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[Lee Brenkman]

Art Welter wrote on Fri, 05 December 2008 10:21

Plush also had the rolled and pleated covering, your bass player might have been using one.

Actually the Plush amps' naugahyde was diamond tufted, not rolled and pleated.

You probably have to be a hot rod/custom car geek to really care about the difference .

[trace knight]

Does anyone remember the fuzz covered horns that were the mainstay of the ARB speaker line?

[Lee Brenkman]

trace knight wrote on Fri, 05 December 2008 20:03

Does anyone remember the fuzz covered horns that were the mainstay of the ARB speaker line?

Sadly, yes.

Looked "cool" sounded "less than good"

[Art Welter]

Dave Stojan, Lee Brenkman, Trace Knight,

"Earth" amps, now you have brought back a true nightmare at the Paradise Ballroom in Waconia, Minnesota.

Lee, I thought Plush was using the same goofy stuff as Kustom, weird colors and smooth plasticine, rather than imitation leather Naugahyde, which I used on my 1972 home built Stingray style bike’s padded sissy bar. My sister in law made that for me from scraps of Naugahyde she used for replacing the rotted leather interior on my older brother’ MGA.

My dad asked "how many Naugas do you think they had to kill for that interior?"

He was funny, I miss him.

Trace,

I remember only too well that fuzz did little to blurr the horrible sound of a garbage re-entrant horn.

After all these blasts from the past, I am more amazed that I can still hear past 15K.

Art

[Rain Jaudon]

I remember mixing a festival on an old old Bose system - Recall the HUGE black plastic knobs on it.  But swear it was a BOSE and not Peavey... can't find pics..

[Chuck Harrigan]

Bob Leonard wrote on Thu, 04 December 2008 19:25

That's state of the art compared to the Kustom PA 100 system I owned at one time. This is not a picture of my own, but identical. Mine was blue sparkle. Note the speaker sizes, and also note they are NOT JBL D120s, but Kustoms own house speaker. All of these first PAs and amps were initially designed by Ross.

whats sad is ive seen those speakers in a back room of my church.

[Chuck Harrigan]

freaking double post....

the funny thing is they tried to use them a few years ago and wondered why they sounded so bad.  The cones were dry rotting...


[edited to add mor info and get rid of a double post]

[Bob Leonard]

Ivan Beaver wrote on Fri, 05 December 2008 18:57

Next week when I get to a scanner I will post some photos of the Peavey catalog.  I also have a Marshall (as in the guitar amp manufacturer) catalog in which they have a disco system-complete with turntables and Marshall PA equipment-mixers, amps, PA cabinets etc. I really wish I had more catalogs from "back in the day".

Ivan,
The Marshall PAs were much more common than you might think. The Beatles, The Who, even Hendrix used them at one time or another. I have used or owned most of the PAs available in the 60s and 70s and remember them all fondly. I started with a Bogen 50 watt amp and two giant University Sound horns then went through Traynors, Marshalls, Kustoms, Shure Vocalmaters, Altec columns, etc.. What I remember about the Marshall was that it was a 100 watt beast with more power than the 4x12" columns could handle. That was a pretty expensive PA for the day. The Traynors were an equal and I got turned on to those when Traynor came to Boston and supplied the gear for a huge event. I sold my Altecs the next day I think and went to the Traynors which lasted until Vietnam. After that the Kustoms were all the rage, and life goes on....

And in 1966 - Note the 4ea. 4x12" MArshall columns. That was a big PA back them

[Ivan Beaver]

I'm talking actual HF horns, dual 15" rear loaded horns, seperate 250watt amps, 12 channel stereo mixers etc.

They even had what they called a "lifeguard" that sounds like a multi GFCI.

[Tom Young]

Back in those days Ovation (the Dean Kamen company that also made round-back acoustic guitars) had a (comparatively) decent "column" system with (if I recall right) perhaps 4 12" drivers plus some kind of HF extension driver(s). The head unit had a mixer plus power amp. All the enclosures were covered in non rolled & pleated stuffed naugahyde. I recall this system being a pretty big step up over the Shure Vocal Masters we had used previously (1971-72). After the Ovations we graduated to Altec 816's with separate HF horns.