Trusonic.......Imposters?

[bookasan]

I poked around and the web and found some info on Trusonic speakers. They appear to be somewhat highly sought after and I understand Trusonic was started by someone from JBL.
In some auctions I saw for Trusonic drivers, I noticed the labels had a California address for Trusonic.
I came across a pair of speakers that looked like they were made a little "cheap", manufactured by trusonic (model JR-100M). The manufacturer address on the label for these speakers is somewhere back east.
I took out one of the tweeters and the back (around the magnet) is made of styrofoam.
Looks really, really cheap.
Could this possibly be the same trusonic?
Can looks be decieving and these tweeters be worth big bucks?

[scott fitlin]

Tru sonic was made in Culver City California! Its the only place I have ever seen listed in the old ads for this company.

They say this companies speakers were really good, but I have never seen or heard them. Way before my time!

Their woofers, horns, drivers, and coaxials look similar to Altec and JBL drivers of the period, and you can look at their 50,s catalogs at www.hifilit.com.

As for their collectibility and value, Im sure they are collectible but I have no idea as to their value.

[Alex Lancaster]

There is more info on the historic sections of this site.

Alex.

[scott fitlin]

from what I can see Trusonic drivers DID NOT look to be cheaply made!

They have some on Ebay and they look like they had been a well made speaker!

In HiFiLit catalogs, they have a supertweeter called the 214 and it looks to be a small compression driver, with cast pot assembly.

[bookasan]

I think I notice one difference, "Stephens" is spelled Tru-sonic.
The ones I found are Trusonic. That should be a crime!
hmmm.......Maybe I should design speakers and call them JB-L:confused:

[Steve Schell]

Robert Lee Stephens was a loudspeaker pioneer, and one of the important people in the development of early theatre sound systems. He worked as a draftsman at MGM Studios in the 1930s, and was involved in the Shearer Horn System project; he designed and supervised the construction of the multicellular horns. He may be the father of the tar filled horn, although I have been unable to confirm this.

Stephens left MGM in 1938 to found the Stephens Manufacturing Company, located on National Blvd. in Los Angeles until he moved the company to Culver City in 1947. The company was very successful, and grew to a large size by the mid 1950s. Stephens became ill and died of bone cancer in 1957. The company continued on for at least another decade, owned variously by Bert Berlant, The builders of the Standel amplifiers, and finally the Utah speaker company.

Robert Stephens is an enigmatic figure to me. He was unquestionably a pioneer, yet many or most of his products seem to be very close copies of the Lansing, Altec and JBL products of their time. Even his original company, the Stephens Manufacturing Company, Los Angeles, producing the Tru-sonic line of products, seems too close for comfort to his antecedent and competitor in the business, Jim Lansing- Lansing Manufacturing Company, Los Angeles, producing the Iconic. Hmmm.

[scott fitlin]

I have questions for you!

First, how do those Tru-sonics sound? They were supposed to have been better than JBL at the time, thats what I heard.

Field coils. You are the field coil man! What do field coil drivers sound like in comparison to permanent magnet designs?

[Don C]

Here's a page from a catalog that I have. I don't know the date, but maybe the 69 means 1969? There is no tweeter in the catalog that remotely resembles the one with the styrofoam, but there are a couple of 075 ring radiator knockoffs.

[Steve Schell]

Hi Scott,

I have not actually listened to too many of the Stephens products. The tweeter with the small multicellular horn is sweet and extended, as is the similar h.f. section in the 206AXA coaxial. The big magnet 15" woofers, like the LX2, are very clean and punchy sounding. These were once used in the Klipschorns, before that company began using cheapo drivers. In general, most Stephens products were built to high quality standards, especially the earlier ones. The high frequency compression drivers all used spun aluminum diaphragms with half roll outer compliances, and sound very smooth. Stephens made thousands of small field coil compression drivers paired with eight cell, 800Hz. multicellular horns for Magnavox. These are really good, and sell for big money when they show up on ebay. Sometimes the Stephens eight cell horn is mistaken for the Lansing Iconic horn, but it is a little smaller in all dimensions than the Lansing.

In general, field coil speakers tend to sound similar to most light moving mass, heavy magnet drivers, only more so. There is clarity, punch, and vividness to the sound, and an inexplicable relaxing quality to the listening at the same time. They are an addiction that, once you have it, you're cured!

[speakerdave]

Trusonic speakers were available at least until the mid seventies--I know because I bought some. There was a small shop in Berkeley that sold Trusonic and a few other choice items. They were under Utah at that time and Utah seems to have maintained the quality. Besides the 15, 12 and 8 inch drivers they had the bullet style tweeter and some crossovers, and. I think, a coaxial.

They also sold a six-inch full range called the the FR60 which may have been a Utah product. It had a cast basket and pleated doped cloth surround. I used it as a midrange in a three-way system with EV T350 tweeters and some Cerwin Vega 15" woofers. Crossovers were Trusonic at 500 Hz and EV at 3500. The 60FR also worked to good effect in a complex rear loaded tapered horn, cum quarter wave transformer published in the mid-sixties as a diy project for the Lowther drivers. The driver faced upward. I supported the high frequencies with one of those little Danish square tweeters firing upward and backward. Absolutely no imaging but a wide spacious soundstage that I was very pleased with at the time. A friend of mine is still using those speakers in a second system he has in a room dedicated to smoking cigars. In his main system he moved up to von Schweikert. The 60FR also showed up under a Utah and a Radio Shack label.

I have a pair of 80FR which I bought to use as a full range. Don't know if I will ever do that now, having been distracted by all this JBL four-way monitor business. The build quality is up to the JBL standard with the exception of the little foil band they wrapped around the magnet pot which tends to come loose where it's lapped.

Stephens collaborated on some speaker systems with cabinets designed by Eames. You can find some web pages on them if you do a google search for Stephens Trusonic.

The big, proper, Trusonic stuff I only heard at the shop. They were quite tasteful, driven by those little Fisher railroad car tube amplifiers (the "80" I think)

Actually, come to think of it, I did also once hear a pair of Stephens theater speakers that looked very much like the Altec A-7 with a resonant chamber for the bass, a short horn for the bass/mid and a sectoral horn and driver on top (in fact they may have been Altec cabinets). The bass and bass/mid were very authoritative and the treble horn did not ring, so there was considerably less coloration than in the A-7 which I was quite familiar with at the time. Actually, now I remember I had sold the guy one horn and driver, which I had gotten as part of another deal, and when I heard those speakers I wished I had kept them and made them the core of a complete system for myself. But that stuff was then and still is very hard to come by. The horn and driver he got from me paired up with one he had been trying to match for a long time, completing his system, and he was so grateful he invited me to the party he threw to celebrate. Big photographer's studio South of Market in San Francisco. Great sound, great party.

David