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Equasound Speakers

M

MP3Rod

New Member
Starting a new thread, hope that is okay

Hi, this is Rod Underhill. The Equasound company was owned by my brother, Doug Underhill, and his partner Jeff Coombs. Together they were the designer of the Equasound speakers. One of the wealthy members of the McCulloch family (chain saws, etc) financed the company. The time of it's existence, Doug and Jeff were barely out of high school. My father, Jess Underhill, an engineer, provided some advice from time to time mostly regarding production lines and so forth.

The Equasound speakers were designed to essentially match studio monitor specifics, that is, they were built to have very "flat" sound. The goal was for the speakers to reproduce the studio recording as closely as possible without adding extra (and incorrect) treble, bass or distortion. They were also designed to be played at very high volume levels with minimal distortion.

The speakers themselves were part of an evolution in thinking that Doug and Jeff had. They designed the cloth speaker covers in such a way that designers could replace them with fabric that would make more sense in a design sense, that is, the cloth (if it was properly porous) could be replaced with a different color by the user so it would fit into the decor of any particular room. Already, Doug was getting push back from high end users who were reporting that the speakers were great, but didn't match the decor of their million dollar living rooms...something that bothered him, but something that he paid attention to.

Anyway, the speakers were noticed by Playboy Magazine, who did a write up on them in the tech section of their magazine in a 70's issue. Over time, Doug closed down the factory due to push back from high end clients and created a new company where he custom built speakers into the individual environment. In other words, he would enter the home of the client, check out the room, and put the speakers into the room in a hidden fashion. That company, operating from Phoenix, has been very successful and ended up making him a multi millionaire.

Despite the fact that the Equasound speakers were of monitor quality, his clients were not studio engineers, but rich people who wanted cool speakers. Doug was impressed with Bose' direct/reflecting concepts, and built the speakers so that the tweeters pointed in one specific direction....and the woofers would face the wall, and the mid ranges would point in a certain direction, etc, so that the speakers would have the advantage of bouncing off of certain parts of the room and so forth. He eventually took this concept farther with his new (and current) business by doing that in his client's rooms by engineering custom built in speakers based on the design of the specific room.

From a tech viewpoint, the speakers required 30 watts RMS per channel at minimum to work properly. The more power the better.

I have a pair that he gave me as a present back in the 70's. I had to replace most of the speakers over the years as they eventually rotted out. They still sound great and I use them all the time.

Unfortunately, over the years, the little "Equasound" tags fell off. Wish I could replace them.

Both Doug and I entered the music biz in different ways, but as a representative of the Underhill family, I thank you for your interest in these classic speakers. I am not a speaker engineer, but if any questions come my way I can try to get Doug to answer them and report back.

They are heavy mothers, aren't they? Not easy to move. That's one of their downsides, I guess.

The cross over network was buried in plastic so that people could not learn how it was put together. The details were a company trade secret.

Best

Rod Underhill
 
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Welcome Rod. Thank you for the interesting history on the Equasound speakers. I will keep an eye out for a pair for sure now :)
 
Sound Center in Los Angeles sold the Equasound speaker in the mid seventies. They were unique in the Philips tweeter array and competed well soundwise against any other rig on the showroom floor. I remember the Equasound and Saras brand offerings being my favorite from that time.
 
tubed said:
Sound Center in Los Angeles sold the Equasound speaker in the mid seventies. They were unique in the Philips tweeter array and competed well soundwise against any other rig on the showroom floor. I remember the Equasound and Saras brand offerings being my favorite from that time.
Click to expand...

I purchased,and still own Equasound screen array speakers at the sound center in the seventies.They are two large screens(51in by 22 in),each screen has 8 mid range and two high frequency drivers.One of the high frequency drivers faces rearward.The third speaker is a 15in woofer in a 18in by 19in by 22in matching cabinet.They are in excellent condition.Through the years I have only had to replace the 15in woofer.I still love them.
 
I grew up in Los Angeles near the Los Angeles Airport and have had the big Equasound tower Speakes since the late 70 where I bought them from a friend at the time. He had told me he new the owners of the company but I wasn't sure if it was true or not. Does anyone know if they were from the L.A. airport.
 
Two Equasounds?

Hi, I was just doing a search for Equasound speakers.

It sounds like there were two companies by the same name. The one I know of was run by Mike Petroff, who lived in West Los Angeles, his warehouse was in Culver City (the warehouse manager's name was a bald guy named Julian - amazing I remember that!), and Now Sound Stereo was probably his biggest distributor.

