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Thread: Parts from famous custom monitors rescued

  1. #1
    lfh
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    Parts from famous custom monitors rescued

    At the risk of making you guys green with envy , I must share this:

    A couple of weeks before Christmas a colleague of mine told me that some wooden horns were lying in the hallway in the basement of the office building. Being a 2397 and Westlake fan, I of course got carried away: "Hmmm... Wood. Could it possibly be... Nah, of course not..." Needless to say, I rushed down immediately to look at them and to find out what was going on. Maybe another audio company was moving in somewhere in the building?

    To my great surprise four Westlake-style Smith horns with remainings of baffles from a soffit installation were carelessly threwn on top of a pile of junk (old CRT monitors, books in bad shape, a pair of slalom-skiing boots, ...)!



    Obviously someone was moving out, and reflecting the way those things were handeled, it seemed likely they were about to be thrown away! Hence I called the janitor, and yes, he was cleaning out a store room that had belonged to a consultancy company that moved out years ago. Sure, I could take whatever I wanted, it would just make his life easier. Wow!



    So I carried the precious horns to our store at light-speed and started to examine them: Two of the baffles are partly covered with light veneer, and there are holes for tweeters below the horns, so I figured it should be possible to identify them. In any case there are not that many studios in Sweden that had Westlake/Eastlake designed rooms, in particular not with two such control rooms, so my thoughts went in a certain direction immediately...


  2. #2
    RIP 2013 Rolf's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lfh
    At the risk of making you guys green with envy , I must share this:

    A couple of weeks before Christmas a colleague of mine told me that some wooden horns were lying in the hallway in the basement of the office building. Being a 2397 and Westlake fan, I of course got carried away: "Hmmm... Wood. Could it possibly be... Nah, of course not..." Needless to say, I rushed down immediately to look at them and to find out what was going on. Maybe another audio company was moving in somewhere in the building?

    To my great surprise four Westlake-style Smith horns with remainings of baffles from a soffit installation were carelessly threwn on top of a pile of junk (old CRT monitors, books in bad shape, a pair of slalom-skiing boots, ...)!



    Obviously someone was moving out, and reflecting the way those things were handeled, it seemed likely they were about to be thrown away! Hence I called the janitor, and yes, he was cleaning out a store room that had belonged to a consultancy company that moved out years ago. Sure, I could take whatever I wanted, it would just make his life easier. Wow!



    So I carried the precious horns to our store at light-speed and started to examine them: Two of the baffles are partly covered with light veneer, and there are holes for tweeters below the horns, so I figured it should be possible to identify them. In any case there are not that many studios in Sweden that had Westlake/Eastlake designed rooms, in particular not with two such control rooms, so my thoughts went in a certain direction immediately...

    With humble regards to "the eldest".... I say this:

  3. #3
    lfh
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    The picture

    Here they are - covered with dust and cobweb, but beauuuuutiful:
    Attached Images Attached Images  

  4. #4
    lfh
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    The origin

    After googling for a while I finally found the pics I was looking for (there just had to be a few of them on-line):

    Polar Studios, Studio A, 1978

    Polar Studios, Studio B, 1978

    More pics

    I don't think there's much doubt about it: The horns must come from the famous ABBA studio that was designed by Eastlake, and opened in 1978.

  5. #5
    lfh
    Guest

    Bastard designs?

    Upon close inspection, it seems that the upper pair in my pic comes from Studio A (reflecting the color of veneer and the tweeter holes in close proximity to the horns), and the lower pair from Studio B (notice the remaining sector of the left side 15" driver hole, and the absence of hole for the tweeter immediately below the horn).

    BTW, are those tweeters E-V T 35:s? :shock: (I'll check the mounting hole dimensions.)

  6. #6
    norealtalent
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    WONDERFUL SAVE!!!!...In order to continue being an LHS Member, I have decided that being jealous is not as bad as being envious ...

  7. #7
    lfh
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    Polar Studios today?

