KLH Model One(s) and Janszen 1-30(s)

I'm in your boat, with the 'bigger is better' speaker thing. The speakers I drag home are getting bigger & bigger on each haul. My wife is constantly giving me the look of doom. Luckily, she understands that I could be doing a lot worse with my free time than listening to music.
 
Thanks for the instructions RxDx, I've got a pair of model two's and this is great to see. Your model one's are fantastic and well worth giving the full treatment. I've been doing some research on the one, two's and threes also, from what I've seen the one's came out in May/June of 1957 and the two's and three's in August of 1957. Most info you read on the net says 1958. By the way, what serial #'s are your Janszen 130.

Thank you for the compliments! I've always been fascinated by the first three
models, which was only made worse by their scarcity. Yes, I would like to go
all the way on these. Not thrilled about the black paint on top of the original
finish. I suspect it was to hide some prior damage.

I need to revise my KLH listing re: into dates for these beasts. Also, I believe they
did eventually go to the expoxied drivers for the One, Two, and Three. That had
to be seriously cheaper than the original woofers like in these two. I'm going to have
to pull the cloth off one of these. I've never seen the unit bare.

The Janszens are... 5380 (finished) and 5082 (black). I'm still looking for a little
more thorough description of how to fix these things before I break them down.
I will probably start another thread on their repair.
 
I'm in your boat, with the 'bigger is better' speaker thing. The speakers I drag home are getting bigger & bigger on each haul. My wife is constantly giving me the look of doom. Luckily, she understands that I could be doing a lot worse with my free time than listening to music.
That's for sure. In my situation, it really helps that all the activity occurs on
a separate floor.
 
If you look up (vintage vacuum magazine) on a net search they have pdf's of original 1950's stereo magazines . High Fidelity June 1957 (pg 28) has an ad for the new model one. Its a drawing, but shows a riser base that must not have made it into production. I'm looking forward to your repair thread.
 
If you look up (vintage vacuum magazine) on a net search they have pdf's of original 1950's stereo magazines . High Fidelity June 1957 (pg 28) has an ad for the new model one. Its a drawing, but shows a riser base that must not have made it into production. I'm looking forward to your repair thread.
Yep, nope. The next month's issue shows the One sans base.
And, of course, serial no. 002 above doesn't have it.

klh1.jpg

klh2.jpg
 
Me too.

Here are several on the early AR and KLH.

1960 Radio Shack:

KLH_1_2_3_4_6_7_1960_RadioShack_catalog.jpg
 
Anyone know if any other speakers used the same tweeters from the klh model five, tweeter array? I have one 'stat & one klh array. I figured I could build a matching five array pretty easily...just gotta find some tweeters. I'd go with newer drivers but I wouldn't know where to begin with selection (not my expertise).
 
I'd like to see inside an original Five, because I have no clue what
those drivers are. Otherwise, it's just about matching them. "The"
chart says it has a midrange and two tweeters. The tweeters could
be the GE unit used in the Four and original Six, but the mid might
be unique to the Five (because it was only offered from '58-'60,
before the screwed-in drivers of the later systems).

klh1-2.jpg
 
It's pretty cheesy inside :). They very clevery mounted the tweeters. I'll get some pics shortly.....
 
The tweets were easy to get to. The mid will require a bit more elbow grease. It's proving to be resilient from removal.

20160101_184255.jpg 20160101_184404.jpg
 
World's first :) Pics nowhere else on the web

So the tweeters were glued in up to the small part of the
basket? They could be the GE unit, I guess...
 
cool find for sure.I had a pair of the Janzens I-30 as well back in the early 2000s till I burned out the power supply for the electrostates
be careful how much juice you pump into those units as tey were designed in the tube era.My mistake was running the 2 janzens on top of my AR9ès to supliment the top end but I drove them with a pair of bi amped HK citation 16a amps.too much juice fried the panels

hunter
 
cool find for sure.I had a pair of the Janzens I-30 as well back in the early 2000s till I burned out the power supply for the electrostates
be careful how much juice you pump into those units as tey were designed in the tube era.My mistake was running the 2 janzens on top of my AR9ès to supliment the top end but I drove them with a pair of bi amped HK citation 16a amps.too much juice fried the panels

hunter

I'd bet the whole system doesn't need too much juice to get going...I can see how one would think you'd need gazillions of watts with the size of the speakers :)
 
no Madmonda...a tube amp pushing 15-20 watts per channel will be lots with those,would love to put my fisher 50a mono blocks on those babies!!.There not as effient as bass reflex speakers ,ported cabinets but as long as your not trying to fill a stadium with sound in a normal size room 20 sweet vintage tube watts will do the trick.That a fairly rare setup you have there
congrates
 
15-20 tube watts is plenty! So, if you went SS with these, the SS amp should be a healthy one, right? Of course, like you've said, you wouldn't want to get carried away! I'd assume they like good current too.
 
The literature says the Janszens were matched to the KLHs, which I think means,
among other things, that they were both seriously inefficient. AR2s are noticeably
louder for the same volume setting, for instance. I can see how it would be easy
to burn the 1-30s up, on top of AR1s or these KLHs.
 
Yes the janzens were sold with the KLH model ones and ment to sit ubove the front baffle in the enclosures.I looked for many yrs for a pair of the klh1s as I sourced the janszens first.They are relatively ineffiecent compared to later bass reflex designs but remember they were produced around 1960 and all there was at the time was tube amps available.
The woofers in there will be rated at or around 30 wpc.Doesnt mean you cant feed them 100 wpc as long as your moderate with you volume pot.
It would be a shame to over drive those components as the chance of finding replacements would be slim to none.
Use them as intended.Get yourself a vintage HHscott,fisher,dynaco ect stereo tube amp of 15-40 wpc and call it a day that's what id do.I run 1958 era full range and co-axial speakers and with tubes they are extremely accurate and will fill a large room with sonic bliss.The x-overs will need recapping for sure..

hunter
 
I still don't know a lot about the Janszens yet. I'll get to them in a bit.
But the woofers run straight- there are no inductors, caps or anything
else in the cabinet. And I think they're like the ARs of the period-
they're basically bulletproof. It's just not common to hear of anyone
blowing an early AR woofer, or KLH for that matter. I ran the KLHs at
a measured 120 db for a while the other day. All they did was get quite
loud, quite effortlessly, though that much sound is not the norm for me.

I wouldn't mind a good tube unit. It's just not high on the list. I'm basically
happy with the main amp (Onkyo M504, driven by an Integra DTR-30.1)
 
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