Article: Town House for Sherman Fairchild

[WMcD]

Let's see . . . . you make a pile of money in a high tech industry. Therefore you have built for yourself a big modern townhome with a living room having non-parallel walls, acoustically treated walls, and broken surfaces on the ceiling treated with natural linen. The speaker of choice is a K-Horn, of course.

But the year is 1943. (You can't see me doing my Rod Sterling imitation, with the music.)

This article may be the first pubic appearance of the K-Horn. See the fifth page where the bass bin is shown with an eight-cell treble horn. The K-5 would not come about for some time. Sorry there is not more about the K-Horn.

This is a fairly big file even with adaptive compression turned up all the way. I hope you'll find the rest of the article interesting. Maybe someone out there has more information. I'll bet PWK walked those rooms.

Your weekend reading.

Size. 1.8 MB

Gil

Townhouse for Sherman Fairchild.pdf

[LarryC]

Wasn't Sherman Fairchild responsible for Fairchild's entry into amps, pre-amps and phono cartridges around 1960? Good stuff, but got caught up in the transition of from mono to stereo after his first products?

[boom3]

Gil, this is an amazing find-thanks. First off, are we sure that's a K-horn? Does K&A have a record of one of Paul's experimental units being sold or lent to Fairchild? Paul, as I'm sure you know, was at the proving grounds in Hope then, as an Army officer. I know he continued work on the horn during the war since I recall his discussion (in the K-5 article) about an FM program in 1944. I doubt there was an FM station close to Hope so that implies a major metro area, like NYC.

The townhouse itself is amazing for 1943, considering the wartime shortages of material and labor. I'm going to Google it to see if I can find out more history.

[LarryC]

I Googled, too! It's 16 E 56th street, a very high-priced, tony area indeed. The article wasn't specific, but it was a crippled relative, an aunt I think, that shared the townhouse with the supposed playboy-like Mr. Fairchild. She had her own entrance in an unobvious door just to the right of the main door as you see it in the picture. The facade apparently has been replaced, and as of 2002 it had become an art dealership.

Sherman Fairchild's name is attached to an astonishing number of electrical and engineering educational centers. On the other hand, apparently almost nothing survives for Google in his small audio recording and playback industry. I found one site (didn't keep the URL) on his cartridges, and another on his involvement in early recording. Fairchild 260's avatar is the only pic I know of of those remarkably rare higher-power amps.

Anyway, I got a ghostly feeling from Gil's article, wondered if all that could still be there. I thought it would be very difficult to make more of a home-like refuge in such a limited space in the heart of NYC's high-tone East side, but that it might feel a bit cramped to me over time.

EDIT: Here's a brief bio of Sherman Fairchild. His father George was remarkable, too -- a founder and the first chairman of IBM, and served 12 years in the US House of Representatives.

Larry

[WMcD]

To address boom3's question.

About 13 year ago I was on the hunt for all articles about PWK. I had the Klipsch papers and DfH. Some of the resuling finds have references to others. So one thing leads to another. There are still some I've not followed up on.

Some of the artilcles are not in the holdings of the nearby libraries open to the public. A friend had access to Northwestern's librrary. I'm sure it came from there.

The research project is somwhat in disaray these days. Therefore I can't just now tell you how I got a cite to this one. It most likely was from an article by or about PWK. It probably would not show up in any indexing system because Klipsch is not mentioned in text.

For that reason, I'm pretty sure that is a genuine K-Horn bass bin.

For what it is worth (and not proving anything) , note that the upper surface is not the "home plate" of later production models but rather what is shown in PWK's article from the earliest drawings. It also resembles the Jubilee top plate.

PWK was involved in aviation, the military, and hi-fi. So was Fairchild, we see. Such circles were smaller those days. I'd like to think they met and Fairchild provided a proving ground.

Another interesting thing is how many of the themes ("is that a theme or a motiff?" per PDQ) of the house involved woven cane. Very popular in those days. So maybe nothing should be inferred about how that became a mainstay of Klipsch grills..

Best,

Gil

[boom3]

Thanks Gil. Not doubting your sincerity, it just seemed that the provenance was "squishy". You are right on about circles of interest being smaller in those days. It would be interesting to research how Paul "marketed" the Klipschorn before the "regular" production began in 1948 with the units made by the Baldwin piano company. Word of mouth from influential people like Fairchild would have been essential.

Interesting to see cars of the period next to moderne architecture. The cars almost always look clunky.

[WMcD]

I did not think for a minute that my sincerity was in question.

The car thing is an interest of mine too. One reason for the form of the car might be the straigh eight or even 12 engines. It would force a very tall and narrow hood. Then the windshield has to be short in height.

It could be that the car shown is an expensive model like a big Packard.

It seem to me that auto body design didn't change very much in the '30s. Some of it must have been based on prop plane aerodynamics and teardrops.

Then during the war there were no new cars. The cars in the late '40s just followed the earlier designs.

It was not until the '50s that things really started to change and some of the themes were borrowed from jets.

Building design was far more modern in some areas. The Bauhous movement still seems fresh. I used to live on the IIT campus. The 1952 buildings are the basis of what is still being put up.

What you say about cars rang a bell. I recall seeing the photos of the Nautalus, the first SSN. Just by it at the dock is something that looks like a pre-war car. It is sort of a tribute to the fact that the new world was built by people from the old world.

