Lansing discovery- WHOA!

[Steve Schell]

Moldyoldy, there are numerous examples of coaxial two way speakers that predate the Duplex. L.G. Bostwick's patent may be the first:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=BHR...=l.g.+bostwick

As far as I know these drivers were never produced commercially. Western Electric did build a coaxial horn system in the late 1930s that mounted a 555 driver on the rear of a Jensen 18" woofer. Its path was through the woofer center pole into a nine cell horn, while the woofer was loaded by a reentrant bass horn, similar to the Fletcher bass horn but smaller.

RCA built a two way coaxial horn system in the 1930s - 1950s called the Twin Power. It used separate compression driver/exponential horn and 15" woofer in a bass horn. Both these and the W.E. systems were used at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair.

Arthur Crawford operated a store in Los Angeles from at least the early 1940s through the late 1950s. In the early 1940s he sold two way systems using Lansing Iconic components installed in his own enclosure designs. He is generally crediting with suggesting the idea of the Duplex to Altec. My pet theory is that he got the idea from speakers seen at NYWF, as he had a business office in NYC.

Bob Stephens claimed in his early Tru-sonic catalogs that he had been the first to build and market a two way multicellular horn coaxial speaker. He said that some of the first units (field coil) were installed in the ceiling of Burbank Airport.

The design described in Carrington's patent was built by Altec beginning probably in 1945 as the 603 Dia-cone. The earliest catalog we have that shows it is 1947, but I saved images of one from an ebay auction and its hang tag indicates that Altec had built over 1,200 of them by September, 1946.

http://www.lansingheritage.org/image...1947/page2.jpg

There were also model 400 (8") and 600 (12") Dia-cones that lacked the bakelite horn of the 603. The 603 was a lackluster design; they sound mediocre to me, though Altec sold thousands of them. They cost less than half of a 604, had much the same look, and to me seem like a shrewd marketing strategy more than a carefully worked out design. John Hilliard wrote an article on the 603 that appeared in Audio Engineering magazine in 1947.

Bob Stephens also marketed numerous lower cost speakers over the years with aluminum center domes and diffusors in front. The best known is his "Co-spiral" which placed two jazzy-looking concentric aluminum cones in front of the dome with spiraling attachments between them. He knew a bit about marketing also. These also sound pretty bum.

[moldyoldy]

The Bostwick patent from '29 is the earliest I've been able to find too, Steve. Thanks for the link, I read it late one night, then lost it.

The more I study and learn, the more apparrent it becomes that there are VERY few truly groundbreaking inventions by individuals. A continued evolution of improvements that can be made upon others work is far more the norm.

[boputnam]

Blackburn's radial-slit phase plug patent, filed 1937, issued 1939;

http://www.google.com/patents?id=LfZ...s_maxy_is=2007

Note lack of assignee...meaning Blackburn personally owned the patent rights...

Moldyoldy...

That there, is amazing. I search patents all the time, but have always stuck to the USPTO website. I pay $3 a copy from them, when I need hardcopy. I've been waiting days for turnaround on some new requests, and found them - BINGO - with that Google Patent search. Thanks for the tip, dood.

And, of course, to Steve for sharing this really interesting history, and to the rest for contributing to this.

Please give our hello's to Don if you guys do get together at the memorial...

[KentGriffith]

During Jim Lansing's five year stint as an Altec Lansing VP, he was said to have expressed dissatisfaction with his role there. He said "I'm just a name to them", and complained that he was not really allowed to participate in company decisions. He did tough it out for five years though, as a five year non-competition clause had been included in his agreement to sell Lansing Mfg. Co.

Jim was evidently held in high esteem while at Altec, as he is pictured several times in the Altec Exchange newsletters of the period, the captions respectfully conveying his importance. There was however only a tiny mention of his departure from the company....

This is something I have wondered about many times... Has this issue been thoroughly discussed around here?

I tried to find out some things during my years working at Danforth Sound and all I can repeat are things I heard and bits and pieces I picked up along the way... so let me say what I have heard and see where it goes from here...

