1950's/'60's "Weather" gear

1959 Weathers speaker system
hi folks....i own a Weathers 3 speaker bookshelf speaker system complete w/subwoofer and 4 ohm sub amp...wonderin' if you've any idea of the value of the stuff...bookshelf speakers are covered in brown vinyl, they're shaped like books w/copper "binding"....thanks for any thoughts...burk

 

If you want to know the value, you're probably looking to sell... Put it on eBay and see how it does.

 

P.S. Paul Weathers (the man who designed your speakers) invented the Subwoofer/satellite speaker approach in the 1960's. His first big product was the Weathers FM pickup cartridge/tonearm system in the middle 1950's. His system tracked at 1 gram force, was very high compliance quite a number of years ahead of everyone else and was very ahead of it's time. Arguably the father of the strain gauge cartridge. It was a finicky, delicate system and sounded better than most everything else back then in phono pickups. Mr. Weathers was a major innovator in audio and a very prolific inventor. His work is classic.

 

1956:

 

That photo is drool worthy! Classic audio engineering art at it's finest to boot.

 

Good info here:

Weathers

 

I have set up some pieces Weathers Info on a pinterest page:
Weathers FM cartridge

 

Wow, $637 and $466 was serious money in 1956.

 

I looked at your Pinterest page and noticed several pictures of a Weathers FM system in use.

I assume you have a working Weathers setup ? How does it sound, and what have you compared it to ?

Thanks !

 

Yes, the Garrard 401 is my main TT and the Weathers FM is mounted permanently to the motorboard. It is my main Mono listening system feeding into the Quad 22 mono disc input. I use a Mono LP stylus and I do really like the sound of the mono LPs with it. Little noise and very natural.

The setting of the Oscillator is a bit "weird" since there is no real "right" position. One can play around with it and be fine, but sometimes I readjust and end up with another position.
This is what the instructions are saying:
Turn adjusting screw clockwise until signal is heard. The signal will rise, then drop
and then rise again and then go into loud oscillation or squeal.
Back off the adjusting screw from this point (turn counterclockwise) until signal is
approximately one half the maximum level. This position is optimum. However,
variations from the above positions will not affect performance.


I don't have too many Mono systems to compare, honestly, just other vintage systems: I do also have two vintage magnetic carts, an ELAC MST-2 Mono turnover cartridge on a Miraphone 11 TT and a Garrard GMC-5 turnover that I can mount to the SME arm. I do like this one a lot as well for 78s and 33s.

I have some .mp3 transcripts from the Weathers FM if this might give an idea.