(My first job after high school was at Now Sound, and that was 1974 - the heyday of stereo stores.)

His speakers sounded really good at the time, and they used to sell a ton of them. If I remember right there were two models - a tower and a bookshelf.

Petroff now does research into tinnitus.
 
Question answered

Thanks for the information. Sounds like my friend was not just blowing steam and did know the folks that made the speakers. We were all from the Westchester area near the Los Angeles airport real near Culver City so good chance he did know them. The pair I have are the big thin tower speakers with the row of 9 small speakers down the center of the speakers and the big Transformer in the lower right corner. All the speakers are original in still sound great but as I said before the cabinets were all press wood veneer and where all peeling so I took to a friend and had him build new solid oak enclosures of the same size and shape (they look great) The front grills are still original and still have the equasound metal logos on them. When I got them they had a matching bass speaker but when it went out I got rid or it and got a new one instead of getting it fixed. (mistake should of kept it). Anyway thank you Doug and Jeff, I love my speakers, I bought them in the early 80's so I have had 30 years of enjoyment with them.
 
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UPDATE: This was one and the same company.

This information is straight from my mother who was there and married to my father at the time.

Equasound was my father (Mike Petroff's) business that he started. He had a friend named Ron Clark, who was the pilot for the elder Mr. Coombs' company (the father of Jeff Coombs we are assuming). The Coombs were Arizona-based and were the initial investors of the company. I'm not trying to start an argument here but the only engineer involved with the audio was Mike Petroff. Jeff Coombs was the same age as my dad at the time.
 
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Please see my response (different post in this thread). It was one and the same company.

nickbatz said:
Two Equasounds?

Hi, I was just doing a search for Equasound speakers.

It sounds like there were two companies by the same name. The one I know of was run by Mike Petroff, who lived in West Los Angeles, his warehouse was in Culver City (the warehouse manager's name was a bald guy named Julian - amazing I remember that!), and Now Sound Stereo was probably his biggest distributor.

(My first job after high school was at Now Sound, and that was 1974 - the heyday of stereo stores.)

His speakers sounded really good at the time, and they used to sell a ton of them. If I remember right there were two models - a tower and a bookshelf.

Petroff now does research into tinnitus.
Click to expand...
 
MP3Rod said:
Starting a new thread, hope that is okay

Hi, this is Rod Underhill. The Equasound company was owned by my brother, Doug Underhill, and his partner Jeff Coombs. Together they were the designer of the Equasound speakers. One of the wealthy members of the McCulloch family (chain saws, etc) financed the company. The time of it's existence, Doug and Jeff were barely out of high school. My father, Jess Underhill, an engineer, provided some advice from time to time mostly regarding production lines and so forth.

The Equasound speakers were designed to essentially match studio monitor specifics, that is, they were built to have very "flat" sound. The goal was for the speakers to reproduce the studio recording as closely as possible without adding extra (and incorrect) treble, bass or distortion. They were also designed to be played at very high volume levels with minimal distortion.

The speakers themselves were part of an evolution in thinking that Doug and Jeff had. They designed the cloth speaker covers in such a way that designers could replace them with fabric that would make more sense in a design sense, that is, the cloth (if it was properly porous) could be replaced with a different color by the user so it would fit into the decor of any particular room. Already, Doug was getting push back from high end users who were reporting that the speakers were great, but didn't match the decor of their million dollar living rooms...something that bothered him, but something that he paid attention to.

Anyway, the speakers were noticed by Playboy Magazine, who did a write up on them in the tech section of their magazine in a 70's issue. Over time, Doug closed down the factory due to push back from high end clients and created a new company where he custom built speakers into the individual environment. In other words, he would enter the home of the client, check out the room, and put the speakers into the room in a hidden fashion. That company, operating from Phoenix, has been very successful and ended up making him a multi millionaire.

Despite the fact that the Equasound speakers were of monitor quality, his clients were not studio engineers, but rich people who wanted cool speakers. Doug was impressed with Bose' direct/reflecting concepts, and built the speakers so that the tweeters pointed in one specific direction....and the woofers would face the wall, and the mid ranges would point in a certain direction, etc, so that the speakers would have the advantage of bouncing off of certain parts of the room and so forth. He eventually took this concept farther with his new (and current) business by doing that in his client's rooms by engineering custom built in speakers based on the design of the specific room.

From a tech viewpoint, the speakers required 30 watts RMS per channel at minimum to work properly. The more power the better.

