This pair of TSL LSH75 electrostatic tweeters came from Abbey Road Studios when they were doing a cleanup a few years ago. One is brand new in its original box, the other is also new but the box is missing.
I believe they were made in Germany by Siemens, since they marketed a model LHS75K which, although similar, had a pressed metal frame at the rear. The gold stickers were also very similar, including the German text.
Now unobtainium, they sold in the UK for many years. The usual price was about 7/6 in 1956 and had raised to 12/6 by 1963 but could occasionally be found for far cheaper prices. Practical Wireless Nov 1963 p. 575 lists them at 2/6 each, plus 9d p & p and originally they came in a plain, square brown cardboard box. (First photo, not mine)
Recently I've seen just the instruction sheet alone for sale on Ebay UK at £20.00 including shipping.
I plan to fit these to a pair of older drivers, right in front of the dust caps, and run them with a valve amplifier. They cover the range from 8,000 cps to 20,000 cps. Yes, I did that on purpose, nobody would refer to kHz with something this old.
I believe they were made in Germany by Siemens, since they marketed a model LHS75K which, although similar, had a pressed metal frame at the rear. The gold stickers were also very similar, including the German text.
Now unobtainium, they sold in the UK for many years. The usual price was about 7/6 in 1956 and had raised to 12/6 by 1963 but could occasionally be found for far cheaper prices. Practical Wireless Nov 1963 p. 575 lists them at 2/6 each, plus 9d p & p and originally they came in a plain, square brown cardboard box. (First photo, not mine)
Recently I've seen just the instruction sheet alone for sale on Ebay UK at £20.00 including shipping.
I plan to fit these to a pair of older drivers, right in front of the dust caps, and run them with a valve amplifier. They cover the range from 8,000 cps to 20,000 cps. Yes, I did that on purpose, nobody would refer to kHz with something this old.
Attachments
Got some more photos from the vendor and paid for the Stentorians today. At AU$350 the pair they were what I'd call quite the bargain. Usually sell in the region of US$1000+ The cones are faded and one has a slight watermark, but I'm sure they can be tidied up.
Made in Mansfield...wow they've covered some distance to get to you! Mansfield is just down the road from me. I must look up Whiteley Electronics
Ah, the rhetoric is strong with this one.
I can only answer with my own reasons for taking on such a project. Superficially it seems like a quixotic adventure, and that impression is accurate. Let's face it, a bass speaker capable of a mere 10 watts RMS coupled with a 60 year old electrostatic tweeter and a valve amplifier would seem to be a recipe for disaster.
And yet ... there's something I miss about the sound of such systems from my youth, when I used to build valve amplifiers in my father's garage. They sounded different. And in those days nobody had proper stereo systems, so my memory of them only covers AM radio and guitar use.
Being a cambric cone, I imagine the Stentorians will have a character not dissimilar to the Lowther drivers, but without the benefit of the whizzer for high frequencies. The TSL should make up that deficit. Then maybe I can be transported back to the 1960s and pretend I was wealthy enough to have owned such a system in that time period.
I wasn't very satisfied with my family home, maybe I'm trying to rewrite the past. Or, just maybe, it really is a form of madness. But if that's the case, there sure are a load of loonies on this forum.
That is what I thought. I see this a lot with older men and audio... trying to relive youth. Emotions/nostalgia... Considering the often disappointing outcome as time did go by and some technological developments really did make things better and that same time goes the opposite direction I only go along with time. I can not force it to either stop or go the opposite direction anyway.
What does happen is that age and the choices to relive youth make one more old/isolated compared to the current generations.
What does happen is that age and the choices to relive youth make one more old/isolated compared to the current generations.
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I think the whole act of listening to one's favourite records could be described in a similar vein, no matter what equipment is used. I put my entire collection away and lived on a yacht for ten years, an act which I believe put me in close contact with real life and the way the world is these days. Before that I preferred live music and spent a lot of time in bars where blues music was played, despite being a non-drinker.
Isolation is also part of life now, at least for the moment. My whole state is in lockdown and since I live alone there's a need to find some entertainment. Television certainly isn't worth the effort. But the final say as to whether we are living in the past is how often we listen to such a system, and I see it more of an occasional novelty than something I would use daily. So, I'm not quite senile yet ... but maybe I'm preparing for that day. 🙂
Isolation is also part of life now, at least for the moment. My whole state is in lockdown and since I live alone there's a need to find some entertainment. Television certainly isn't worth the effort. But the final say as to whether we are living in the past is how often we listen to such a system, and I see it more of an occasional novelty than something I would use daily. So, I'm not quite senile yet ... but maybe I'm preparing for that day. 🙂
Well yes, that's self-evident. As soon as you make any money with your hobby the taxation office calls it a business and wants their pound of flesh.
The Stentorians arrived today. Despite both being HF-1012 drivers they were quite different. One was dated 10 Jun 1965, the other had no date stamp. One showed 10.8 ohms when jumpered for 15 ohms and the A terminal was negative. The other measured 13.9 ohms, was positive to the A terminal and seemed to only have a single coil since jumpering made no difference at all.
Despite all this weirdness, they aren't too bad and certainly deserving of nice large enclosures. They have that old, dusty speaker smell that reminds me of the sixties, and I have the sudden urge to buy Frank Sinatra CDs ... which is really odd, since I hate Frank Sinatra's music.
Despite all this weirdness, they aren't too bad and certainly deserving of nice large enclosures. They have that old, dusty speaker smell that reminds me of the sixties, and I have the sudden urge to buy Frank Sinatra CDs ... which is really odd, since I hate Frank Sinatra's music.