Canon 28/3.5 LTM

It finally arrived...just in time to finish the roll inside the Leica II ;)

Canon 28mm f3.5 LTM pics

Olympus Trip 35

Leica M3 + Somky-Voorf  + Rigid Summicron 50/2 lens head
TX400/Diafine

A gift from my brother who found it at a flea market in Toronto. Zuiko 40mm, f2.8 scale focus lens and selenium cell powered auto exposure.

Acros 100/Diafine

APX100/Diafine

APX100/Diafine

... sometimes I wonder why I indulge in more complex cameras ;) 

more pics...

Funny but true

Cebu trip...

...been busy, I was in Cebu City for a concert and currently preparing for chamber music performances in August. So far I've managed to scan a couple of rolls from the trip and upload more as time permits...

Leica IIIf + Elmar 50/3.5 f22
APX100/Diafine

Leica IIIf + Elmar 50/3.5 f22
APX100/Diafine

Leica M6 + Summicron 35/2-1
TX400/Diafine

Leica IIIf + CV15/4.5
APX100/Diafine

Leica IIIf + Canon Serenar 35/2.8
APX100/Diafine

Leica M6 + Summicron 35/2-1
TX400/Diafine

Leica IIIf + Canon Serenar 35/2.8
APX100/Diafine

Leica M6 + Summicron 35/2-1
TX400/Diafine

Mondrian inspired open baffle + RCA 501S1

I won this 12" co-ax on eBay back in late '07 for a little over $100. There were only a few bidders and I was the only one based in the USA, the rest were in Japan. Had a feeling this might be a sleeper... 

When the package arrived I checked the condition of the capacitor with an LCR meter which turned out to be healthy. If it was leaky, I would have searched for a paper in oil cap that would fit in that very same clamp for authenticity and good sound.

I mounted it on an open baffle for testing and it turned out to be a very fine sounding speaker. It does not have the boogie factor of the Altec 605B Duplex instead, it is refined and coherent like an Altec 755A. After a couple of weeks I carefully packed it up and waited for another unit to be listed....never saw another sample. 😞

Click here for a review by none other than the esteemed JGH (who found it a bit bright*) in the December 1956 issue of High Fidelity!

*Sorry Gordon, but I disagree...😆

A special driver deserves a nice looking baffle

Staring at bare plywood for over 10 years can get boring even if the sound is good.😊 For a quite a while, I've had this idea lurking in the back of my mind of combining the aesthetics of my favorite period in art and architecture with DIY audio projects.

Piet Mondrian's Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930 turned 90 degrees to the right ;)

After a few days wielding a brush, cans of paint and masking tape....

Architects, Music and Hi-Fi

Music at home

Frank Lloyd Wright was known to have equipped his luxury home projects with a grand piano. When I visited Fallingwater some years ago I vaguely remember seeing a Fisher 50C preamp tucked inside a wall mounted console but no grand piano. Perhaps this was because it was designed as a weekend home for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh. 

The following are scans of how architects approached music reproduction in homes during the first half of the 20th century.

Charlotte Perriand's Modular Cabinet was part of a Bachelor Pad concept presented on behalf of Le Corbusier in Brussels, 1935 - looks like a  ~ 6" fullrange speaker, AM radio/phono amp + an early electric turntable? And it seems like acoustic feedback was not yet a major consideration in those days ;)

Walter Gropius living room in Lincoln, MA

Click on picture for a larger view of the hi-fi components right of center as well as the coaxial speaker further right (infinite baffle?).

Case Study House #9 by Charles and Ray Eames + Erno Saarinen for John Entenza, 2-way horn speaker system built into a wall, Stephens Trusonic drivers?

Living room of the (Julius) Shulman House,1950 by Ralph Soriano. Cool Jensen DU201 to the right ;)

Pierre Koenig's living room - lots of LPs and I see a Luxman CL35 preamp on the equipment rack + a pair of speakers housed in lowboy cabinets.

Eames Three Way

This is an interesting picture of a Charles Eames/Stephens Trusonic collaboration sent by SixCats! What's that other intriguing speaker in the background, buddy? 

Robert Stephens was part of the Shearer Horn project before starting his own company. I have seen a few Stephens drivers and the quality of construction is comparable to an Altec or JBL. But I never saw or heard this particular speaker system which according to a brochure in Hi-Fi Lit contained a 15" woofer in a folded horn chamber, compression driven 10 cell horn midrange + super tweeter. It is a rare piece and probably samples have been snapped up by mid-century modern collectors long before audio aficionados became aware of the sonic virtues of vintage equipment.

Keener eyes will notice that the Eames Trusonic E3 share the same wide baffle aspect as Pierre Koenig's lowboy enclosed speakers. I have a gut feel Koenig's speakers are actually E3s distorted slightly by a wide angle lens or that's just wishful thinking? ;)

The point is, after years of fiddling with speaker enclosures and open baffles I have come to a conclusion that the prevalent narrow and tall configuration of modern speaker designs does more harm than good to the sound. Gifted architects like Charles Eames and Pierre Koenig probably knew better then...