I heard that when Jim left Altec Lansing he tried starting up his own company putting out a line of speakers using his own name such as the James B. Lansing speakers used in Fender guitar amplifiers. I was told He was sued in federal court by Altec Lansing who said he could not use his own name because he had allowed it to become a part of a trademarked name Altec Lansing. I was told Jim lost the lawsuit or was somehow forced to stop using his own name and it was because of this that he had changed the name of his company to JBL.

I was also told that James B. Lansing committed suicide by car crash because he was depressed his JBL company was going deeper in debt and that he killed himself in 1949 because of this situation. Is this true? Can anyone confirm or deny these stories?

I was also informed that if Jim had lived only a few more years that he would have seen his company's turnaround and could have seen decades of growth and prosperity.

It seems to me that his association to Altec or "All Technical" was more or less for him to provide his knowledge to that company to help them create better speaker components for industrial and government purposes, while it seems to me that James Lansing was more interested in using his knowledge and skills at making speakers for music such as guitar speakers he designed and built for Fender as well as music reproduction speakers.

Am I on track here? I have never read a historical biography on James Lansing and only had limited contact with Mark Gander while I was at Danforth Sound. I use to call Mark about the guitar speakers more than anything else.

I worked for members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band and inherited some of the band members own personal JBL speakers. Allen Collins once told me that all he had to do was call up JBL and order up whatever he wanted. Allen Collins loved using JBL E120's in many of his guitar amplifiers. I tried finding out more about this relationship but reached a stone wall at JBL. Mark was helpful but I guess this relationship was before his time.

I can see I will be enjoying this forum very much as I am a huge fan of James Lansing and have been all of my life. Every note of music I listen to comes through his work efforts...

KG

[KentGriffith]

The molded Tangerine plug was surely much easier to manufacture than the Blackburn plug, which required forty passes with a mill cutter. The Lansing driver held the plug in place with a rolled lip on the center pole, a more secure arrangement than the CA glue used on the Tangerines!

This is a problem I am having with my tangerine phasing plugs... what glue is recommended for repairing these? I still have two more to do. Not sure what was used on my first set.

This forum is amazing. I am slowly learning so much more about Jim's brilliance.

KG

[KentGriffith]

Again with the name Lansing, I am not sure that he realized that naming his new company "Lansing Sound Incorporated" would cause a stir. He was never known to be a great businessman. He did make the necessary changes immediately once he was contacted by Altec. Of course, having just spent five frustrating years at Altec, another possibility is that he realized what he was doing and wanted to tweak them just a bit.

Altec applied for a trademark for "Iconic" on October 20, 1947. I'm sure this was after the skirmish with Jim was over. I'm not sure whether this application covered the word itself or just the (somewhat strange) artwork.

I would like to learn more about this skirmish with Jim.

It would seem to me that with Jim being at Altec that he would be losing his ideas to the Altec corporation and they would profit from his ideas and designs and aggressively fight to protect them as their own. Wouldn't it seem natural for Jim to keep to himself his better ideas and to hold them back from Altec with the intent that later on when freed up that he would pursue his ideas outside of Altec? Could Altec have known of this and been suspicious of Jim's efforts with Altec? I have to wonder and speculate about this relationship Jim had with Altec.

It has been said here before that a non-engineer like Jim actually eclipsed the real engineers Altec had. It seems maybe Altec was needing the ideas Jim was dreaming up to help give them a boost, and judging from the amount of products Altec put out with his influence is obvious... but it just seemed to me that Jim would have kept any ideas that could have improved the Altec products to himself. Did Jim seek or apply for any patents upon leaving Altec? Just curious... That would show me he did come up with ideas during his Altec tenure, but kept them to himself instead of allowing them to become property of Altec as Jim did with his name. Speaking of which... why did Altec trademark his name with theirs? Was it because of his influence or was it part of the contract going in?

When I came along in audio in the 80's and worked for an Altec Lansing / JBL professional dealer it seemed both companies had gone in different directions. JBL was more music oriented while Altec was more industrial and government oriented. At least this is where the products seemed to be heading off in... JBL sold to musicians while Altec was going to NASA, government installations, shopping malls, airports, etc.

I did some service work at Orlando International Airport and they used the 811 horns for paging outside the terminals where the planes pulled up. I use the same horns at home for music. I don't find many JBL's heading off in that direction!

