This reverb unit, it vibrates?

April 9, 2012 5:51 AM

Can anyone identify what appears to be a strange vintage 'wire reverb' unit, which seems to combine a speaker enclosure with a piano-like string attachment to provide the resonance?

The description, in full:

The speaker is a " ALTEC LANSING " MODEL 600 B. This is an expensive speaker probably a 1950's or earlier. This cabnet speaker as you will see by the photos it contains an unusual piece of equipment. The top comes off an you see a 45 lb piece of metal that looks like a funnel with piano wire that runs on all 4 sides starting at a 3 inch length piece of wire and progresses up to 17 inches long . This piece of equipment fits in from the top and hangs upside down , around this unit is pieces of red velvet and under the velvet material is pieces of sound boards on all 4 sides with the standard S CUT OUTS. Now on the base of this unit is the driver speaker and that is the " ALTEC LANSING ". How this unit works is beyound me , I guess this is either a reverb unit or an echo chamber type unit.

The string resonance (?) unit is shown clearly in the pictures.

Under discussion over on Gearslutz but no answers yet.

posted by unSane to media & arts (11 answers total)

Try calling Harman/JBL's corporate office? Altec Lansing went through a lot of management changes and seems to not be the same company any more, but one of the founders also created JBL, which seems closer to its roots and might have someone there that can help.
posted by empath at 6:26 AM on April 9, 2012

You could also try contacting any of these people.
posted by empath at 6:44 AM on April 9, 2012

I also found this discussion here re the speaker itself, including some info and another set of people to try contacting.
posted by advil at 6:45 AM on April 9, 2012

Oh, so it seems that just the speaker is the 600 B -- everything else is custom. Might be a one of a kind, even.
posted by empath at 6:47 AM on April 9, 2012

Since I'm in a guessing mood, this looks like the sort of thing you'd see attached to an electric organ.
posted by Orb2069 at 6:58 AM on April 9, 2012

I would guess they were aiming for an effect something like this or this - though without the rest of the piano, particularly the soundboard, the final result might be quite different.

It does look like regulation piano wire and piano tuning pins.
posted by flug at 8:21 AM on April 9, 2012

Post over at audiokarma.org too.
posted by spicynuts at 8:35 AM on April 9, 2012

Also, Altec Lansing manufactures the speaker itself (this part) but it is possible or (I would say) even very, very likely that Altec Lansing has nothing at all to do with the speaker enclosure or the whole reverberation unit that is in the speaker enclosure.

As empath mentioned above, it could be a one-off, or it could be a fairly limited production model, quite possibly or probably made by some company other than Altec Lansing, and designed as a sort of special effect speaker for certain bands, recording studios, or the like.

What it reminds me of is the kind of plate reverb units a lot of recording studios used before electronic reverb became available/inexpensive.
posted by flug at 8:36 AM on April 9, 2012

I second that you post this over on the Lansing Heritage forums. If anyone can identify this, they can.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:55 AM on April 9, 2012

I was going to delve into electronic spring reverb. But after looking at the pictures, I think those wires were supposed to be vibrated by the airflow and then they too would vibrate in turn (sympathetic resonance?) This isn't an electronic spring reverb unit per se.
posted by thermonuclear.jive.turkey at 12:02 PM on April 9, 2012

Aeolian harp?

there's no pickup that I can see for the piano strings..
posted by dubold at 2:51 PM on April 9, 2012