White Elephant Abbey Road

ggizzy

EMI extraordinaire
Good evening.

After a long weekend fighting airline cancellations and layovers, I'm back home and ready to start building some speaker cabinets. I already have plans for a cab to house my Altec 605A.

In the process of looking for information about Abbey Roads and the studio speakers, I began looking at their "white elephant" speaker. This was the speaker used for playback in studio when recording overdubs. Very little info exists about it. I'd like to build something similar. Here's everything I could find scouring the internet.

-Speakers were EMI RLS10 and RLS11, a design unique to Abbey Road. Does anyone have anything more about these? I couldn't find anything.
-Active three way speakers.
-Cab on caster rollers. Approx. five feet tall?

I was thinking about using a Goodmans triaxiom speaker in a large cab. Any thoughts on this? I've included a photo I nicked from another forum that shows the cab at various angles. Thanks for the help.

imagejpg1_zps9faf6b93.jpg
 
Thanks for the response! I'm not sure what was driving these. If I had to guess it would be a Leak TL12 or, more likely, a 25 plus, as these were what were driving the control room monitors. Everything I read said that the cab was original to EMI/Abbey Road, but that doesn't mean it wasn't just their knockoff or modification of a preexisting unit.

I appreciate the link. I gleaned a lot of useful info from it.
 
Thanks for the info. I may try to contact him, though I doubt I'd get a response. May get a better response from someone like Ken Townsend? I think I've ran across posts from him and the guys who put together that book about recording the Beatles at the Hoffman forum.
 
Last edited:
imagejpg2_zpsc8ce190f.jpg

imagejpg3_zps3cc539df.jpg

imagejpg1_zps6fdb738f.jpg


I still haven't found any more info about this playback speaker on the internet. And I have yet to hear back from anyone I've emailed about it.

I did however find the above pictures on another forum thread. These pictures give a much better view of the front of the speaker. I can make out the woofer at the bottom and what appears to be a small tweeter at the top. I'm typing from an iPad, however, and the resolution and screen aren't very good.

The original collage picture looks like it's taken sometime in 64/65, while these pictures wee taken from the White Album sessions in 68.

I am still thinking about trying to recreate this speaker with Goodmans or Lafayette speakers, since I've never seen an RLS10 or 11 pop up on fleabay.
 
Last edited:
Well, shortly after posting this I found an obscure forum post elsewhere which quotes a rather famous book about recording the beatles. For anyone still interested, here is much more complete informstion regarding the white elephant playback speaker.

-Cabinet stood approximately 5' tall and 2' square.
-Could be fed any line level signal and fill the room.
-Made in house by Peter Dix.

-15" Wharfdale speaker facing forward
-2 13"x8" midrange drivers facing outward at 45 degree angles
-GEC tweeters on a radiating frame.

So, there you have it. Problem solved after lots and lots of searching. Suggestions for midrange drivers? Any clue about the radiating frame? Design ideas?
 
oblong (perhaps oval) "midrange" drivers sounds like EMI to me, don't you think?
Of course, KEF (and probably others) had oval "racetrack" drivers; but I don't think they were extant in the early 1960s? I can't state this as immutable fact, though -- just a SWAG.

A couple of rather modest EMI speaker systems (with the trademark EMI oblong woofers) may be seen, bottom right, in this Allied catalog scan from 1964 :)

199.jpg

source: http://www.alliedcatalogs.com/html/1964-230/h199.html (a large, high-res version of this page scan is available at the link as well)
 
Last edited:
Yes, they do. There is a buying guide on fleabay detailing them.

I had wondered why the speakers were vented on the side. At first I thought they were similar to the Parmeko link you posted, and contained an amplifier in the housing. This still might be the case, though I doubt it, judging by the single cord coming from the back.

From the quotes I gleaned from the book, it appears that they were conceived to be wide angled. The midrange are angled 45 degrees. Perhaps this is to reduce bleed into the other studio mics? I don't think it worked that well though!
 
i was watching "the making of sgt peppers lhcb" on youtube, ringo made a comment that emi was the first to get a 8 track but too cheap to get the proper cable, might lend credence to the in house monitor build, maybe shoot ringo a question eh?
 

Great article! :thmbsp:

Why does this pattern of poor prediction repeat, time and again? At least part of it seems to be due to the gap between when a new tool is first introduced and when people gain an understanding of how to use it artistically. This is, perhaps, an explanation for the (incorrect) idea that “technology is ruining the soul of music.”

What new tools do is force a reconsideration of the relative strengths and weaknesses of old tools. After some time goes by, creative professionals generally develop ways to blend the best aspects of both the old and the new.

Kehew agrees that every tool can have a place as part of an artistic palate. “Old is not good or bad,” he said. “Question it. Try it. Listen. Buy weird bad gear and great quality gear—see what it does for you. I love Jon Brion's quote—‘I don't want to be Lo-Fi or Hi-Fi, I want to be ALL-Fi!’”
 
I had not seen that article. Thanks for posting hardy. George Martin knew that restricting the palette would lead to thinking and creativity. Love it. Absolutely my alley.

As to the eight track comment. Having seen a number of those documentaries, and not to discount Ringo, but I imagine he was misremembering. Abbey Road and EMI had an in-house team of engineers, REDD, which would certainly been able to manufacture a cable to work. My guess would be they evaluated the early eight track machine and found it to be lacking. Even before the Beatles the studio was in high demand and much of their equipment would have been aquired for multiuse purposes. Not only would the recorder have been used to record pop music, but also things like classical symphonies and jazz ensembles.

As to the white elephant, I'm still wondering about the tweeter setup. I know those EMI elliptical speakers, the tweeters are attached to the frame and extend above the cone, almost suspended. The description about the white elephant says radiated frame?

I've seen several variations of these elliptical drivers on fleabay. There is also a fairly informative buying guide about them, though it's somewhat confusing to get through.
 
Last edited:
Out of curiosity I did a google search with Peter Dix and Abbey Road. On another forum, (not sure I can link) they say he worked on monitor loudspeakers at Abbey Road. Powered by Leak TL10s which had special feedback applied to enable the cabs to be individually equalised.

If it was a big cabinet, would that amp be able to drive a 15" woofer? I'm wondering if this isn't refering to the white elephant cab.
 
Last edited:
Excellent. I appreciate the input you've provided mhardy. It's moved me in the right direction on this search.

I may try to draw up what I think the baffle might look like based on the description of the speaker emplacements. And fleabay had several EMI ellipticals I've been watching, though I'm unsure how close they would be. Since the speakers in the white elephant are RS numbered and described as unique to Abbey Road, this leads me to believe the ellipticals were either existing EMI speakers reworked by The REDD department or actually contracted through EMI directly.

Obtaining the original speakers, besides being expensive, would be cost prohibitive. I'm wondering if anyone familiar with these speakers could tell me what might be close to what had been used. I can't tell through the existing pictures if the tweeters attached to the frame were there or if above the ellipticals there was a seperate, "radiated frame" of tweeters.

Additionally, if I were to build this speaker, I would have no clue as to how to design the crossover. It is rather fun to deduce these things though.

Also, I apologise for the multiple edits sometime. Typing on an iPad is difficult for me!
 
Back
Top Bottom