I have a pair that he gave me as a present back in the 70's. I had to replace most of the speakers over the years as they eventually rotted out. They still sound great and I use them all the time.

Unfortunately, over the years, the little "Equasound" tags fell off. Wish I could replace them.

Both Doug and I entered the music biz in different ways, but as a representative of the Underhill family, I thank you for your interest in these classic speakers. I am not a speaker engineer, but if any questions come my way I can try to get Doug to answer them and report back.

They are heavy mothers, aren't they? Not easy to move. That's one of their downsides, I guess.

The cross over network was buried in plastic so that people could not learn how it was put together. The details were a company trade secret.

Best

Rod Underhill
Click to expand...

Hi Rod,

This is interesting and from a matter of family history maybe you could ask about your family's relationship with Coombs and Mike Petroff. Mike Petroff was the engineer behind the sound, there was investment interest between Clark, Coombs and Mike Petroff. My mom has no recollection of the Underhills. You are posting false information. There was nobody named Underhill involved with engineering any of the Equasound speakers. Where are you getting this story?
 
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MP3Rod said:
Starting a new thread, hope that is okay

Hi, this is Rod Underhill. The Equasound company was owned by my brother, Doug Underhill, and his partner Jeff Coombs. Together they were the designer of the Equasound speakers. One of the wealthy members of the McCulloch family (chain saws, etc) financed the company. The time of it's existence, Doug and Jeff were barely out of high school. My father, Jess Underhill, an engineer, provided some advice from time to time mostly regarding production lines and so forth.

The Equasound speakers were designed to essentially match studio monitor specifics, that is, they were built to have very "flat" sound. The goal was for the speakers to reproduce the studio recording as closely as possible without adding extra (and incorrect) treble, bass or distortion. They were also designed to be played at very high volume levels with minimal distortion.

The speakers themselves were part of an evolution in thinking that Doug and Jeff had. They designed the cloth speaker covers in such a way that designers could replace them with fabric that would make more sense in a design sense, that is, the cloth (if it was properly porous) could be replaced with a different color by the user so it would fit into the decor of any particular room. Already, Doug was getting push back from high end users who were reporting that the speakers were great, but didn't match the decor of their million dollar living rooms...something that bothered him, but something that he paid attention to.

Anyway, the speakers were noticed by Playboy Magazine, who did a write up on them in the tech section of their magazine in a 70's issue. Over time, Doug closed down the factory due to push back from high end clients and created a new company where he custom built speakers into the individual environment. In other words, he would enter the home of the client, check out the room, and put the speakers into the room in a hidden fashion. That company, operating from Phoenix, has been very successful and ended up making him a multi millionaire.

Despite the fact that the Equasound speakers were of monitor quality, his clients were not studio engineers, but rich people who wanted cool speakers. Doug was impressed with Bose' direct/reflecting concepts, and built the speakers so that the tweeters pointed in one specific direction....and the woofers would face the wall, and the mid ranges would point in a certain direction, etc, so that the speakers would have the advantage of bouncing off of certain parts of the room and so forth. He eventually took this concept farther with his new (and current) business by doing that in his client's rooms by engineering custom built in speakers based on the design of the specific room.

From a tech viewpoint, the speakers required 30 watts RMS per channel at minimum to work properly. The more power the better.

I have a pair that he gave me as a present back in the 70's. I had to replace most of the speakers over the years as they eventually rotted out. They still sound great and I use them all the time.

Unfortunately, over the years, the little "Equasound" tags fell off. Wish I could replace them.

Both Doug and I entered the music biz in different ways, but as a representative of the Underhill family, I thank you for your interest in these classic speakers. I am not a speaker engineer, but if any questions come my way I can try to get Doug to answer them and report back.

They are heavy mothers, aren't they? Not easy to move. That's one of their downsides, I guess.

The cross over network was buried in plastic so that people could not learn how it was put together. The details were a company trade secret.

Best

Rod Underhill
Click to expand...
Jeff Coombs was the son of the initial investor (Coombs senior). My aunt actually went out with Jeff a few times. I have living reference (my mother) who knew who designed the speakers and the cabinets were made by her brother (my uncle). There was nobody named Underhill who engineered the speakers. Those were designed 100% by my father Mike Petroff. That's just the truth of it. My mom was at CES Chicago with my dad when they demo'ed the things. Possibly the company was sold afterwards since my dad went on to found companies by different names.
 
