Vintage Speakers - Goodmans Drivers

[MelJon66]

Hi All,

Can anybody identify these large speakers, probably from the late 1950's? They are over 1 metre tall with large vents at the base on two sides, probably to position in a corner. They have vertical firing full range Goodmans drivers with a wizzer cone. Well, one of them does and the other has been modified with a different Goodmans driver and separate tweeter. In the fabric covered area at the top they have an inverted dispersion cone so they are omni-directional.

They have no makers identification anywhere and despite having Goodmans drivers I can't find them in any search on Goodmans. They were used with a Leak TL12+ amplifier so I thought they may be part of a Leak system but I can't find anything under the Leak brand either.

I bet somebody knows!

Thanks
Mel

[Ted Kendall]

Could be homebrew - Dad inherited a similar pair, which did duty in a second system for some time - maybe there was a published design to answer Briggs' concrete pipe.

[Whaam68]

Hi
They are very much in the style of Wharefedale Column 8’s from the very early stereo era c1958 according to my copy of “A pair of Wharfedales”.
Mike

[paulsherwin]

They look home made, though a good job has been done. I remember the Goodmans 8" full range drivers, which were very popular with home constructors in the late 60s / early 70s. There was a fad for omnidirectional designs then too.

[MelJon66]

Thanks for the responses.

The cabinet veneer work is excellent so if they are homemade they were certainly very skilled. There are some tell tale signs inside of hand marking out and cutting but some of the 60's British makes like Leaks were very rough when you took the covers off.

The bases seem unfinished as if they should have been on plinths so maybe the project wasn't fully finished.

If anyone has any further thoughts please let me know.

Cheers
Mel

[paulsherwin]

There was a huge boom in home woodworking in the 50s and 60s, and the enthusiasts increasingly turned to making speaker cabinets rather than furniture towards the end of that era. Some of them were very skilled indeed.

An uncle of mine made a floor standing corner speaker unit in his shed in the 50s, with a light shining up from the top. This was just an extension speaker for a table radio rather than serious hifi, but the quality of construction is very good and much better than anything I could manage. I keep meaning to get it down from the loft and fit a better quality driver.

[MelJon66]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

It sounds like I will just remove the drivers and dump the cabinets when the dumps are open again. It's a shame but I have so many speakers already, some of them needing my attention, that I have no plans for these. My wife wouldn't allow them in the house anyway and I have to agree, the retro look would not look good at all.

Cheers
Mel

[paulsherwin]

It's a shame to scrap them. You could remove the drivers if you have a use for them, and offer the cabinets either here or on Freecycle or eBay. They should sound quite good with a couple of 8" car stereo drivers fitted.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by MelJon66

It sounds like I will just remove the drivers and dump the cabinets when the dumps are open again.

That is indeed a shame, because what else can be the fate of those drivers but winding up in another cabinet? Very likely a less good cabinet.

I think it was an American dragster racer who came out with the phrase "There's no substitute for cubic inches". It applies to loudspeakers too.

David

[MelJon66]

I will indeed advertise the cabinets up on here, Gumtree or Freecycle, but I will wait until the lockdown is over.

I have hung on to them for over 20 years since they were left behind at a house we bought in the 90's, so another few months won't hurt, although my wife would disagree! In my search to identify them many years ago I did see an apparently identical pair that had sold on a specialist audio site. It was just an image with a "sold" banner so it didn't provide any useful information but it did make me think that they were perhaps an obscure branded product.

As an audio fan I knew that the Goodmans drive units were very desirable to vintage enthusiasts but I didn't want to break them up after surviving for so long. If they are home made it makes the sell complete option less realistic as the shipping costs will be high. I will test the drive units and sell them on ebay as they will ship easily and the proceeds will fund my other projects. Cabinets free to anyone willing to collect.

Decision made!

Cheers
Mel

[Radio Wrangler]

To help anyone interested in the cabinets, are they for 8 inch, 10 inch or 12 inch drivers?

David

[MelJon66]

Hi,

They could easily be modified for any driver as being vertical firing the baffle board can adapted and the mods will be hidden under the top cover.

I have attached photos with the tops off. One is original with Goodmans Axiom 150 Mk2 driver (12" I think) and the other has been retrofitted with a Goodmans Axiette 8". The aperture for the 12" has been reduced with a piece of plywood to fit the 8" but it is invisible with the top fitted.

Cheers
Mel

[rontech]

I had a Goodmans Axiom Mk2 back in early 1957 in mono system. Front firing in sanfilled corner baffle ( Wharfedale influenced ) It sounded pretty good. When stereo came along I needed two speakers but another Axiom was outside my budget along with the other items and my mother did a"Not in my lounge!!" job when a second sand filled baffle was suggested.

