Audio Engineered Sound Speakers?

[bigdaddyhifi]

Hello. I picked a pair these up at a garage sale last week. I've been unable to find out anything at all on them. They are very basic looking ( almost homemade.) Except the small copper brass name tag is professionally stamped. They are solid blonde particle board cabinets,no veenier. They are mitered on all four corners. All nails or screws are concealed. The grille cloth is glued on and there is no way to access the single 8 ohm speaker inside without doing some damage to the enclosure or grille. The speaker hole dia.is seven inches. They appear to be mid 1950's to early 60's. I'd expect to be able to find something out about them but have struck out. It's like they fell out of the sky! I haven't listened to them yet. I can send pics if need be. I'd appreciate any info as Ive found nothing on my own. Thanks and Happy listening

 

[romanoja]

AES Speakers

Old post sorry but I just found it. These AES are homebuilt kit speakers. The drivers are Cleveland from 1961. I'm assuming that you could purchase the kit from a catalog, and it came with the AES plate. Research finds nothing about speakers of that name from the 60s, although there is an AES dpeaker company naming wall and ceiling speakers today. Nothing special about the design that I can see. A little insulation is inside the cabinet, looks like what would be used to insulate a water heater. It does have the speaker mounted behind the front board, a poor design today. Kinda nice that someone built these 50 years ago.

 

[Nat]

I have a memory of AES being the company that made the Gigolo (and Argosy?) speakers in the sixties. They were inexpensive and made great claims for them, though the claims were not that they were the best but that most people wouldn't notice a difference between them an the best, which may have been true. Jensen components if I recall, and okay sounding.

 

[DaveElton]

I have one that was my Father's. They have an 8" FR driver in them, and sound quite decent IMHO if you enjoy the attributes of FR drivers, which I do

 

[romanoja]

The pair I have are particle wood without any veneer although someone did a great finish on the particle wood. The single speaker inside is Cleveland 433116 for the one I opened. I wonder if they did kit speakers like a few other companies did at that time? The ones I have really look and feel like a kit. I haven't tested them put at all but will provide what I can when I do.

 

[itwizard]

In the early 1960s, A.E.S. Inc. (Audio Engineered Sound), a company based out of Cleveland, Ohio, manufactured and mail-ordered the Gigolo series of loudspeakers. [1, 2, 3]
Operating from 3338 Payne Avenue in Cleveland, A.E.S. marketed these speakers heavily through vintage hi-fi and electronics magazines. They positioned the Gigolo as an affordable, budget-friendly speaker that offered a "miracle in sound", boldly claiming that most listeners wouldn't notice a difference between it and the highest-end speakers on the market. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Lineup
A.E.S. offered two main models in their product line: [1]

• • The Gigolo I ($15.00): A highly flexible, compact bookshelf enclosure measuring 24" wide by 12" high. It utilized a basic 8-inch full-range driver (often thought to feature Jensen components). A.E.S. advertised its pneumatic loading design and an aggressive 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • The Gigolo II ($49.50): A more advanced "Professional Model" introduced around mid-1961. It incorporated a newly developed 10-inch free-edge woofer, a 3-inch hard cone tweeter, and an electronic crossover network. [1, 2]

Heritage and Reception
Though modern audiophiles look back on the Gigolo as a charming example of aggressive, golden-age budget marketing, vintage audio communities note that they provided decent performance for their incredibly low price tag. They could easily be driven by either low-wattage economy amplifiers or more robust home setups. [1, 2]


The print advertisements for the A.E.S. Gigolo (published widely throughout 1961 in magazines like Popular Electronics, High Fidelity, and Audio) are highly studied by vintage audio enthusiasts. They represent a textbook example of "too good to be true" mail-order marketing from the golden age of hi-fi. [1, 2]
If you are breaking down the visual layout or historical context of the ad, here is a detailed breakdown of its elements, copy strategies, and the industry backlash it caused.

1. Key Marketing Claims & Copy Vocabulary
The ad relied heavily on pseudoscientific buzzwords meant to mimic the high-end acoustic suspension engineering of the era (like Acoustic Research or KLH). Look for these specific phrases in your layout: [1]

• "A Miracle in Sound" / "The Gigolo Orchestra": The primary tagline used at the top of the pages.
• "Pneumatic Loading": This was their term for a completely sealed enclosure box, implying it acted as an advanced air spring.
• "Anti-Intermodulation Distortion Cone Reinforcements": A complex phrase used to make a basic, inexpensive paper speaker cone sound like space-age technology.
• "Beyond the Limits of Human Perception": Used explicitly when trying to upsell the reader to the Gigolo II Professional Model. [1, 2, 3]

2. The Infamous "Special Notice" Box
A defining characteristic of the 1961 Popular Electronics ad is a prominent text box labeled "SPECIAL NOTICE". It was an incredibly bold, high-pressure copy strategy that read: [1]

"Built for those who feel they must have sound reproducing equipment beyond the limits of human perception, we offer the Gigolo II for public sale... Upon receipt of your Gigolo, if you find any of the statements made in this advertisement were misleading or untrue... you may return this unit to the factory." [1]

The trick to this famous 100% Money-Back Guarantee was that shipping a large, heavy wooden speaker cabinet back to Cleveland via mail in 1961 often cost a significant fraction of the $15 purchase price, dissuading most disgruntled buyers from returning it.

3. Visual Layout Style
The physical layout was designed to look like a high-end, serious engineering bulletin:

• The Imagery: It usually featured clean line art or high-contrast black-and-white photographs of the un-grilled cabinet showing the raw wooden edges, emphasizing its "co-axial" or full-range single-driver look. [1, 2]
• The Blueprint Look: Some variations included small frequency response graphs or technical-looking cabinet dimensional mockups to trick the reader into thinking it was a meticulously engineered piece of studio equipment.

4. Historical Context: The Great Response Controversy
These ads are famous in media history because they caused a massive feud in the audiophile community. In 1961, High Fidelity magazine took the unprecedented step of publishing a highly critical, independent technical review of the $15 Gigolo.
The review exposed that the internal components were incredibly cheap, the construction was basic plywood, and the frequency response graph was wildly inaccurate compared to the ad's claims. This review effectively broke the spell of the mail-order campaign and became a landmark moment for consumer protection journalism in the electronics hobby space.

https://vintageadsandbooks.com/a-e-...le-sound-speaker-system-vintage-ad-zg232.html

 

[Nat]

Back in the mid 70s, I found either a singleton or a pair of the fancy pair. Not terrible, and not bad looking, given the obvious vinyl covering. I think for the price, they were probably pretty respectable at the time, since I doubt they were any worse than store brand and off label speakers that were the usual alternative to name brands.

 

[itwizard]

In 1961, I actually purchased a pair of the original Gigolo speakers at the AES factory in Cleveland for $15 each.
My speakers looked just like the photo shown in the first post, above, with raw particle board cases and the little brass nameplate.
I even received a "factory tour" which was interesting to a 17-year old. The workshop's sawdust and glue smelled great.
I just asked Google, and that $15 would now be $169 in 2026 with inflation.