store.

Everything you heard or saw in that store went through my department, whether it was the phones ringing, any alarms that went off, the antenna system, video displays, everything (except the sales staff). I was the guy with the seven inch diameter keyring, and keys for everything in every store.

Watching that store get built was a good part of my education as to how walls are built and wired. I was the guy from corporate who was on site during construction and installation of demo facilities, to make sure that any needed decisions were the right ones.

I could go on... and if they ever have another RSL reunion, I'll try to remember to drop you a line.

I had all Audio Control processors. 4.1, two EQTs and a 4xs. And ran MB Quart for my front end (with Musicomp passive crossovers) for years. My favourite speakers I ever ran in my car.

Always wanted the PPI Art serries, or Orion HCCA. Or Frankampenstein.

Oh, a McIntosh MC4000M. Thought I might try and find one of those for my Karman Ghia but a 48" long amp won't fit in the trunk. Hahaha.

Ja and Mo are also brothers-in-law. Preben was originally a carpenter and Julius started as an accountant.

I just went to their site and Preben is shown at the bottom-

http://www.jamo.com/

I was on a flight and decided to see what they had for magazines, so I grabbed the one about boating. On the cover was a large, dark blue/white 73' sailboat with a crew in yellow rain suits, to keep dry. I sat down and when I looked closer, the name on the transom was 'HiFi' and the guy closest to the camera looked a lot like the head of the US operation, who was a regular visitor to our store (when I worked there) and a good friend. Turns out, it was Preben's boat and yes, that was Helge (head of US ops) onboard, which he confirmed when I called. Before they shortened the name to 'Jamo', it was 'Jamo HiFi'.

As far as judging speakers with Pop or rock, why would someone who mainly listens to those use Jazz or Classical music if they're not familiar with them?

CGI animation is a great way to determine the resolution.

Looks like I need to fact check before I post. I inherited the SAE gear from my Dad. He bought the stuff in the late 70's. I thought they were long gone. I guess as a 17 year old kid (37 years ago) SAE was the sh*t.

Next you're going to tell me Wharfedale is still in business. I know, I know, they are still around. I still have a pair of W70D's bought in Hong Kong in the early 70's that my uncle had shipped home while in Vietnam.

Speaking of Wharfedale, how do they stack up today? I see some of the high end stuff is really pricey.

Sorry Pros, I shouldn't be posting while sitting at a bar. I'll go back to lurk mode.

Carry On

AudioAccess PX-600/700
Still have systems out there running perfectly from the late 90s.

I miss the Accutrack turntable with the Phantasm ball. If the stylus went bad and a regular ADC needle was used, it was just a mediocre turntable.

Sharp had a cassette deck with a buttload of buttons for setting record/play times and all kinds of other crap. That didn't keep it from being a mediocre tape deck.

The Sansui R-series of receivers blew up so often one of our service techs used to say "They put the output transistors in, to protect the fuses". One of the other guys answered a phone call and answered "Do you repair Sansui?" with "All the time". She missed the real meaning and heard it only as "Yes".

Eumig FL1000 cassette deck. It was an odd duck, but you could lash up to 16 of them together on a serial port and use them for radio station automation. You could give them commands, such as "play to 856" (on the counter). I never recommended attempting to split words, but one could reliably spool to the break between songs. From time to time it was prudent to rewind to the beginning of the tape and reset the counter if you needed consistent split second accuracy.