newandold

I believe it was two very fine pair of ALLISON threes that have gone through eBay during the past year or so. They are a good one to pursue for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that there are only three drivers per cabinet, which makes them a good choice since the age of these things makes it quite difficult to keep them going with the scarcity of drivers.

….. as is the case with all sealed enclosure acoustic suspension systems. When you have a DUAL woofer system on a particular speaker and press as you have done and all is good, you will see the opposing woofer instantly move as if they are one. your test was fine except I would be leery about pushing a woofer that old that far down.

I still look occasionally, but nothing really.There is little left to do but enjoy what we have and certainly that is not a bad thing at all. All the years I spent accumulating spare parts was a great insurance policy to continue on. (And that’s not a bad thing at all!)

This model was apparently marketed and sold overseas.

https://stereonomono.blogspot.com/2022/07/allison-130-loudspeakers.html?m=1

That’s very interesting… When originally I posted on this topic, I didn’t look carefully at the picture and assumed it was the original Allison 2 way 130 (sans mid). probably something like you said… Prototype or available only from a dealer? A few months ago I challenged a guy (retired dealer) overseas who was selling an old pair of speakers with the Allison name on them. turned out after some homework….. The guy was on the level and apparently those speakers were built overseas and never saw the light of day here in the US.

I have been following the used Allison marketplace on eBay for decades now. Yours are fun to talk about because of what’s MISSING..… And I’m talking about the damage, that is generally present on the pairs on eBay, that dreamers are trying to unload. ……very careworn, the grills are usually damaged beyond repair or missing all together. Those tweeter nipples are almost always dented at the least, or totally mashed in at the worst. Those delicate wires that you managed to reconnect are very often busted, and then they ask all kinds of money for them; all the while I’m trying to keep a straight face .

Jon, Before anything else…… I need to congratulate you! For five bucks those are flat out, the finest looking pair of fours for the money I have ever seen, and I mean ever. as long as you get foam surrounds with the roll radius as close as you can get to what you see on what’s left of the originals you’ll be OK just no rubber that would alter the sonic characteristics that RA built into those systems. Beyond that I can only tell you that I’m a lightweight when it comes to doing surround work I did it once decades ago and the two words popped into my head never again. I’m pretty handy but there’s certain things that I feel that are best left to the professionals. The music is simply too important for me to screw around like that.

Already, you’ve accomplished the most important thing that being 4 tweeters up and running! I wouldn’t lose any sleep over dust on the drivers (you can’t hear that). Make sure the spiders are well intact and compliant before going ahead with the surrounds on the woofers. Five bucks!? What a deal for a pair of fours can you toss some pictures on here?

Thank you for the update

♫♫ Saturday May 6th, 2023 Spring Blue Mt Lodge Audio fest. Peekskill, NY ♫♫…… sounds impressive but I can’t find any information regarding this…… I live 12 minutes away and would like to hear more about this. Is there a website?

You put a smile on my face with this Tom! My folks gave me a pair of 2ax as a young teen wild about music equipment. That was around ‘72 or so and I was very grateful, but If I were buying back then I would have gone for the 5’s. Regarding Shatners hearing (so the story goes) Lenord Nimoy also suffered a hearing loss on the same “Arena” set from explosions during the filming. Recently, Paramount got greedy and pulled all the Star Trek streaming from Netflix. Still needing my original series “ fix” I opted for the Blu-ray collection.

Shatner also did commercial advertising for Phase Linear back in the 70s (that was post “arena” hearing loss also) Somewhere around here I have a picture of him with the 4000 preamp.

Over 20 years now since the final demise of Allison Acoustics. Since then, there has never been a drop in replacement for either the pulsating dome tweeter or midrange that RA developed exclusively for his systems. I have maintained longevity only by getting educated as to interchangeably between those drivers and the various models so I could shop the used marketplaces and keep a sufficient inventory.

I was very impressed with some of those models back in the day, along with the equalization unit. The Bose of today is forgettable at best. My Nissan Murano has a Bose system in it along with Apple CarPlay, and a subwoofer mounted to the spare tire. I think if I get a flat I’ll just leave the subwoofer on the tire. Maybe then it will be good for something.

Ha Ha no “bias” sufficient power to drive that loudspeaker…… Matters not what side of the pond it comes from.

LST’s at a disco?! (Small wonder the drivers were toasted…..) The industrial version of the Bose 901 was well suited to that task back in the day but not AR…(anything)

allison-speakers@groups.io Probably someone lurking here who can give you the exact specs on the original Allison, eight or cd eight capacitors

Hi Pete, Your gut is telling you the same thing I’m thinking (capacitor swap). unnecessary and MAY have altered the sound. From years of hanging around the Allison forums, I can tell you what my perception is, after members change caps. and then try to get meaningful impressions from them regarding what those sonic differences REALLY are…. The answer is, they have new caps and if properly done, sound as good as new, but no different. I personally will let the Allison high quality capacitors go for 50 years without even thinking about a swap. There’s enough to worry about regarding foam, not rubber surrounds and the spiders that support the back end of those drivers. these are not high-voltage capacitors that are subject to demands that are placed upon them by an amplifier, or any other high-voltage application. They are essentially filters and can do their job as specified for a very, very long time. The big sell on this has always been capacitors “drifting from specifications over time“. That being said, measuring from what they were to where they are now, as a system is not so easy, if you’re talking about establishing a baseline for comparison. I’m running three different models of Allisons in my home, theater system, all with the original capacitors in tow. Nothing to my ears is calling attention to fix something that isn’t broken. They all continue to sound stellar the changes for the better have come from 21st-century electronics, putting the pedal to the metal. are all of the drivers in those eights still ALLISON drivers?

“Prototype” was the term I was looking for earlier…..sadly I’m becoming fossilized!

An “experimental” model perhaps 🤔 where a few got built but never went into actual production?? Speakers like that always intrigued me… How about picture posting that will help all interested here. Anything even close to the AR LST or ALLISON prism shape peaks my interest.

I can vouch for Millersound. 9 drivers currently in my surround system are originals rebuilt by Millersound and totally including spiders.

Thank you for that update! no surprise really…… Whenever I look around at the forums or on the web there has been nothing interesting or new for the longest time now. The Allison acoustics that I embraced (and many others) has been off the radar now for a quarter century… Unfortunately. I am grateful however, that I became an Allison scavenger about 22 years ago. during that time I’ve scarfed up enough stuff to keep me in play probably till I’m old enough that I won’t care anymore.