architel Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I've been lurking on the Klipsch Forum for a few years. I bought my first Khorn (used) in 1961. Currently have 3 Khorns... s/n 243, 450, and 808. Wondered if anyone has more information about the speaker in the attached pictures from page 41 of the April 1943 issue of Architectural Forum. This speaker was located in the Manhattan town house of Sherman Fairchild (one time AES president, and manufacturer of among other things Fairchild cartridges, turntables, amps, cameras,planes, and semiconductors). Forgive me if this is a topic that's already been discussed. Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Oohh! That's a really old one! The HF horn doesn't look right, though. It looks like an old Altec. S/N 121 at the Klipsch Museum has a horn that looks a lot like a K-5-J, if it is not a K-5-J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
architel Posted February 19, 2004 Author Share Posted February 19, 2004 John, This speaker was built prior to April '43, therefore preceded commercial production. My understanding... it was a collaboration between Fairchild & PWK. I believe I saw this speaker in the mid sixties after Fairchild had gotten rid of it. My understanding at that time was that it had an 18" woofer. The mid horn (WE?) I saw had a right angle bend at the throat so the driver was below the top of the bass horn, and it had a conical horn tweeter that I now think was a very rare and desireable WE design. I think at least one of the drivers used a field coil instead of a permanent magnet because there was a hefty power supply that went with it. I heard it with Marantz tube amps (whichever has the triode/pentode switch on it...model 2 or 5. The fellow who had it, demonstrated it with a then current model D (with K5 mid and K77 tweeter as the other stereo channel. He said he liked Fairchild's speaker better, but I was unable to hear the difference. I started this thread because I've always wondered where that speaker ended up. I kind of remember that PWK made some reference (in some article from long ago) to this speaker and the outstanding acoustics of Fairchild's livingroom. Just thought some Klipsch historians might know about this stuff. Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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