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ID this crossover! Oldie


cscmc1

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Any chance someone could host or post a pic for me? This crossover appears to have been professionally built many, many moons ago. I can see the edge of a paper label and read "Lab" and "NY." So a NY company apparently. Two huge sprague caps and two wound inductors -- that's it. It came with a single homemade corner cabinet I bought a few weeks ago. Nifty old piece! I'd like to know more about it.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

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Two suggestions: The address is New York 28, NY. The 28 was a postal zone number, the predecessor to today's ZIP codes. I did a quick search to see if I could find a zone-to-ZIP table but no luck. Any NYC natives might know where that was?

You might find someone who has the old records of the Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA) and their listings might match the NYC zone number.

Fisher is one manufacturer that comes to mind, but in my lifetime they were always on Long Island. Maybe Lafayette? Brociner was in NYC, but in zone 16

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I am told by NYC natives that zone 28 is now zip 10028, which equates to upper east side, 5th ave to East River, 80-87th streets. In the 80s (approx) the northern part was detached as 10128. So there's a clue...

Somehow I am thinking this is not one of the major manufacturers...I would think that a crossover from a major, particularly for theater equipment, would have a "hammertone" wrinkly-paint metal case. But I could be wrong and it could be even older than the 40s-50s.

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Let me fill in the blanks. It was bolted to the top of a k-horn-like corner enclosure (home made) with a Jensen 15" speaker inside. The top horn was long gone by the time I got it.

Interesting piece, and a curious history. Thanks for the tips so far!

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There was a Klipsch licensee in NYC. It was something like Bollcier but that is, I'm sure, not quite correct. It could well have had - Laboratories appended.

I'll have to dig through the collection of paper but maybe someone else has an article where their advertisement appeared.

PWK mentioned someone who had a license and did not pay up. Other licensees are mentioned in the VTV article. Maybe this fellow was not mentioned because of the failure to pay.

Gil

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Gents -- I have the homemade corner cabinet sitting on my front porch still, and could take pics if you're curious. It's not much to look at -- just big, black, and plywood. It is almost just like a K-horn cabinet but with false corners permanently attached. That's the best way to decribe it, I think. I need to look it over closer... heck, it might be a Klipsch cabinet under all that mess, but it sure looks more "home made" to me. FWIW, this came, along with two Klipschorn bass cabinets, from the estate in Decatur, IL of a music store owner. I wish I'd been at the auction -- the guy I got it all from said there were horns there, too, but another buyer got them. I'm sure they paid peanuts for it all. Oh well!

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This is the only information I have (i.e. attached advertisement). The text seems to exploit an ambiguity. Something may have been used by the listed experts. I would think it is the Klipsch design and not the Brociner implementation.

I suspect Fairchild had his own engineers build his K-Horn.

Gil

post-2552-13819321323536_thumb.gif

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This is the only information I have (i.e. attached advertisement). The text seems to exploit an ambiguity. Something may have been used by the listed experts. I would think it is the Klipsch design and not the Brociner implementation.

I suspect Fairchild had his own engineers build his K-Horn.

Gil

Gil -- this is VERY interesting! Thanks for posting!!! I wonder if this is the manufacturer of my crossover? It is a New York 28 address. Thanks again; this is getting interesting!

BTW, I wonder what it would cost to reproduce a pair of these crossovers? They seem so simple... I don't know enough about these things to even determine what the crossover frequency would be with this design. I'd be curious to see what something like this sounds like, in stereo, on my horns.

Chris

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That ad came from a late 1940's magazine. "FM-Television" which I found in the U of I Champaign library last year. Mike B goes to school there, BTW. Sorry I did not make note of the exact publication date.

So I'll guess the manufacturer was active then in bass horns. Whether your bass units were made by them or then, anyone's guess is as good as mine.

Now that we have a name (with correct spelling) it is possible to Google around. Interesting. It seems they made a lot of equipment and the founder was very active in the industry.

It is of course possible that the crossover was made for something else. It might well turn out that this is set up for about a 400 Hz crossover freq. If so, that would point toward the K-horn set up.

As you point out, they are indeed simple crossovers. But Klipsch and EV, and perhaps others, were doing about the same; and continued to do so. It looks like two second order filters with an L-Pad. It may be that the two caps are the same value and the two inductors are the same value.

People say that the oil filled caps go off spec after even a two decades.

I don't know whether this type of crossover, if recreated with modern components, would be remarkable. It might be fun even to try out what you have though.

Bob C and others can advise.

Thanks for posting your question. It was fun for me to justify the earlier research. The good news is that it was close to the top of a pile. The bad news is that I've got a lot of piles. Smile.

Gil

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Gil -- thank YOU for doing the research for me! BTW, you got my LaScalas a few months ago, didn't you? I recently wound up with a pair of K-horn bass enclosures and am trying a few HF horns on them to see if I want to try horns again. How are the LaScalas doing?

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This is the only information I have (i.e. attached advertisement). The text seems to exploit an ambiguity. Something may have been used by the listed experts. I would think it is the Klipsch design and not the Brociner implementation.

I suspect Fairchild had his own engineers build his K-Horn.

Gil

Gil -- I posted my corner cabinet on eBay and used the gif you posted to help illustrate that it may be a Brociner. Hope you don't mind. If so, let me know, and by all means I'll remove it from the listing, I'll probably list that crossover as well, as I have no real use for a single such unit anyway (neat as it is). I'd rather turn it into a couple bucks to help pay for my trachorn upgrades and whatnot. Thanks again!

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