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Fulton Musical Industries

dowto1000 said:
That is a nice looking pair of J-Modular speakers which have been well taken care of, and seem to have updated crossovers.

The mids ARE FMI 80 bookshelf speakers, with a fantastic sounding 8 inch driver, paper cone and cloth surround, enclosure laying down on their sides, carefully positioned to be time aligned on top of the woofer.

The automotive-looking crossover part certainly IS as reported, a Packard 6 VDC starter solenoid, which measures about 1.75 mHY and can be added in series to get values, as Mr. Fulton did. These air core inductors were called "wroinkers" because that was the sound of a Packard engine starting with the electric starter. The curly part is a low Ohmic value power resistor, we called them "hair curlers".

By now, thirty years later, the ten inch upper woofer driver may possibly be high in distortion, due to having weak surrounds, and the 12 inch slot loaded woofer's voice coil may be hanging down, extended OUT of its gap, due to 40 years of it facing down, firing into the slot. One can carefully remove the 12 inch Alnico RTR driver and reverse-bias the woofer's surrounds with weights around the cone, (have it sit the "other way", with a weighted cone bias applied, for a week) and get the cone partially or fully re-centered in many cases.

There will be a web site dedicated to Robert W. Fulton, on line in the future. We will have the J-Modular Owner's Manual reproduced, with hook ups and enclosure positioning dimensions, and MANY more cool things.

There is no need to actively biamp the speaker, it can be bi or tri amped using its own passive crossovers !! I'd approach the unit carefully and ONLY make conservative restoration choices, easy does it !!


Jeff Medwin in Warrensburg, MO.
Click to expand...

Very interesting indeed. Thanks.

And I was just being facetious when I suggested active biamping. It looks like much thought went into designing that network.
 
As my friend Jeff says, stay tuned for a Fulton website that he, several other friends, and I are developing. All the information to get started is in my hands right now and the only thing holding back this project is my bloody lack of time! We will make an announcement when it's ready in this, and other forums. I hope soon!

As to the Js in this thread, they are indeed beautiful and appear to be later models. I have not seen the insulation batting behind the electrostatics before. I wonder if Fulton prescribed this for a particular customer in a particular room (he was known to do individualized tweaking) or if someone else added it afterward. My J tweeters fire freely to the rear as well to the front and provide some airy atmosphere that way.

To JBStemp: I'd like to use your photos in the Fulton website on the page devoted to the Js. I've not seen outdoor shots like this before and your lighting is very nice. May I have your permission?

Also, I'd like to offer one little bit of advice: I would resist the temptation to modify or tweak these beasts. Every detail, down to the hook-up wires, were selected by Robert Fulton by ear. Just enjoy a rare and beautiful piece of audio history. Like any great speaker, these deserve the best interconnects, amplifiers and source material you can acquire, as well as careful tuning of the room acoustics. Jeff has a lot of good advice on this, and I will be publishing his thoughts in the website.
 
Very Nice!!
I was fortunate to pick a pair of FMI 80's last year at a thrift.
As was mentioned they are an excellent bookshelf speaker on their own.
 
Wow, I never anticipated this kind of responce. you gota love AK :thmbsp:

Thanks to all for the advice and Information provided :yes:

I think there is more information in this thread than there is on the web, Thanks guys

Brian Beck said:
.

To JBStemp: I'd like to use your photos in the Fulton website on the page devoted to the Js. I've not seen outdoor shots like this before and your lighting is very nice. May I have your permission?
Click to expand...
:o Sure feel free....

Brian Beck said:
.

Also, I'd like to offer one little bit of advice: I would resist the temptation to modify or tweak these beasts. Every detail, down to the hook-up wires, were selected by Robert Fulton by ear. Just enjoy a rare and beautiful piece of audio history. Like any great speaker, these deserve the best interconnects, amplifiers and source material you can acquire, as well as careful tuning of the room acoustics. Jeff has a lot of good advice on this, and I will be publishing his thoughts in the website.
Click to expand...

After reading this I went and checked all the wires and yup everything down to the speaker wires are marked "Fulton"

DSC_1508.jpg


Somthing told me... Okay, someone sent me a note about powering these with my little mc2125 was just not going to be enough power and that I needed a larger amp.... :sigh:

So I ended up going back to the sale this morning to see if one of the only things that I passed on was still there... the LEACH LSR&D amplifier

Well it was still there and 1/2 off :thmbsp:

:D

DSC_1505.jpg


DSC_1507.jpg


Thanks everyone

Jim
 
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Wow!
It looks like someone was getting rid of a very nice system.
Glad it has found a home where it will be appreciated.
 
