DizRotus

Mamiya 4

Mamiya 3

Mamiya 2

Mamiya 1

Leica 6

Leica 5

Leica 4

Leica 3

Leica 2

Leica 1

The same friend who is selling a '54 Khorn & a '56 Khorn in Garage Sale asked me for advice about a Leica 35mm and a Mamiya (medium format?) camera. I told her I'd tap the collective expertise of friends, including the many photography experts who frequent this forum. What can you tell me about either of the cameras shown in the photos? The attached zip file has all photos and the foloowing posts will attach each photo separately.

When did PWK first try to play back 2-channel recorded music? He probably had access to multi-channel reel to reel before commercially reproduced stero LPs or R2R tapes were generally available. From a marketing perspective, the sooner 2-channel was accepted by consumers, the sooner Klipsch had the potential to sell twice as many speakers to each hi-fi enthusiast. It's clear that he was a leader--without many followers--of the 3-channel system. His motivation seems to have been the quest for accurate reproduction of music, rather than a marketing ploy to sell center channel speakers

EDIT: 6/22/09 @ 10:23 AM EDT The subject of the thread has been changed. Now the question becomes when and how PWK's 3 channel model was promoted and received. EDIT: 6/21/09 @ 2:13 EDT - The Forum seems to dislike pasting in text from a document created in MS Word. The gibberish above is the result. A thread in the Garage Sale forum: '54 & '56 Khorns $1,550 in Detroit, spawned a digression regarding the extent--if any--to which PWK foresaw stereo when he built the first Khorn in 1948. That discussion seems more suited to 2-Channel so I've moved it here. Regarding the extent to which PWK might have anticipated and then ultimately embraced stereo, I feel that High fidelity was always paramount to him. There are two aspects of this analysis that are brought to mind, especially today, Father's Day. First, I can hear my late father telling me that a good monaural hi-fi (which he owned) was better than a bad stereo. I suspect PWK initially felt the same, although he had an economic interest in embracing 2-channel, the accurate reproduction of live music seemed to be his unwavering focus. Second, in 1967, as a freshman at Michigan State University, I first heard a Zenith "Circle of Sound" stereo. To me, it proved my father's mantra to be wrong. That crappy stereo sounded better than my father's hi-fi. To some extent, the same phenomenon takes place today when comparing 2-channel to multi-channel. To many peoples' ears, a mediocre home theater in a box from Wal-Mart sounds better than an excellent 2-channel system, especially when watching explosion films. If the goal is to recreate a live music performance, then an excellent multi-channel system will often outperform an excellent 2-channel sytem. PWK liked opera (hence naming La Scala after the world famous opera house) and symphonic music. While an excellent 2-channel system can recreate the intimacy of a small jazz club, it cannot recreate, as well, the size and ambience of a large concert hall. An argument can be made that it depends on the source material. Several Forum members have expressed a preference for mono when playing vintage recordings that pre-date stereo. If the original recording was well produced and recorded in mono, playing it through 2, or more, channels is unlikely to enhance the listening experience. The same would apply to an excellent 2-channel recording played through a multi-channel system. I'm reminded of efforts to "colorize' classic black & white films. To me, it was a step backward. On the other hand, do I want to watch Dark Knight in black & white on a CRT with mono or 2-channel sound? What do you think?

Seti, you asked: "How is shapeshifter haven't seen him on here in years? He sent me some great jazz cds a couple years ago" I wish I knew. Shortly after we scoped out the white elephants, he told me that he and a new girlfriend were riding his Harley to a jazz festival in Detroit. Sounds like other interests occupy his time. Does anyone know his status?

Here's another photo of one of the white elephants. The room these were in at the father's house is not the son's basement shown in the photos. He couldn't weight to get rid of them. The son told a story about playing loud rock music when his father was away and blowing the tweeters. To conceal his crime, the son bought two new tweeters and threw the old ones out. He nearly cried when I told him they could have been easily repaired and that non-working EV-T35/K-77s can fetch $150 each on eBay. At that point, Shape Shifter kicked me in the shin. They looked dreadful, but sounded fine. I don't know what became off them. Perhaps we should start "Ugliest Klipschorn" thread.

Those were some seriously ugly Khorns, but they're gorgeous now! The attached photo shows a Khorn that Forum member Shape Shifter and I went to check out locally. The seller's late father was a pediatrician who paid a carpenter to camoflauge them against a room done entirely in white.

