1950's Electronics and HI-FI home workshop. THE SEARCH FOR PERFECT SOUND REPRODUCTION

I picked this Dell Electronics #1 off of ebay last month. Instead of breaing the first article into segments I'll just post the entire article. There are a couple others I'll post later but this i the best one. The cover is great.

I had to scan this so you could get the entire spread. Great gear on that shelf.

Oh man look at this demo room. If only we could visit audio shops like that today. I missed the glory days of Hi-Fi

Retro Hi-Fi Girl Friday

It looks like we finally past 100,000 site visits and over 269,000 page visits with 406 posts. Thanks everyone.

Champion Power Pentode 1930 Ad

Retro Record Stores

Hmm hey where is your Jazz and Blues section. No! I don't want the latest Guy Lombardo do you have any Robert Johnson.

Origins of the BullShit Button

PWK tired of the wild claims by competitors and took them to task at trade shows and snail mail. Eventually he simply put a Bullshit button inside the lapel of his jacket. When he heard bogus claims he just gave them a flash and walked off. This isn't very surprising as PWK would also discuss issues with his ministers after church if he felt they were wrong. There are some great stories about PWK at Church.

This is the straw that broke the camels back the Karlson. It was advertised flat + - 2db from 20hz to 20,000hz in 1955. Klipsch bought a Karlson and measured it at Hope. The results of course show that they earned a BullShit button and far from as advertised. I'm sure Jim Hunter at Klipsch has the correspondence between PWK and Karlson. I'd love to read those exchanges.

Hilliard Home In Wall Speaker System

I am looking for more information on the Hilliard home hifi system. If anyone has better pics or information please let me know.

Retro Hi-Fi Girl Friday

Klipsch Ho Hum Ad

Only Klipsch would do an ad like this and not only poke fun at competitors but his own company. PWK was a different kind of a guy a southern genius eccentric and I wish there were more like him.

Altec Lansing Corporation

If I had a time machine.

Double click for high resolution image.

Jack Mullin Audio Pioneer

Producer and tape pioneer Jack Mullin in his studio. Ah look at those Ampex 200s. He is giving them the same look I am giving the RCA speaker behind him.


Here is Jack Mullin giving a demonstration of the then new Ampex reel to reel recorder. This would have been a fun demonstration to attend. It is impossible to ignore the WE speaker.

Notice the speaker he is using. Possibly the first coax. It is an 18 inch Western Electric woofer with a WE555 bored through the middle with an attached multicell. This 18 inch woofer with 555 together have been posted on this blog before. Just amazing.

Workbench 1967 Entertainment Center

This a really cool article and concept. I've been thinking of building a Mid Century Modern console or EC based on some modern components. I like the idea having some of the components based in a coffee table. Very interesting. Checkout this article from 1967 Workbench Magazine.

Carl Perkins

Some people are Elvis fans but I'm a Carl Perkins fan.

Yeah Perkins wrote the song.

Retro Hi-Fi Girl Friday

1953 Electro Voice Temples Of Tone

RCA LC-1A

I may have posted a partial of this but here is the entire document. I've been researching the RCA duo-cone speakers lately and that led me to this document.