rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (05/08/85)
[] Hoo, Boy! I can see the flames piling up. You have it almost right, Herb, except for a couple of points. 1) It wasn't Advent, it was Edgar Vilchur and Acoustic Research. All the others, including Advent, sprang from AR and it's "eastern" or flat sound. 2) It is unfair to Altec, in my opinion, to tar them with the same brush you were wielding with such glee and abandon over JBL. Altecs (at least the more serious efforts,and I know of no others) were never characterized by peaky anything, bass or high treble. Instead they did emphasize a very broad region of the spectrum in the upper midrange that tended to make them perhaps a little "forward sounding" and helped voice to stand out. The effect was quite mild and was easy to overlook. In fact it could usually be controlled by a tweeter level control. Since Altec crossovers were generally in the range of 400-800hz, and even today have only crept up to 1200hz, the effect may well have been due to improperley adjusted tweeter level controls by someone setting them by ear to where they "sounded best." Many of the finest theater sound systems all over the world since around 1930 use Altec (once Western Electric for all of you AT&T folk out there) equipment. Lansing was once Chief engineer at Altec before he went off to found the James B. Lansing Co with its competitive (peaky) products. At one point the companies were combined, Altec buying out Lansing to form Altec-Lansing. Then Lansing started up JBL, same initials but new name because old name deeded to Altec. Anyway I think the history was something like that. Needless to say (AT&T fans attention) some of Altec's finest designs came out of the old Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill. In fact, the original Altec (All-Technology) was formed by ex Bell Labs and Western people when Bell closed down its west coast labs around 1930. Those old enough to remember the ERPI educational films from school days (how could anyone ever forget a name like that) will find interesting the tidbit that Electrical Research Products, Inc. (ERPI) was another Bell Labs spin off in the early days of sound motion pictures. -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg