I got some incredible mystery speakers today

I haven't found a single piece of vintage equipment worth a damn in nearly three years. I'm constantly following Craigslist, scouring yard sales and thrift stores and haven't found anything decent for way too long. I was ready to give up the whole hobby....

So today I walked into a thrift store and my heart stopped. I saw a pair of cylindrical speakers on a shelf. I caught my breath because for a second I thought a dream had come true and they were a pair of Rogers cylindrical LS35as! How long have I dreamed of finding a pair of LS35s! It's like my biggest audio daydream. I approached them breathless. But no, on closer inspection they were not by LS35s. The grills were all wrong. But they were very interesting. You don't see many cylindrical speakers and these looked nicely done with oak caps and a nicely finished mesh socks. The wire terminals said they weren't a cheap speaker. But there wasn't a single marking except some serial numbers etched into the wood. Maybe a glue spot where a badge might have fallen off. But they were truly mystery speakers. They were marked $29. A litle pricey for a no-name speaker without any markings, yet something intrigued me. I bought them.

To the office.... I searched everywhere on the web and couldn;t find a thing. Then, a visual hit via Google images led me to a post at Audiokarma. Soneone was curious about them too, and they had found this Craigslist description:

Alta Inc. no longer exists, but was an innovative stereo speaker engineering company that built hi fidelity speakers in Goleta, CA in the 1990s. A sound engineer by the name of Zoltan, who worked at Creative Stereo and Pacific Stereo in Santa Barbara, stepped out with his own speaker design. Using a 3-way design implemented with ribbon tweeters, a midrange dome and a down-firing bass speaker all mounted in a unique columnar sonotubing case, these speakers broke barriers in the price-for-quality race at the time. Zoltan used a 6db/octave crossover that proved to be more phase-correct design than most other speakers made then. These speakers produce a discernible sound-image field when placed correctly in a room, and you should be able to spatially differentiate where the drums, piano, bass and lead are on well-recorded CD or vinyl. At 4 feet tall, they take up less than one square foot of floor space each. New, these speakers were about $900 each."

Well, at least there was a name to go with them! Alta Inc. But I couldn't find a damn mention of them on the Web. Still a mystery! Frustrating! Disappointing.

Then I got home tonight and hooked them up. My jaw dropped. They are great speaker! I was expecting thrift store junk at this point and the minute they started playing, I started listening closely! I wrote this review for the guy at Audiokarma looking for info about them:

Hmmm. I'm now at home and have these hooked up, feeding them lossless files though a Music Streamer II Dac into a Conrad Johnson PV5 and Adcom amp. Listening to the Dead's American Beauty. I must say these are showing their class as a high end offering. I am very, very impressed. Mine arE like the ones pictured but stand 16" tall. Exact same design, but Sans feet. I don't know where to start. First thing that impresses is the bass volume and definition out of such a small speaker! A little research shows me sonotubing is a building material used to build cement columns. I don't know if the tubing actually contains cement or is a support wire mesh, but apparently sonotubing is frequently used to make subwoofers by attaching a downfiring woofer on top of the tubing. Anyway, the effect is fantastic. I don't think I've ever heard more GOOD bass from such a small enclosure. The bass is taut, tuneful and plentiful. Nicely impactful. My reference speakers are my Dahlquist DQ10 which use 10" Advent woofers in a huge enclosure, and I do not feel cheated by the little speakers. Quite an accomplishment. Okay next, I am equally impressed by the treble! I wish I knew what was behind the socks! I would not be surprised if there were a ribbon and dome back there! The treble is lovely and airy with just the right amount of snap and weight to the snares. It's frankly, pretty brilliant! Male vocals are also very good. There a nice spaciousness to the way vocals are presented. There is a slight bit of upper register congestion to the male vocals, but not oppressively so. And i think the lower vocal register could use a tad more heft, but otherwise they are quite naturalistic and pleasing. From top to bottom these are VERY well balanced speakers. I am reminded of ny Spica TC-50s a bit, though the overall presentation is less clean than the Sicas, which excell at midrange purity. But are the speakers the equal of your Advents, JBL KEF and the like? Well, they surpass them! These are more akin to an expensive esoteric. I'm sure with the right amplification (tubes perhaps) these could be quite incredible. They only failing to my ear in that that don't handle much volume. But I'm listening at a somewhat trying audition levels. A little louder than you Would normally listen. Also the build quality is very good. They look a little DIY in that photo, but their actual build us pretty meticulous with the sick seams even and perfect. So, I don't know who Zoltan was, but he certainly built an incredible speaker! Anyway, if you ever come across a set of these... Grab them! They are easy to love! I don't know if they had badges at one time that fell off or what, but look for the design in the photo above. An excellent designer speaker that was lost to the world! Cheers, Mr. Zoltan!

I'm now auditioning some classical on these things. FANTASTIC orchestral speaker! Truly small but mighty. They may have not been the Rogers BBC monitors of my dream, but honest to God, I'm not sonically disappointed by these.

As anyone here heard of them? I wonder how often someone designs a great speaker that basically goes unheard because funding dries up or distribution never happens? I guess it must happen all the time. Nice to stumble upon a pair for almost nothing!


Oh, here's the only picture of them on the web. Mine are half the size but still potent little things!

 

These might be Jim Rogers JR 149. Same drivers as the BBC ls3/5a but supposed to sound better.

 

Well, here is a pics of the Alta speaker. You can see, Cadillac, why for a moment I thought they were the Rogers!

 

Can't help with an i.d. but what a great find for $29! Have fun!

 

Hi chadbang, I am so happy to find these posts about the Alta speakers. I have a pair of the full size (8ft) speakers. I bought them in Nov. 1988 at Creative Stereo in Goleta.

Over the years I have tried to find information about Alta but never found a thing. They have been plugged into a junky AV receiver for a long time and I finally just ordered some decent audio equipment to drive them yesterday. They have a beautiful sound and I really miss hearing them. I think I can hear them crying late at night.

This model of the speaker is about 7'8" tall. They sit exactly centered from the floor to an 8' ceiling. They have a tweeter in the center, then two mid-range speakers and then two 6" woofers (total of 5 components per speaker). They are ported to the top and bottom of the speaker. Long ago when I had a nice and powerful amp, the sound was amazing.

Back in the mid nineties my nice and powerful amp died in a spectacular way and killed the tweeter in one of the speakers. I had a guy come out to repair it and he had to pull the sock off from the top and cut into the wire mesh to get the tweeter out. He order the replacement component from England I think, I wish I had paid more attention at the time.

Anyway, thanks again for this post. I wish I could buy old Zoltan a drink to thank him for the many years of enjoyment. I hope to have them back up and running this week.

 

Indeed the speakers in the photo are Alta Loudspeakers. I spent a fair amount of time with Zoltan and other local audio enthusiasts during the development and manufacturing of that line of speakers. I owned a couple pairs of the midsized version (same size as pictured) with varying driver complements. Zoltan got out of the audio industry quite a few years ago and got into software development for auto racing. I haven't spoken to him for a few years but I'm sure he would be happy to know someone is still enjoying his speakers.

 

This is truly amazing that people have turned up who knew of this speaker and played a part in their creation. I am astounding people found this thread on the web and stepped forward. I thought I was fishing in the dark and another owner and now a designer of the speakers steps forward! I just goes to show that no matter how huge the web is, people with very focused interests will find each other. I am astounded! You did some nice work, Tommy SB. As Ron Gibson noted these speaker are a big of an enigma because they all hermetically sealed up, but peering inside I seem some neat design work going on. There's some kind of smoothed, shaped baffle around the tweeter. Very interesting. Obviously meant to reduce diffraction. Sort of a B&W organic Nautilus feel. Kudos to you and Zoltan.

 

Good stuff is harder to find on the local scene, congrats on this amazing find!

 

Thanks chadbang.

It was really Zoltan's and a partner's baby. Several of us help at the manufacturing faculties, held listening/voicing sessions at our homes and stores, and participated at various events (CES, Trade Shows, etc).

Santa Barbara is flooded with well respected engineers, designers, and manufacturers from the audio industry. Alta Loudspeakers benefited through these associations as well.
For almost 40 years, I've had the good fortune of watching many varied products go from concept to retail, grabbing some choice pieces along the way. Truly fun times had by all!!!

Peace

BTW I sold my last set to my cousin who is a member here (Gilliam) and he's still using them.