What were considered high end audiophile components in the 50's?

In most pictures, I see the console or table top systems. Were there true hi end home audio components back then?

 

Quad esl 57, I have a pair I should refurb.

Klipschorns.

JBL Ranger Paragons.

Tube amps

 

I don't know but I'd sure love to hear a properly functioning set-up.

 

Take a look at old Radio-Shack catalog at ;

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

And Allied Electronics catalog at ;

http://www.alliedcatalogs.com/catalogs_main.html


It will be a eye opener and you can dream at the same time ....

 

The term "high end" had not come into existence yet. There was only tubes of course.. almost all tube products were well made and sounded good. Some of the familiar manufacturers were around, such as Pioneer, Sansui, Sherwood, Marantz. Companies which are later known for lower end mass produced audio products, but were highly regarded for well made tube amps were, RCA, Zenith, Fisher, Lafayette. Then some companies who became high end, Leak, Quad, McIntosh and other not as well known outside their era, HH Scott, Eico, Bogen, Heathkit, Dynaco, Wurlitzer, Western Electric.. many more.

 

WoW! Radio Shack was once a serious supplier of parts.. now so retail oriented.

 

Garrard 301, McIntosh tube amps and Quad ESL-57

and if you get the chance to listen to this combo after a refurb, you'll be asking yourself whether anything has really improved over the last 50 years.

 

I wasn't around back then, but didn't hifi/highend became a real thing until the 70's?

 

They didn't call it "high end" then they just called it "high fidelity". That term encompassed both separate "component" <sic> units and also the consoles and more ornate portable units. Most "component" setups were the products of dedicated startup companies after WWII that specialized in the upscale serious hi-fi domestic market and also overlapping pro applications. There was not a fixed divide between consumer and pro in this market space as Klipsch, McIntosh, HH Scott (FM monitors) and especially Altec and JBL did consumer, prosumer (a word not in use then, but what else was the D-130-F, the specially Dick Dale-proof variant of the D-130 used everywhere?) and true pro applications.

Talk to three different oldtimers (to me, in this context, a real oldtimer needs to have been old enough to vote for JFK (or Nixon) in '60-and the age was 21 then!) and you'll get three different stories. I'm not quite an oldtimer, but I'm over 50 and have been studying this aspect of technical culture for thirty-plus of those, so this is my impression:

The antecedents of high fidelity go back to, before WWII, the WE system (meaning not just ERPI but the telco itself, ERPI never actually built a piece of High Fidelity gear as defined by the now defunct IHF) and also what we could now call "high end" radio set pioneers like EH (not H.H.) Scott, McMurdo Silver and a few others. Ironically they began the genesis of both the 'brown goods' consoles and the "component" hi-fi industry by providing the finest superhet (or occasionally TRF) receivers, amplifiers, power supplies and ancilliaries like turntables, wire recorders or similar. They offered these in cabinetwork made to the highest specifications if so desired or you could buy the units separately as you preferred. The market was wealthy homeowners or apartment dwellers and small numbers were built.

After WWII, the British published in one of their superior tech journals, the Williamson amplifier. Note that Williamson was an author and an engineer, not a manufacturer. The Williamson amplifier was far and away superior to almost all commercially manufactured audio amplifiers then and the design spread to the US in the old Audio Engineering magazine via an article by Sarser and Sprinkle. (Sarser is-he's still alive as far as I know-a former NBC Orchestra violinist under Toscanini and was once the Ampex rep for the New York area: I believe it was through Sarser Les Paul ordered his 8 track machine, the first.) While this was not the only impetus for the hi-fi explosion, it was a major one.

My recommendation to any person really wanting to understand this business is to spend a few hours looking through the books and magazines from the end of the War through about 1970. By then, all the traditional metrics of expensive and technically demanding design of gear in the tube era were largely mooted by solid state equipment which could usually best any standing record for things like THD, bandwidth, noise, intermod and all the other distortions that were "discovered" in the 1980s when people complained that the new stuff did not sound as good as the old stuff.

 

Wow, thanks for sharing that Burt. Highly educational.

 

I have a 1956 guide to hifi that lists their suggestions on what to buy, in order from "top of the line" to "budget hifi." I'll post it later this morning.

The book says that the first hifi enthusiasts, back in the '40s, would assemble their rigs using PA gear (ie: amps, preamps, raw drivers, etc.) purchased direct from electronics supply houses, and then custom-assembled at home.

The book also has a chapter on "binaural," which at that time was limited to open reel tape decks and the rare double-arm Cook turntable system.

 

I'm no old-timer, but I've heard plenty of vintage gear:

The big horn systems - JBL, EV Patricians, Klipschorns
Some of this stuff was also DIY, which was popular: Altec 604s in cabinets, various 12-15" duplex speakers from many makers

The Quad ESL-57

and there was even a Plasma Tweeter made by Dukane (best top-end I've ever heard - full-stop) - called Ionovac

McIntosh, Marantz, the upper-end Fishers, Harman-Kardon Citation, and countless other manufacturers had their best tech on their highest models. The Eico HF-60 and Grommes 260 come to mind.

For better or for worse things started to change with acoustic suspension speakers and solid-state amplifiers - but that was more mid-60s.