Regarding the extent to which PWK might have anticipated and then ultimately embraced stereo, I feel that High fidelity was always paramount to him. There are two aspects of this analysis that are brought to mind, especially today, Father's Day. First, I can hear my late father telling me that a good monaural hi-fi (which he owned) was better than a bad stereo. I suspect PWK initially felt the same, although he had an economic interest in embracing 2-channel, the accurate reproduction of live music seemed to be his unwavering focus. Second, in 1967, as a freshman at Michigan State University, I first heard a Zenith "Circle of Sound" stereo. To me, it proved my father's mantra to be wrong. That crappy stereo sounded better than my father's hi-fi. To some extent, the same phenomenon takes place today when comparing 2-channel to multi-channel. To many peoples' ears, a mediocre home theater in a box from Wal-Mart sounds better than an excellent 2-channel system, especially when watching explosion films. If the goal is to recreate a live music performance, then an excellent multi-channel system will often outperform an excellent 2-channel sytem. PWK liked opera (hence naming La Scala after the world famous opera house) and symphonic music. While an excellent 2-channel system can recreate the intimacy of a small jazz club, it cannot recreate, as well, the size and ambience of a large concert hall. An argument can be made that it depends on the source material. Several Forum members have expressed a preference for mono when playing vintage recordings that pre-date stereo. If the original recording was well produced and recorded in mono, playing it through 2, or more, channels is unlikely to enhance the listening experience. The same would apply to an excellent 2-channel recording played through a multi-channel system. I'm reminded of efforts to "colorize' classic black & white films. To me, it was a step backward. On the other hand, do I want to watch Dark Knight in black & white on a CRT with mono or 2-channel sound? What do you think?

EDIT: 07/05/12 I was able to remove the artifacts from the above post, but I don't know how. Does anyone know why the computer gibberish has inserted itself at the beginng of the above post? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I copied and pasted text from a private message. In any case, I'm not able to edit it out, as it doesn't appear in the message when the "Edit" tab is clicked.

The goal of my friend and I is to get these speakers into the hands of someone who appreciates what they are and what they can be. We're not suggesting that they must be restored to original or that they should be modifed to modern specs. We just want to make sure that whoever buys them understands what they're getting. To that end, I've pasted below a portion of a response to a Forum member. Do they need any upgrades? If I were going to use them, the answer is yes. Each Klipschophile's needs are different. I would restore them to their original operating condition by replacing the capacitors in the balancing networks. The '54 speaker would need another University tweeter to be returned to original. Alternatively, one could replace the University tweeter in the '56 speaker with an EV T-35 to match the "upgrade" that was made to the '54 speaker. I sold an empty (no dirvers or balancing network) 50s vintage cabinet for $150 to a man in Belgium who is a collector of vintage juke boxes. He paid to have the cabinet shipped to Belgium and then restored. He purchased the components separately on eBay. The point is, these ancient examples are valued by collectors. Some people would keep the bass bins and woofers, sell everything else and combine the bass units with modern networks, squawkers and tweeters. Others would keep everything original. Some people (my mother-in-law) are satisfied with a Bose wave machine. Others are never satisfied. To some these need nothing; to others they need too much. It's extremely subjective. The attached photo shows the empty enclosure mentioned above that was shipped to Belgium.

The asking price has been reduced. These Khorns with non-metal non-resonant squawker horns were ahead of their time. Make an offer and you might become the owner of two pieces of Klipsch history.

The Penguins played like champs tonight. Congratulations to Pittsburgh.

I know a urologist who might help you with that . . . . oh, wait a minute. Didin't he contribute to the hernia?

I agree with you. The NHL is being short-sighted by prohibiting Mellon Vision and Joe Vision. IMHO, the NHL doesn't realize what a great product it has. They still can't decide if it's a real sport (which it is) or professional wrestling on skates. Until the NHL treats fighting like real major league sports (can you say NFL, NBA and MLB?) with fines and suuspensions after the first punch, NHL hockey will remain a second class sport. The Olympics, NCAA and international hockey do nicely without the face washing, sissy punching, etc. that is tolerated, if not encouraged, by the NHL. Watching the refs watch two hockey players "punch" each other reminds me of the days in pro wrestling when the Sheik would put his thumbs in the opponent's eyes for two seconds, as long as he stopped before the count of 3 it was OK. The sweater pulling is silly. They might as well have pillow fights. If someone really does damage, like Todd Bertusi (sp?), everyone exclaims that they didn't intend to actually hurt anyone. THEN DON'T FIGHT!!! Call them names if you must. The silly "fights" just cheapen the sport.

Temper, temper. Silly penalties will kill you.

The avatar might still be blue, but the Wings and I aren't. The Penguins showed in game 5 why they're not yet ready to match the Wings. Silly penalties.