Henry Kloss' 1st loudspeaker

Folks generally think of the Acoustc Research's AR-1 as the first loudspeaker Henry Kloss had a hand in producing. Two years before the AR-1 Kloss was assembling the Baruch-Lang corner speaker in his loft in Cambridge. I'm pretty sure he along with several other MIT students made the cabinets. They have that home built feel to them and it makes sense since Kloss was a skilled woodworker having made his own furniture for his loft. Keep your eyes open for these...found mine on Ebay, $20. about 10 years. They are marked 'KLOSS INDUSTRIES', but people don't know that it's the Henry Kloss.

Here's a ad for it; http://books.google.com/books?id=Si...AEwAw#v=onepage&q=baruch lang speaker&f=false

Thanks for the head's up on that speaker, but I doubt if I will run into any out here in Los Angeles. Do you know the manufacturer of the four 5" drivers used by any chance? That would be interesting information for Kloss fans.

No name on the drivers, just a number printed in ink. Nothing too special about these drivers...as noted 5 inch, steel baskets. They seem much like something you'd find in a larger quality radio of the 1940's-50's. This speaker, when placed in a corner and hooked up to my Grommes tube amp really sounds pretty darn nice.

Whats also kind of neat is the mention in the ad that Baruch and Lang used an electronic computer to determine hole size & spacing of the baffle. Back in 1952 a computer would have filled a small kitchen !

My Father inlaw was at MIT in the early 50's and says there were several groups of students making speaker cabinets, trying to design small enclosers that would produce quality sound using off the shelf drivers. He has one of these still...it's 3/4 inch plywood, rectanglular in shape, interior baffle, about 1 cu. ft. in size and designed to use a single 6 inch driver. Some day I'll have to find a full range speaker for it and see how it sounds.

A lot of small, cheap speakers (especially the all-in-one systems) used pegboard type backs on their speakers. Maybe that is why they sounded so good.

These are Distributed Bass Reflex enclosures. Must be tuned like any other bass reflex system to the speakers and cabinet. Pegboard backed open enclosures are not the same thing but are basically an open infinite baffle with a thin pegboard that vibrates badly but closes in the back of the enclosure somewhat.