The Dream Age Cottage
A Museum for the Ears!
Jensen Imperial/Type D 18" Field Coil. Early Style Lyon and Healy Cabinets
1929 to 1934 system
This is a magical, petite & yet powerful system with a bewitching & effortless sound. A true lesson in detail and naturalness, easily exceeding modern speakers. These 1930's "poured pot" field coils with their ultra powerful, single joint captive magnetic circuits and feather light diaphragms are simply beyond everything that came after. It is almost blasphemy to play pop music recordings on this set. The designers & builders of this system were not only the greatest moving coil speaker makers ever to live, but more importantly they were from the PRE-Electric era and it shows in the sound: a purity & natural non mechanical musicality that is unmatched in anything else I have ever heard. For its super high-end systems Jensen went to Lyon and Healy the 152 year old harp and piano makers in old Chicago. They are the finest and rarest speaker cabinets in the world. Lyon and Healy is still the largest and finest Symphonic Harp maker in the world and are responsible for the advancement and evolution of the full size Symphonic Harp as we know it today.
Total weight for the powered magnets in this pair is over 180 Lbs. ((That is all 1930's true "Black Magic" Jensen field coil)) for those who have never actually spent any time with them no words can describe the incomparable "like from another planet" superiority of the 1930's Jensen speakers!
To hear Pavoratti or other great voices through these is like a time machine to when they were alive. There is no other driver than the 1930's Jensen that has the speed, power and ghostly presence.
Driven by original RCA model 245 two stage push pull from 1934.
Philadelphia Storage Battery Co. High Style art deco "High Fidelity" pair
1936
Very fancy 3D cabinet with chevron pattern, cellulose grill cloth Etc. Earliest reference I have to "High-Fidelity" & they knew their stuff. Very sophisticated 14" Field Coil. Only known pair.
Jensen Type E Field Coil
1940's
The big, high power Jensen system with the silky gossamer sound! Steam Locomotive powerful, yet so sweet & detailed, non mechanical, non electronic, plastic, etc.
The Altec Lansing Salon
Altec Lansing 820's. Iconic
1950's
As Altec put it in 1952, "The Concert Grand of the speaker world." This pair came from my Original audio mentor, Ray Karns, and are just as when I bought them 30+ years ago with the exception that I replaced the 1950's 802B treble drivers with the late 1930's field coil Lansing 801B's giving a more electrostatic speed, detail & liquidity. My personal pick for The coolest, sexiest, best angled cabinet EVER designed! Grill cloth is still as tight as a drum!
Altec "Hollywood" A-2 System
1946 System
This is something that just came to me one day. I never set out to build a system this big but when I was going over the over the drivers and cabinets one day it came to me, "I could do a A-2!!!". As with many huge systems the listening experience is like taking a warm luxurious bath as compared to most speakers that are more like a shower with a sharp, water saving or hard blasting type shower head. 8 Horn loaded 803's & the large format, Long Horns. This is the most efficient (116 Db), lowest distortion system I have ever heard. Effortless in any situation. Magnet weight total of pure late 1940's/early 1950's Altec Alnicos (powerful pound for pound like an Italian Stallion) is OVER 330 Pounds! The result of a lifetime of going to rehearsals & performances with sometimes a 11,000 pipe organ, a 100+ chorus, a symphony, etc. & coming home & going ugh, well this ain't doing it. Well, this tier 4 system does it!