Unknown Speaker

[CGabriel]

I was watching a television show about a movie from the early fifties and saw this very interesting speaker on the set. Does anyone have any information on what it was called and what it was used for?

Notice the guy sitting to the left to get an idea of the scale of the speaker.

 

[Barry2013]

An old cinema horn loudspeaker?

 

[LL21]

Hi Caelin,

Thought this might be what you are looking for...i'm no techie, but sure looks similar, particularly the top end of the curved horn in the article and your picture. Also seems to concur with Barry2013's thoughts as well. Good luck.

http://www.preservationsound.com/?m=201009

Of all the cults and sub-cults of audio-equipment collecting, few are more rarefied and costly than collecting antique movie-theatre equipment; especially equipment made by the Western Electric Company (hf. WE). I won’t go into WE; the company had such a complicated history filled with intense government regulation, so tightly intertwined were they with the communication industries in American life; check out wikipedia for the details. Suffice to say that, along with RCA, WE was a main manufacturer of the equipment used to playback sound in movie theatres at the dawn of the sound-film era (late 1920s). Since the equipment was designed for such purpose, quality and reliability was very high. Also massive.



(from “Recording Sound For Motion Pictures,” McGraw-Hill, 1931)

Here’s RCA’s theater system from that era:



(from ‘Audels New Electric Library,’ Audel+ Co, 1931-1958)

 

[CGabriel]

Hey thanks guys. I does look like a WE theater speaker. But it looks to be mounted in a rolling trolley and you can see some cabling hung on the side. I am assuming that the side we can't see is actually the opening for the sound to come out?

I may have been used for sound effects when shooting on the set.

Or it was the first portable boom box

 

[crion]

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cpcG7ceQz6U[/video]

From High End Munich 2014

 

[garylkoh]

There is a similar installation here near Seattle. Owned by Klaudio designer Peter Cheon. Seems that there is a big following in Korea for these vintage horns. Peter's is a replica.

 

[jazdoc]

I asked my vintage guru Jeffrey Jackson and here is his reply

"that is great... it is a Western Electric 15a that has been bolted down to a box for some reason.. maybe they tilted it up to play? that horn plays all the way up to 5k, so the box would certainly have wrecked the sound unless the horn was tilted up somehow... "

 

[CGabriel]

I asked my vintage guru Jeffrey Jackson and here is his reply

"that is great... it is a Western Electric 15a that has been bolted down to a box for some reason.. maybe they tilted it up to play? that horn plays all the way up to 5k, so the box would certainly have wrecked the sound unless the horn was tilted up somehow... "

Very interesting. Thanks.