Stephens Trusonic Tru-sonic speaker cabinet find

[audiocrack]

Hello, I am new to this site, and have a question on a cabinet I found today at estate sale. I am not a audiophile, but do like to listen to music. Long story short, I bought a cabinet today without even knowing what drivers might be inside. I was sure there were speakers, but I had no idea what type, or brand. I asked a lady the price, and she said she would have to ask someone. She also mentioned that earlier a gentleman had asked about the cabinet, and even pulled the back off to examine. She said he wasn't familiar with the name brand speakers, and left it alone. I was figuring well some off the wall generic brand, and I am probably wasting my time and money ($100). Well I bought it anyway, because I guess that is half the fun, wondering what did I get ? So I get it home and pull the back. Inside this cabinet are two speakers, and a crossover unit. I hooked it up to find out working status. Works fine, sounds great. A Stephens 16 ohm P52L and P15 with horn. I have done a little research, and find these speakers mentioned with Klipsch alot. Are these Klipsch speakers ?

[seti]

Can you post some pics?

Stephens Trusonic drivers were used in Rebels and if I remember right Shorthorns and perhaps even early Klipschorns. They were also used in Klipsch kit speakers in the early days. Stephens also had their own cabinet designs some of which are facsinating.

[audiocrack]

Yes I plan to take some pictures in the morning. I am so fascinated by all the old speakers out there. How they sound, and who collects them, and why. I must admit that this speaker sounded very good when listened too. I am sure there are alot of speaker collectors who love to experiment with crossovers, and cabinet configurations to make great speakers sound even better. If I had the money I would invest in finding a match to this, although I am uncertain the actual time and energy it might take. The bass from this cabinet is awesome, I listened to it out of doors. I wonder what is the best that this speaker combination could sound ?

[sheltie dave]

Audiocrack, yes, these were "Klipsch" speakers in the sense that Paul used them both in his two way KHorns for a few years, before the Khorns went three way. Whenever Paul found a new(cheaper) supplier and his purchase agreement or supply of guts ran out, he moved on to another company. Your Stephens were a stepping stone as Paul rolled through Stephens, University, Jensen, Electrovice, CTS, and Eminence, if memory serves.

Your woofer is quite good, in my opinion. I have yet to hear the P15. Really looking forward to your pics! [Y]

[audiocrack]

Well I could not figure out how to upload the pics to this site. But if you have a email address I would be more than happy to send them to you. I was doing some more research, and the question I had as to why there were only one of these cabinets available, and not two.....because in the early days of hifi people listened to mono, and not stereo set ups. If a person could find another of these setups it would make a very nice sounding stereo image. I have not been able to pinpoint a date on the speaker, but the tag says Los Angeles, and research suggests this speaker to be earlier than later. If anyone happens to know a date, it would be great to know. Thanks.

[seti]

[audiocrack]

Thanks seti for the help with the pictures. I am looking forward to any informational help that can be supplied with the extra information the pictures supplies.

[oldenough]

Thats a cool speaker....you sure need to find another to match it.[Y]

[sheltie dave]

That cabinet is a late 1930's radio cabinet that was gutted and remodeled into the Stephens speaker. Not bad, but not great for best sound with these speakers. The crossover is the correct Stephens 800CX or 600CX, probably the 800 - which crosses over at 800 hertz.

With the black crinkle finish, this would date the pair to the late 40s. By 1950 Stephens had a P30 tweeter, and by 1953 or so they were painting everything a blue crinkle.

Here is a little background on Stephens - he is most known for creating the 17 degree sectoral horn chambers for the Shearer horns. 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. 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.

[audiocrack]

Thanks for sharing all of the great information on this speaker setup that I found. What fascinating details. What's even more interesting is that after all of these years, they still sound great !!!!! Still in awe of the bass, and am sure in the right cabinet would surely be tremendous. Whether or not I will keep, am not sure, but would consider keeping if not so expensive to duplicate. I did notice 800 on the side of the crossover unit, so that must be the crossover point that you mentioned.

[Johnlw7]

Here is one of a pair i am trying to purchase if i can come to terms with the seller.Stephens were the equal of any Altec or JBL.Too bad they are not around.

[audiocrack]

So you say that someone has a pair of these to sell ? Wow. I wonder who was the first person to say to themself " How good would it sound if I had two ?" I consider myself dumb lucky to have found this setup after the information I have gathered. It was just sitting in this estate store called buy it now. Some local store that goes around buying up estates, and leftovers. I took one look at it, said to myself " that looks cool", asked how much, and then bought it. It is interesting to hear that Stephens is held in the same light as early Altec, and JBL, as both of those brands have huge following in early quality speaker market from what I have read. Oh, Yeah Stephens is still around, you just have to look a little harder, LOL.

[Johnlw7]

They will sound incredible with two.the seller kind of knows what he has.The woofers will fetch a grand or more.the horns who knows.

[audiocrack]

I have questions for Klipsch forum concerning this speaker set up. The reason I ask this forum is because you have the most information to offer on this particular vintage brand of speaker. My first question is was the early P52L made with dual voice coils ? Meaning 1 high frequency, 1 low ? I just got home from vacation, and had a chance to pull the speakers from the cabinet to examine them. I have seen pics of the P52L speaker with the crossover mounted to it, but not seen two sets of wires from the x-over. I noticed my p52L had a spot for the crossover to be mounted, but does not seem to be dual coil, rather the dustcap is ventilated for the voicecoil. My other question is how do I tell if the horn is tar filled ? For whatever reason this seems to be a better sounding horn, I am not sure why ?

[sheltie dave]

Audiocrack, their tar filled horns were dipped, just like an ice cream cone, so yours is not tarred.

The full range speakers would have a second cone of slightly lighter material to make it a full ranger, and would have the FR designation. The coaxes would have the CX designation, and would have the second set of wires like you mentioned.

The larger format Stephens horn has a bigger(longer) dispersion pattern, which always seemed to me to throw the highs out into the room better than their little tulip coxials.

I have heard of a single P52LX, but after the gentleman sold it, he never emailed back with any information or pics, so with Stephens those of you who own these end up being the historians.

[audiocrack]

Here are some more pictures of the speaker components after I had pulled them from the cabinet. First picture is of the woofer cone, and the other is of the dustcap, I noticed there is a hole there I am assuming for the ventilation of the voice coil ?

[audiocrack]

I took several pictures of the horn, it's driver, and the crossover. I am amazed that the actual driver is so much smaller than the surrounding frame holding it to the horn. Overkill? There must be a magnet there somewhere right ? Funny when you think of how small tweeters are today. I pulled the crossover apart to see what components might be inside, but can't see too much there is alot of black tar covering everything, not sure why other than to maybe seal it ? I see a couple large copper coils, and not too much else visible just the tar. Interesting.

[sheltie dave]

No reason to monkey with the crossover - just button it back up. Do try to figure out if it is an 800 Hz cutoff. If you want to freshen it up, just build a new one and keep that original intact.

It looks like your tweeter will have a 68 by 34 degree throw for thr initial goes out.

[audiocrack]

Yeah, well the only reason for monkeying with the crossover is the solder tabs that the wires are attached to were loose, and the nuts on the inside kept spinning, and I couldn't tighten them enough to get a solid signal going to the drivers. So I took it apart to make sure I could hold onto the nuts while I tightened the screws. I want to get a solid strong signal going to the drivers so that I can listen to them for about a week, make sure everything is AOK with them and then I am going to sell them on Ebay. I just finished hooking the speaker back up, and amlistening to it right now. I am using a surround receiver, but the crossover is not selectable, no low end. I am going to go over to storage tonight, pull out my yamaha preamp, and 1 of my Denon monoblocks, hook it up and let it play !!! I really don't have any room to store them, and I am not going to spend any money to replicate this setup. It's well over my head, and I am sure there are plenty of people who would put better use to these speakers then me. I tested the voicecoil resistance, and I got 5.5 ohms on the tweeter, and 7.3 ohms on the woofer. Yeah, the crossover is 800 hertz, I see a 800 stenciled on each side of the crossover, there is also a 16 ohm variable resistor inline with the tweeter. I think this is for adjusting the level of the tweeter. From what I have listened so far, you have to keep the tweeter level pretty low, or it's all you hear. It's very loud.

[audiocrack]

This is the information that I have come up with while researching trusonic speakers in the age category. All speakers will have the same physical appearance. The E52L, it is the version with a field coil, and is earlier version. The E15 is the tweeter with a field coil. The P52A is the coaxial version, with the horn in the center. The P52LX is the version after the P52L, appears the same with exception to the cone that is used, the cone has two ribs on the outside edge of the cone, rather than just one. It also uses cork as mount seal, rather than the rust colored paperboard on the P52L. The P52LX also seems to have the culver city designation, and a diamond shape badge added with the Stephens Trusonic brand.