Historical

Note: As our coverage of the 2016 New York Audio Show has just been posted, I thought it would be interesting to post our report from the 1965 show, in particular to see which brands are still around 50 years later.—John Atkinson

The 1965 New York hi-fi show was, to these observers, most notable for the marked increase in the number of exhibits which featured good—ie, classical—music for demonstration purposes. In the past, only about a half dozen of the exhibitors played anything of musical worth, the rest of them evidently figuring they could make more noise with wild brass-and-percussion "demo" records. This year, no less than 25 exhibits were playing classical music when we wandered into their rooms, and we were so impressed that we compiled a list of them, which we're going to cite here simply because we believe in giving credit where it's due, and it is in this case.

These were: Acoustech, Ampex, Acoustic Research, Bozak, Circle-O-Phonic, CM Labs, Dynaco, ElectroVoice, ELPA Marketing, Empire Scientific, Fisher, Hadley, Harman/Kardon, Hartley, IMF, Janszen (Neshaminy), Kenwood, KLH, Leak (Ercona), London Records, Mcintosh, Sharpe phones, Shure, Superex phones, and Tannoy. Several of these were alternating from classical to other kinds of material, but at least they gave us an opportunity to hear what strings and concert-hall acoustics sounded like through their equipment.

The best sound at the show this year was clearly (and that's one reason why) the Acoustech Model X, the full-range electrostatic speakers with built-in solid-state amplifiers. Surprisingly, the worst sound we heard was probably that in the Stanton room, where a speaker system comprised of a large, curved electrostatic tweeter (originally the Pickering tweeter) and a cone woofer was producing the biggest middle-range hole we'd heard for ages. Although there were other exhibits that were screechier, boomier, or thinner, none sounded quite as unnatural as this. Might have been a poor choice of crossover points, but we suspect it was nothing more than out-of-phase connection. Whatever it was, though, we were surprised to hear sound that poor in the room of one of the industry's most respected pickup manufacturers.

Most straightforward, pleasant, peaceful exhibit was, as usual, Acoustic Research's, No gimmicks (unless you could consider the much-welcomed inclusion of chairs to be a gimmick), just an occasional switching of the signal from AR2axs to AR3s to AR4s and so on. As always, the AR2ax sounded better to us than the AR3—only a bit weaker at the low end, and noticeably smoother through the middle range. While limited at both ends of the spectrum, the AR4 struck us as being a very nicely balanced system, generally quite similar to the AR2ax.

We were pleased to note that at least one manufacturer—Empire Scientific—has at last taken up the cudgels for adequate tracking force. After all the ballyhoo in recent years about half-gram tracking, it was refreshing to hear Empire's sales manager, Leon Kuby, admonishing people to track as high as 2 to 3 grams with most pickups (footnote 1), for the sake of the sound and the discs, and demonstrating his point with oscilloscope displays of high-level recorded tones.

We were much impressed with the sound of the new Superex ST-PRO headphones. They seemed clearly superior to the Koss PRO-4s, but hard to rank relative to David Clark and Beyer phones. These Superexes merit a test report in the magazine (footnote 2).

Solid-state equipment was everywhere. We still think this is premature—the best units still aren't quite up to the best tube types—but like it or not, it is obvious that solid-state is here to stay. Eventually, it will be as good as tube stuff, by which time the price may be comparable, too. We can't help but think that the word "solid" has something to do with the transistor's popularity. Like, solid, man!

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Footnote 1: Don't try this with the average elliptical, though. A shade over 1½ grams is about the safe maximum for most of these, and higher forces will heat the daylights out of records.—J. Gordon Holt

Footnote 2: They'll get one in the next issue.—J. Gordon Holt