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theglawe said:
Question answered

Thanks for the information. Sounds like my friend was not just blowing steam and did know the folks that made the speakers. We were all from the Westchester area near the Los Angeles airport real near Culver City so good chance he did know them. The pair I have are the big thin tower speakers with the row of 9 small speakers down the center of the speakers and the big Transformer in the lower right corner. All the speakers are original in still sound great but as I said before the cabinets were all press wood veneer and where all peeling so I took to a friend and had him build new solid oak enclosures of the same size and shape (they look great) The front grills are still original and still have the equasound metal logos on them. When I got them they had a matching bass speaker but when it went out I got rid or it and got a new one instead of getting it fixed. (mistake should of kept it). Anyway thank you Doug and Jeff, I love my speakers, I bought them in the early 80's so I have had 30 years of enjoyment with them.
Click to expand...

Doug and Jeff had nothing to do with the creation of these products. It sickens me to see someone trying to take credit for another family's hard work.
 
nickbatz said:
Two Equasounds?

Hi, I was just doing a search for Equasound speakers.

It sounds like there were two companies by the same name. The one I know of was run by Mike Petroff, who lived in West Los Angeles, his warehouse was in Culver City (the warehouse manager's name was a bald guy named Julian - amazing I remember that!), and Now Sound Stereo was probably his biggest distributor.

(My first job after high school was at Now Sound, and that was 1974 - the heyday of stereo stores.)

His speakers sounded really good at the time, and they used to sell a ton of them. If I remember right there were two models - a tower and a bookshelf.

Petroff now does research into tinnitus.
Click to expand...

The one you knew was the only one, run by Mike Petroff, who was the engineer and designer behind Equasound. My mother worked with and for my dad in the creation of this business and knew of the Coombs' investment in the business. This Underhill character is trying to take credit for something they had nothing to do with designing. Sad to see it and angers me as my father (Mike Petroff) passed away last January.
 
DevinP said:
Hi Rod,

This is interesting and from a matter of family history maybe you could ask about your family's relationship with Coombs and Mike Petroff. Mike Petroff was the engineer behind the sound, there was investment interest between Clark, Coombs and Mike Petroff. My mom has no recollection of the Underhills. You are posting false information. There was nobody named Underhill involved with engineering any of the Equasound speakers. Where are you getting this story?
Click to expand...
Welcome AK. Info about old or obscure companies is always welcome!

Doubtful Rod will respond. He made that one post in 2010 and it appears he has not been back. If you click on a user name some info is displayed like join date and last seen.
Rods:

MP3Rod​

New Member
Joined Apr 2, 2010
Last seen Apr 2, 2010
 
goodolpg said:
Welcome AK. Info about old or obscure companies is always welcome!

Doubtful Rod will respond. He made that one post in 2010 and it appears he has not been back. If you click on a user name some info is displayed like join date and last seen.
Rods:

MP3Rod​

New Member
Joined Apr 2, 2010
Last seen Apr 2, 2010
Click to expand...
Thank you well it's not like I expect the rest of the world to care about this trash. This is the humble legacy that we have and he posted outright falsehoods.. Whatever it's the internet what can you do.
 
I'll repost some trivia I put in my RIP post since you're a fan of these old home-brew companies:

He (Mike Petroff) was savante-ish and struggled with relationships and balancing other areas of life. We were pretty strapped during all these business ventures so it's more of a matter of pride for me. He was obsessed with quality and would replay the same clip of a certain song over and over again on repeat for weeks at a time at deafening volumes (would shake every window in the house). So he ruined Paul Simon's Graceland and many other albums for me lol. Yes he did have offices earlier on but mid 80s and onward he was garage-based. I was habituated to the noise. One neighbor reported us and an inspector came by and said it was a violation that the garage door was drywalled and wood paneled over on the inside. So dad cut the drywall around it (with the drywall still adhered to the garage door), which made for an 80-some-pound garage door to lift (no motor) because he put all kinds of sound deadening material between the drywall and the paneling. Which I pushed open with my brother's help all the time as a kid and could easily have been squished, but that's what we got up to in the 80s.

So popular on this forum from what I see are the old Equasound cabinets (my uncle on my mom's side did the woodworking on those), and the Petroff Labs cabinets. I haven't see anything on Integral Audio, which had a 'Sound Cylinders' product. Like a pole with a cylinder that pointed at you, front covered with a screen. Midrange and tweeter was in each unit with a sub floor unit. He was going for more the space-age look in the 80's vs the wood paneled look from the 70's. Anyway I don't think those ever took off. After that he did Magnitude acoustics which were car subwoofers. I know he sourced drivers from Atomic for some of those later companies, Atomic is still around I believe.
 
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