Stewart Hegeman's handbuilt speakers - Omni-Directional

[One Bad Ear]

I am another one of those students who worked at Hegeman Labs in East Orange and came away with a pair of Model 1As that I still have. My dad grew up with Stewart Hegeman, which is how I got involved with him. At the time I was there he was also building a larger version, Model 2 or 2A, and later tried his hand at some bookshelf speakers in an attempt to make money. I don't believe business was his calling. I did most things involved with assembling the speakers, but nothing to do with the electrical components. The high frequency diffusor mentioned above was just a ping pong ball filled with plastic and sliced. I spent a lot of time in a hot loft in the "Lab" mixing plastic to pour in molds for the tweeter housing. I recall his son going by "Pete" not "Phil", but that was 42 years ago, so who knows.
I don't use my 1As much, but they still sound fine and I never had any problem with the aluminum speaker cone. The foam grill covers long ago disintegrated, though.
Pat

[Lee in Montreal]

Mid-1960s Zenith omnidirectional cabs/coffee tables...





I also remember French Elipson speakers from the 1960s that were similarly omni-directional. The concept behind avoiding a point-source seemed logic. There's no point source when you go to a concert.

[srm51555]

Welcome to the forum, thanks for sharing

[hsosdrum]

Mid-1960s Zenith omnidirectional cabs/coffee tables...
I also remember French Elipson speakers from the 1960s that were similarly omni-directional. The concept behind avoiding a point-source seemed logic. There's no point source when you go to a concert.

The proportion of direct vs. reflected sound heard at live concerts forms the basis for Dr. Amar Boes's early designs* all the way through whatever the current iteration of the Bose 901 is. (Most people here find Bose's logic a bit suspect, to put it kindly.)

My feeling is that if a recording is accurate, the proper proportions of direct vs. reflected information will be encoded into it. A two-channel playback system that makes no attempt to properly decode this direct and reflected information but instead introduces an additional proportion of reflected vs direct sound via its only two speakers is going to take the reproduction of that recording further away from accuracy, not closer to it. A system that can properly decode the direct and reflected information and send each to a properly-placed set of speakers will bring the reproduction of that recording closer to accuracy. (This is why I stopped listening to two-channel stereo about 25 years ago.)

Two-channel stereo (compromise that it is) can trace its roots back to the original Audio Perspective experiments carried out by Bell Labs in 1933. Although audio hardware technology has incrementally improved since these experiments were performed, the principles confirmed by those experiments establish the basis for our hobby [passion/quest/etc.]. Those interested can find the original Auditory Perspective paper at the following link: www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/bell.labs/auditoryperspective.pdf


*Except for the 2201, which was an attempt at placing a 1/8th-spheroid element with 22 drivers into a corner and using the resulting acoustic reflections to create an omnidirectionally-radiating sphere. I was always curious to hear that one.

[Kenny]

Hello Pat!

I just found your post on LH re Hegeman 1A's. Wow I've had these speakers since 1974 when I found them in Denver for $160 a pair, got 2 pair. They wanted the JBL sound. Reason Im writing is that I have one fried tweeter and want to to know what to replace them both with.
If you have an idea please email me at [email protected].

Thanks,
Kenny

I am another one of those students who worked at Hegeman Labs in East Orange and came away with a pair of Model 1As that I still have. My dad grew up with Stewart Hegeman, which is how I got involved with him. At the time I was there he was also building a larger version, Model 2 or 2A, and later tried his hand at some bookshelf speakers in an attempt to make money. I don't believe business was his calling. I did most things involved with assembling the speakers, but nothing to do with the electrical components. The high frequency diffusor mentioned above was just a ping pong ball filled with plastic and sliced. I spent a lot of time in a hot loft in the "Lab" mixing plastic to pour in molds for the tweeter housing. I recall his son going by "Pete" not "Phil", but that was 42 years ago, so who knows.
I don't use my 1As much, but they still sound fine and I never had any problem with the aluminum speaker cone. The foam grill covers long ago disintegrated, though.
Pat

[Don C]

It's kind of hard to see the tweeters, but they resemble some Phillips tweeters that I've seen.