I knew Dr. Leach back in the day and have a few friends that still use his amps -- built from plans still available on the web -- which were perhaps the most thoroughly and thoughtfully engineered and tested amps of their time. This should be a wonderful partner for your Fultons.

Here is some history: http://users.ece.gatech.edu/mleach/lsrd/index.html
 
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The Fulton 80’s got me hooked on good audio in the late 70’s. After hearing them I couldn’t listen to my AR2x Speakers. In the late 70’s there was a “Fulton Bouquet’ store in San Diego that was operated by a local Psychiatrist who was also an avid jogger, which is kind of how I heard about the place.

Dr Fulton as he was reverently referred too was always being quoted as if he had just come down from some sacred temple to share his wisdom with the unwashed masses. As I recall Dr Fulton had designed a trumpet for Doc Severinson and well that was good enough for me. I ran the Fulton 80’s with a HK430 and /or a Stereo 70 (which meet with the good doctors approval funny he preferred the HK430 to the HK730) in my first apartment. No TV just music. Good Times.

To second Brain Beck even back then people were thinking they could tweak these speakers and none of them sounded as good as before. Resist the temptation! My downfall was tweaking my Stereo 70 and falling for any number of magic modes.
 
Jeff, thanks for some good information - you are invited to St. Louis to give a listen to my Fultons, and let the rest of us in on some of the secrets you have been passing along to Willie. We are waiting to hear about the massaging you two are doing to his preamp.:thmbsp:

Jim, it looks like you have Bob's "Gold" speaker cables. It is rather uncommon to see a set of Js that have not been molested.:yes:
 
Gold and Brown

JBStemp said:
:o Sure feel free....
Jim
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Looks like you've got a set of Fulton Gold cables and a set of Fulton Brown cables. Some people (maybe even Fulton) preferred the sound of the skinnier Brown. Most of the Gold cable is now "green" from surface corrosion even under the clear jacket. This can't help. I have a box of several-length pairs of Gold cables that is almost too heavy to lift.
 
Hey Jim....

....you should post pics of that weird ground / fuse wire.
I'll bet Mr.Beck can tell you whats up with that configuration.
I've never seen a ground wire attached to wood......:scratch2:
 
very nice find but

looking at your j's among other things....the crossover will need some help....(cleaning) there are some of us that know these very well...(Tom, Jeff, Brian, and myself)


If you need some help... these are the people you want to contact

if you want to eventually sell please contact us...

I have been looking for a pair of j's for awhile ...wondering where you actually got them from?


Lawrence
 
Wonderful find, love the downfiring bass driver, and the RTR panels on top. And even the wood veneer looks exceptional. Very happy for you to have found such a unique pair of speakers and amp! When you come across something like those, you know its gotta be something special!
 
Stephen J said:
....you should post pics of that weird ground / fuse wire.
I'll bet Mr.Beck can tell you whats up with that configuration.
I've never seen a ground wire attached to wood......:scratch2:
Click to expand...

Good point :yes:

This little bugger has us scratching our heads... Fused ground wire that is attached to a screw inbeded in the backpanel :dunno:

Customer addon or did these come like this... ?

DSC_1543.jpg
 
In-line fuse

That's a new one for me. My guess is that someone wanted to include an in-line fuse and so they added a screw terminal to the back cover just to enable a connection between the speaker cable and the red fuse lead. I tried to eye-ball the pictures of the internal cross-over with the back cover view of the in-line fuse. It is possible that the screw goes through and connects to the screw terminal that receives the four blue wires from the four big caps, but my guess is that it does not. My guess is that the added screw is anchored only into the wood of the rear cover and it's not not reaching through to the crossover. Easy for Jim to check. If it's just a series in-line fuse, then there is no great mystery after all. Me? I'd yank it out and connect the speaker cable directly to the main terminal block.
 
Might as well talk about how they were hooked up..

..I guess.

Per Jim's suggestion,I took a pic with my phone.

I have no idea how to up load it.....but one one the wires coming from the amp was actually screwed to the wood,with that red fused wire as the lead to the bottom right terminal......:scratch2:
The other wire was attached to the bottom left terminal.
Tweeters wired to the top terminals,mids to the next pair of terminals down.Second from the bottom set of terminals....empty



picture.php
 
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