Best,

Gil

[architel]

For slightly more info on Fairchild's speaker see my old thread from 02-19-04. A fellow named Dick Long had a pair of style D khorns and had just bought Fairchild's speaker. He placed an ad in the NY Times to sell one of the D's and I went to see it. This was winter of '64 or '65. I am now very sure that Dick Long was Richard Long of Richard Long Associates of Disco sound-system fame. The woofer cabinet was a scaled up 4/3 version of the commercial production k-horns...similar in size I believe to the Patrician cabinets. This was prior to disco and Long demonstrated the Fairchild speaker and one of the D's by playing the death scene from Tosca. I recall Long was particularly impressed at the accuracy of the reproduced soundstage when Tosca leaps to her death.

There are a few recordings that were made in Fairchild's living room still available. One that to my ear is of very high quality is "Midnight Hour Blues" with Larry Johnson and John Hammond Jr.

Also available on the web is an early fifties recording of Hoagy Carmichael and Marian McPartland made during a party at Fairchild's house.

The house was at 17 E. 65th St. The last time I went by (in the '90s) it's facade had changed greatly, and apparently an additional floor had been added.

Peter

[ZAKO]

I had a Fairchild 750 turntable & arm with a SM-2 Fairchild stereo cartridge (1964) It could handle 16" records. He also made a record cutting lathe. Both very good units.

[LarryC]

I once had a Fairchild 232 moving coil cart, which was supplanted by the MM SM-1 and SM-2. The 232 had a wonderful sound but tracked very poorly -- if this pic had uploaded, you could see why with its relatively big, clunky cantilever.

[fairchild260]

hi gill,

thank you so much for posting this.i'm always on the hunt for any information on fairchild i can get.the net even though as big as it is sure doesnt have much information on the company or its gear.

larry,

you are correct that the fairchild amps and preamps are rare.i've had my 260's for about 3 yrs now and recently aqquired the stereo preamp to go with them.i've been using them off and on with a pair of heresys and must say that i like the combination alot.i would like to one day try them with some k'horns but those never show up in my neck of the woods.i do however have a set of altec 19's coming my way shortly and will be very excited to try them out with the fairchild amps. fwiw heres a review on the fairchild 260 that was posted soemtime back by craig .http://http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/thread/503845.aspx

the rest of the review is on the second page. i will also post a review on the fairchild 245/248 stereo preamp shortly for those that are interested.

architel,

do you still have a copy of that article that you posted the pic from on 2-19-04?if so i would appreciate a scan of it if thats possible.

chris

[fairchild260]

just thought of something i want to ad to this post which seems interesting to me. didnt pwk use a brook amplfier with 2a3's?if so i would be interesting to note that fairchild commisioned brook to build a 2a3 amp for him modeled after the 10c.perhaps this was after listening to pwk's speakers.just a thought.anyone have any ideas on this?

chris

[architel]

Chris,

It was from the same article which Gil has posted in full (the April 1943 issue of Architectural Forum).

Peter

[fairchild260]

Chris,

It was from the same article which Gil has posted in full (the April 1943 issue of Architectural Forum).

Peter

oh ok thanks architel.i've been busy today and havnt had a chance to read it yet.

chris

[fairchild260]

Chris,

It was from the same article which Gil has posted in full (the April 1943 issue of Architectural Forum).

Peter

oh ok thanks architel.i've been busy today and havnt had a chance to read it yet.

chris

[Colin]

FYI horns are on page 5

BTW fairchild, I was raised in Winnipeg, but we moved south to Minnesota where it is warm!

[]

[WMcD]

I did a little more searching through the collection.

It seems I was alerted to the article by a bibliography from Tom Dunker's website about 15 years ago. I found that again, you can Google to it now, as I did. However the internal link to the bibliography didn't work for me.

I'm not quite sure what is being said above about a 4/3 scale up. Is that reported as the Fairchild unit? Looking at the size of the treble horn in the picture, I did not get that impression. OTOH, I don't know much about mult cell horn sizes.

After some reflection it occurs to me that I was jumping to a conclusion that the bass unit shown must have been built by PWK. After all, who else could have?

If there was such a person he'd have to have a technical background, an interest in hi fi, an interest in patents and technical publicatons, access to plywood during the war, access to expert woodworkers who could make the thing from scratch without detailed drawings, and a heck of a lot of money.

In New York, there was such a man. Sherman Fairchild.

Smile,

Gil

[architel]

Gil,

Re 4/3 scaleup. To make this as clear as I can: In the winter of 1964 or 1965 I saw what was purported to be Sherman Fairchild's old KHorn. I've described what I remember of the speaker in arlier post a couple of years ago. I did not see it in the townhouse. The bass horn was notably larger than that of a style D that was next to it. The fellow who claimed he had gotten it from Fairchild also said, in my recollection, that it was 4/3 the size of the style D and that it had an 18 inch driver in it.

As you probably know Fairchild had been a president of the AES, had contacts with everyone, and appeared to delight in being an early adopter and purveyor of all kinds of technology. I don't doubt that he had this horn built in the very early forties in consultation with Klipsch. While the townhouse was featured in Architectural forum in 1943, I believe it was completed at the end of 1941. I'm guessing that would be a pretty good ballpark date for the construction of the speaker.

Peter

[sunnysal]

Thanks Gil for antoher great article! Tony

[WMcD]

Peter,

Many thanks for the info. I should have not written anything which could be read as indicating that you were not being clear. Sometimes I see ambiguities which are not there.

As I wrote, I was a bit surpised at the implication that what was in the picture was a scaled up unit.

This is a very interesting subject to me (and others perhaps). I've not seen any information on wartime builders of K-Horns except for what PWK has reported. as his own work on the X series.

It is interesting to ponder the mysteries and possibilities. E.g. could Fairchild have built more than one K-Horn? Perhaps there were several and they were different sizes. What 12, 15 inch, and 18 drivers were available back then?

No, I didn't know anything about Fairchild and the AES. Thanks for that.

Best,

Gil