I sold the mono system and made a couple of vertical firing systems using Whiteley 10" full range units. My father worked in a timber importers and got me two 10 diameter solid wood cones for the dispersers.

I was never really happy with the result because the dispersion process attenuated the perceived treble response at the seating position.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by rontech

I was never really happy with the result because the dispersion process attenuated the perceived treble response at the seating position.

Yes. A friend had a pair of the connoisseur columns and they had tweeters pointing at the listener hidden inside.

Also think about Mr Larsen's Sonab speakers. A vertical facing bass/mid and lots of little tweeters at all sorts of angles. I thought they were very impressive back in the day.

David

[Ted Kendall]

Pedantry corner here - Larsen makes speakers under his own name and is a disciple of the late Stig Carlsson, who founded Sonab. The Sonabs I heard made a pleasant sound, to be sure, but with any dispersed radiation speaker, for want of a better description, one gets into the "stereo everywhere or stereo nowhere" question. I prefer a point source, but to each his own.

Come to think of it, perhaps Scandinavian decor has more hard surfaces than we do, making a more diffuse radiation pattern desirable?

[Edward Huggins]

What an interesting Thread. In all my years of experimenting with upward firing tuned columns/pipes, I have never come across any that used a driver as big as 12". I wonder if these might sound a bit "overblown" when compared to a more controlable 8" unit?

[rontech]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Yes. A friend had a pair of the connoisseur columns and they had tweeters pointing at the listener hidden inside.

Also think about Mr Larsen's Sonab speakers. A vertical facing bass/mid and lots of little tweeters at all sorts of angles. I thought they were very impressive back in the day.

David

The tweeters at all angles reminds me of a Decca, top of the range radiogram of about 1958/9. It was very wide the cabinet was in an over the top "antique" style. The pick up and cartridge was the ffss model considered the very best at the time. I think the amps were 15 - 20 watts. I heard this radiogram at the 1959 Radiolympia show. Very impressive sound but stereo imaging not so hot

[BRASSBITS]

Originally Posted by rontech

the tweeters at all angles reminds me of a decca, top of the range radiogram of about 1958/9. It was very wide the cabinet was in an over the top "antique" style. The pick up and cartridge was the ffss model considered the very best at the time. I think the amps were 15 - 20 watts. I heard this radiogram at the 1959 radiolympia show. Very impressive sound but stereo imaging not so hot

decca decola

[Radio Wrangler]

I agree with Ted.

My memory of meeting a working Sonab was in a crowded record shop in Bristol in the early seventies. The sound coming out of the smallish box was impressive, the other channel was blocked by lots of bodies.

I agree that point sources make more sense. Spraying sound around everywhere in a room invites lots of reflections and therefore addition/cancellation effects giving lumps and suckouts if considered in the frequency domain, and scattered transients in the time domain. Stereo effects are going to be ruined.

I have the same doubts about dipole speakers. It would seem that they only make sense if you live and listen in the middle of a large, open field. You don't want walls near them. This fits with the standard advice that Quad electrostatics only work in large rooms, spaced far from walls. The same must go for Linkwitz' designs. Even simple box speakers with twin tweeters facing the listener seem wrong because they'll set up interference fringes around the ideal listening spot. I think they're a cop out done to aid power handling.

These things ought to be thought of similarly to ray-tracing in optics.

And as for the Bose guff about direct/reflecting, there's an overall perfume of marketeering and the male bovine.

As for getting Carlsson/Larsen crossed, I can only hide behind the excuse of insomnia.

David

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Even simple box speakers with twin tweeters facing the listener seem wrong because they'll set up interference fringes around the ideal listening spot. I think they're a cop out done to aid power handling.

I think you're right - but at least if the similar drivers are stacked up in the vertical plane, the interference fringes will be in the vertical plane too - just don't bob up and down in time to the rhythm too much, in your 'optimum stereo listening position' (That's another argument for not lying 2-way bookshelf speakers on their sides which I guess everyone knows - around crossover they'll act a bit like 2-element column sources and ideally the interference fringes are best off lying vertically.)

(A long time ago before Manchester Piccadilly railway station was done up, I used to ask students to spot the mistake regarding the column sources installed near the ticket counter. Someone had assumed they would disperse horizontally if installed horizontally - meaning they radiated a narrow vertically-polarised pattern, great for exciting reverberation in the roof space and / or letting the pigeons know the time of the next train to Blackpool North!).