Hungarian speaker identity?

[Duo]

This one's bugging me badly...

At an auction house I saw a set of extremely heavily built bookshelf speakers. I lost the note of the brand and model which I had written down and I'm going crazy trying to remember the name.

Could anyone list some possible Hungarian speaker manufacturers? I distinctly recall the label listed manufacture in Budapest, Hungary.

I believe the model was HOX-05 but I'm not completely sure.

They were made of what appeared to be either hardwood or really nice ply, very heavy for their size, and built solidly. It was a fairly moderate color wood finish with off-white grille cloth.

Interestingly, they had grille cloth on both sides. One side (I think the front), felt as if there was a center divider bar behind the cloth; the rear had about a four inch circle cut out of a hard surface behind the cloth, offset from center toward the corner. They used thumb screw/spade terminals.

Thanks to anyone who recognizes this.

[oshifis]

The manufacturer is the late BEAG (Budapesti Elektro-Akusztikai Gyár - Electroacoustical Factory Budapest) and the model is HOX-05. It has the nickname "Bifrons" and carried the Janus logo. Janus was a two-faced god in Greek mythology. The box has 8 speakers at the front on a zig-zag folded baffle, and a 9th identical speaker at the rear side. This arrangement aimed a kind of ambience using the diffuse front radiation and the rear radiation reflected from the walls. Bose produced a similar direct/reflecting box, the famous 801. BTW the speaker cones were constructed from perlit added paper (perlit is a light white mineral, allegedly having good dampening properties, nowadays used as cat litter). They had also many other patents. This box was quite expensive and intended in the first place for PA, not for home use. The factory produced excellent tube amplifiers (also mostly for studio and PA use) that are favoured amongst audio fans even today, like the EA-057, a 20 W EL-84 block.

[oshifis]

Are there these speakers inside?

[oshifis]

front view

[Duo]

I haven't seen inside them, only just the outside.

I bid $15CAD on them and I'm thinking of going back to bid higher today.

Thank you very much for identifying them.

[Duo]

Well, I got the speakers. I won the auction for $36.00CAD.

Brought them home and holy smokes... These are definitely something special. Built so solidly it's amazing.

The sound... well, that's just completely something else.

If you're here Planet10, I'm moving to Victoria, so I may have to bring these over for you to hear.

[planet10]

Originally posted by Duo
Planet10, I'm moving to Victoria, so I may have to bring these over for you to hear.

Cool, i look forward to meeting you.

dave

[Duo]

oshifis: Thank you for your reply. Do you know anything else about these? Such as power handling for example? They seem to be able to handle a lot, but I would rather err on the side of careful.

I haven't seen inside them, I don't know quite what would be the best way to open them up. It seems that both baffles are securely mounted in the cabinets.

I'd like to know as much as I can about them if possible.

Thank you.

[oshifis]

Duo:

The factory actually still exists. The produce PA equipment (I have seen some column loudspeakers in churches). BEAG supplied the PA speakers for the Moscow olympic games in 1980. Check this on their current range:

http://www.beag.hu/hangfal.html

I have an article on the Bifrons speakers in an old Hungarian HiFi Magazin, I will dig it up in the weekend. I also found a picture of an old ad on the web:

http://szegecs.de/dizajn/beag.jpg

I suppose the speakers are specified at 200 VA. Here is a frequency plot on the HOX-22, which has 8 speakers on the front, but no 9th speaker at the rear.

The grille is probably fixed with velcro.

Laszlo

[Duo]

I managed to pry the grille off one of them carefully without damaging the finish. They were attached with what appears to be window putty and finishing nails.

I am going to attach velcro instead so that the front covers can be removed easily.

The photograph shown is almost the same as what's inside. The cones appear to be exactly the same, except I can't tell if the surround in the picture is inverted or not; the surrounds in mine aren't.

I haven't yet pulled a driver out to see what the back of it looks like.

These speakers do seem to have no problem with high power. I suppose being that there are nine drivers per cabinet they are capable of handling a lot being that heat dissipation is well-distributed.

I must say these are some of the best sounding speakers around. Really something nice to listen to. Not a wee bit anemic either. The output is extremely capable of a chest-pounding authority with ridiculously tight bass.