    Sadly, Polar Studios closed in the summer of 2004. Rumours had it that the new house owner raised the rent by a factor two... Adding this to the diminishing customer base the entire business sees due to the home recording boom, it was simply impossible to continue to run such a studio.

    The web page is still on-line, though: Polar Studios Homepage

  8. #8
    Senior Member glen's Avatar
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    Great Save

    Looks like someone realized the horns were special when the sutio was being dismantled and, not-so-carefully, removed them from the rest of the cabinets to save them, and then later tossed them.

    So glad they fell into good hands!
    glen

    "Make it sound like dinosaurs eating cars"
    - Nick Lowe, while producing Elvis Costello

  9. #9
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    Thumbs up Well done!

    Congratulations on a superb find. There is some justice in the universe, I always say.

    Out.

  10. #10
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Congratulations!!!

    It is wonderful that someone who cares about these things found them instead of them going to the local landfill.

    Now, it seems you will have a project on your hands.
    Quote Originally Posted by lfh
    BTW, are those tweeters E-V T 35:s? :shock: (I'll check the mounting hole dimensions.)
    I'd bet that they were the bigger brother the T-350. The T-350 is actually a decent tweeter. It is a significant step up from the T-35/A.


    Widget

  11. #11
    pelly3s
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    im with widget on the tweeters..... the T-350 is pretty sweet sound tweeter.

    great find on the horns its rare for things like that to turn up.

  12. #12
    lfh
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    E-V tweeters

    I'm not as shocked as I pretended. I was not aware of the T-350, but I've heard ST-350:s in PA applications and thought they were quite nice.


    The new speaker project

    To begin with it'll of course be very interesting to measure them (despite Mr. Widget's many excellent posts on the subject) and compare them to my 2397:s. In fact I happen to have a perfect application for them - possibly even better than having them in my living room: (Yes, it does make me think about the "justice in the universe"... )

    Our company is moving to a new office this summer, and we'll build a dedicated multichannel listening room from scratch. Now I'm trying to convince everybody that we need large format monitors as an alternative to the current Genelec 1030 (near field) setup. While being at it we might as well build a real L/C/R wall with flush mounted mains - right? I'll meet with the acoustics consultant (one of the top studio designers in our neck of the woods) next week and discuss this matter. I figure e.g. an MTM setup similar to this system (less the trick baffle design) could actually be realistic, both w.r.t. component costs and the number of (after work) hours needed for the design.

    Fredrik

  13. #13
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lfh
    I figure e.g. an MTM setup similar to this system could actually be realistic, both w.r.t. component costs and the number of (after work) hours needed for the design.
    I've been in that control room. Those are very nice all JBL custom monitors with added Tannoy super tweeters. They are not actually an MTM though. The dual 15" woofers are in a 2.5 way configuration similar to the 4435. The woofers are modified 2205As and 2215As. The mid driver is a 375 with a Be diaphragm.

    Where did you get the photo?

    Widget
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  14. #14
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Here is a close up of one of the monitors... the designer told me that the stepped baffle trim detail was due more to aesthetics than any particular diffraction issue.

    Widget
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  15. #15
    lfh
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Widget
    I've been in that control room. Those are very nice all JBL custom monitors with added Tannoy super tweeters. They are not actually an MTM though. The dual 15" woofers are in a 2.5 way configuration similar to the 4435. The woofers are modified 2205As and 2215As. The mid driver is a 375 with a Be diaphragm.
    Most interesting info - thanks! I took for granted they were MTM:s. I recall that you have posted a pic of them before. Yep, Be is on the wish-list...

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Widget
    Where did you get the photo?
    It's posted at the studio's official site:

    http://www.oceanstudiosburbank.com/test/gear.htm#
    http://www.oceanstudiosburbank.com/t...ientphotos.htm

    The studio seems to be an incredible place, with the rebuilt monster Neve console, a pair of Kinoshitas in the live room (maybe they ditched them for the JBL:s?) etc.

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