It just seemed to me Altec was kinda living off their old ideas and making new speakers from them, while Jim moved on and moved ahead with new ideas. So my perception is Jim was all about music and music reproduction while Altec was more after those government contracts and explosion-proof drivers and more industrial oriented. If so, I can see why Jim may have had a lot of frustration working for Altec and watching his ideas be used in directions he may not have cared about or wanted to pursue.

I have to wonder how much the situation with Altec bothered Jim and if it had anything to do with his suicide? Was Jim's hands tied by Altec? Was he being held down and held back and constantly under attack for what he was doing?

Does anyone know what it was that drove Jim over the edge to commit suicide? I heard the motivation was simply that his JBL company was going deeper in the red and in debt. Was he cracking under this load only or was Altec adding in heavily on his mind?

What was going on in Jim's personal life such as family?

Where can I find this information? Has it already been discussed here? Am I just that far behind? Are there any books available on this?

I am sorry if this is a sensitive subject to discuss, but as a life-long fan of JBL and Altec Lansing speakers I just gotta know more about the man himself and what made him tick.

KG

[Steve Schell]

Hi Kent,

The details of the two skirmishes between Altec Lansing and JBL have been discussed most recently and perhaps most completely in the article that Don and I wrote for Stereo Sound magazine. You can find it at this link; I wrote the portion that covers Jim's life, and threw in just about every detail that we are aware of.

http://test.audioheritage.org/html/h...01_preface.htm

It is true that Jim had intended a new direction for his new company. He explained to Hal Cox in the late 1940s that he had previously brought fine quality sound to the motion picture theatre, and that he intended to do the same thing for people in their homes. He had other interests such as microphone design that he hoped to pursue, but as we now know that did not have a chance to happen.

Altec became upset that Jim began labeling his new products with the term "Iconic", and that he initially called his new company "Lansing Sound, Incorporated." These issues were quickly resolved and we have no evidence that Altec attempted to hassle Jim or limit his activities in any other way.

We have chosen not to focus on the details of Jim's death on this site, for a variety of reasons. They don't matter anyway. Jim suffered from a condition that might be diagnosed these days as Bipolar Disorder. People who knew him realized that his moods varied greatly. What was constant in him was a tremendous drive to design and build the best products possible. We have heard many first hand accounts of his working for days on end with little or no sleep when he was developing a new product or process. As a collector of his work, I am amazed at his prolific output in the late 1940s. Despite his tireless work however, his portion of ownership in the new company had shrunk to 30% before he died. This rapidly deteriorating situation must have reminded him of the fate that befell Lansing Mfg. Co. less than a decade earlier. It is such a shame that he did not live to participate in the success that JBL was to enjoy in the years to come. He did live long enough to see the huge success of much of the work he did while at Altec.

Kent, I certainly understand your desire to learn more about James B. Lansing the man. It was exactly the same curiosity that led to this site being founded over seven years ago.

[CONVERGENCE]

QUOTE
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When I came along in audio in the 80's and worked for an Altec Lansing / JBL professional dealer it seemed both companies had gone in different directions. JBL was more music oriented while Altec was more industrial and government oriented. At least this is where the products seemed to be heading off in... JBL sold to musicians while Altec was going to NASA, government installations, shopping malls, airports, etc
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Altec lansing was in speaker ,microphones and electronics from the biginnings. They branched out into military sonar and other top secret inventions.

The fact that you saw multicell or sectoral horns at airports has no
significance as to the product marketing.The train station in Toronto had 1005 cells hanging facing down from the ceiling in 1971.

Altec speakers were designed for music and speech intelligibility.
You won't find that same efficiency dynamic range in other speakers.


cbs wrote an interresting piece on the ALTEC MODEL 19. THEY DID SOME TESTS IN AN ANECHOIC CHAMBER.
hERE ARE THE ESSENTIAL FINDINGS .

Quote from CBS technology centre.


The bass is somewhat on the robust side,although
nicely defined and free of boominess.

The middles have a touch of forwardness and the highs are clear and transparent,with a slight
mellowness that might be attributed to the rolloff
above about 12 khz.
But probably the most striking characteristic is
its stereo image which seems three dimensional
to the point of being detached from the speakers The center of the image seems to extend forward
between the 2 speakers and toward the listener rather than rearward beyond the plane of the speakers as is usually the case.

.............................