 

Nice overview Burt. I have a few anecdotal things to add, not necessarily in order of priority:
We (the U.S. anyway) got the tape recorder from the Germans after WWII. (Magnecord, if memory serves). Not so much directly affecting home playback, but certainly changed how recording studios functioned.
The advent of the LP record, longer playing times, different kind of fidelity. (I suppose there are some diehards who think 78's sound more 'immediate').
The notion of 'leisure time'- to spend listening to music at home and as a luxury product. Wasn't there a piece in Playboy magazine that defined the 'cool bachelor' lifestyle? 'Hi-fi' as a 'lifestyle' product, not just a 'nerd' pursuit.
Stuff adapted from broadcast studios, like turntables (Rek-o-kut?) and sound reinforcement (Altec/JBL) led to a more defined consumer product market, see below.
Edgar Villechur developed the acoustic suspension speaker- less space required for bass, but hugely inefficient compared to open baffle and horn type loudspeakers, necessitating greater amp power, leading to solid state.
The explosion of 'pop music' to a youth market- kids may have played their records on the family console or big rig, but kids didn't necessarily have the money to buy expensive gear- so suitcase style and more plastic-y all-in record players. Not 'hi-fi,' but a necessary commodity to meet the market.
'Stereo'- that newfangled gimmick (see the thread about The Beatles 'mono' releases on vinyl elsewhere on this forum)- while introduced commercially in the late 50's- didn't take hold commercially until the 60's. Two speakers+ two amps= even more need for compactness=smaller speakers (read 'acoustic suspension,' see above) and solid state amps (for power, less heat, smaller size).
The transition of the hobby from a DIY, hobbyist pursuit to a consumer commodity, ready-packaged.
Radio was still a big deal, and some of the coolest (and best) tuners are from the early days.

The 'serious' hi-fi store in the 60's where I grew up was showing KLH 9's and Marantz tube gear. By then, a 'high-end' market (while not labelled as such) already existed for ready-made for the consumer, high quality home playback gear. The more serious gear was still expensive, but the enthusiast DIY crowd was still around, adapting pro gear and taking advantage of cast-offs. The more mainstream 'receiver' market, combined with bookshelf speakers and record changers hits its stride by the late 60's and becomes the de-facto archictecture for the home system, obsoleting the big consoles and larger open baffle/horn loudspeakers. And the more 'serious' gear becomes the subject of the audio underground press, J. Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson, defining a separate tranch in the market. The so-called 'high end' where more expensive gear dedicated to the home enthusiast (and not necessarily adapted from broadcast/sound reinforcement) is a market niche and becomes a bigger 'hobby,' beyond the confines of those who knew how to wield a soldering iron and read a schematic. Retail stores could then be distinguished by whether they catered to this more upscale product range (with a few modest systems for the entry level) or whether the retail outlet offered more modest, mainstream gear for the 'average' person.

 

from "Hi-Fi" by Martin Mayer (record critic, Esquire) and John M. Conly (technical consultant; editor, High Fidelity; record critic, Atlantic Monthly), Random House, 1956.

 

It's interesting to me that McIntosh is not included in the list of top components, although the model 60 amp and "McIntosh preamplifier" is mentioned elsewhere in the book.

The top-listed system is $1361 in 1956 dollars. That translates to $11,921.26 in 2014 dollars!! I'd love to hear a system like that one, properly restored. I bet it sounds awesome.

 

And that's a whole hardcover book, not just a magazine! Tons of great photos too!

Best buck I ever spent.

The Electro-Sonic tonearm looks surprisingly lithe and modern for 1956.

 

McIntosh and Marantz had the highest end preamplifiers and amplifiers.
Klipsch, JBL, Altec Lansing, AR, Quad ESL, and Stephens Tru-Sonic loudspeakers
Fisher and HH Scott the dominant FM tuner manufacturers until McIntosh began making tuners in 1957
Ampex, Berlant Concertone, Crown, and Magnecord the dominant tape recorder manufacturers
In turntables, you had the Garrard 301, the Thorens TD 124, the Rek-O-Kut Rondine, the Fairchild, and the Presto as high end. For tonearms you had Rek-O-Kut's Micropoise, the ESL tonearms, and Ortofon pre SME's introduction to the market.

 

Burt and Bill have provided good history on the birth of hi-fi here in the states. Action Pact has provided an illustration that I was just about to describe. The brief development of the trend as I have seen it started in the early to mid '50s and it was all mono. You could buy a "radio" which had a cabinet with a tuner/amplifier and a speaker built into it or then you could move up in quality and fidelity to what was called a mono stack. That allowed the choice of separate components as Action Pact illustrates. In the US, the makers were US companies primarily. There were also some very, very good British products coming over at the time but were less common. You would begin to see some German and Japanese gear after the late '50s.

There was definitely high end goods back then. It wasn't a ubiquitous term but was likely used on occasion to describe a range of "top shelf" product. More often, products were selected and advertised as "good, better, and best" to describe the quality of products to consumers. A store might have had a good amplifier from Lafeyette, a better amplifier from Fisher, and a best amplifier from McIntosh. These mono products were called hi-fi and it's a term that I still use today as it describes exactly what I try to educate people about and deliver in my shop. The term high-end refers to the price point but has come to be confused with and thus interchangeable with high fidelity. It is perhaps a good rule of thumb to note that high end gear is also high fidelity but I suppose it would not be necessarily in every shop. Take for example the discount depart store brands, their high-end products would probably be at the low end of the scale at a real hi-fi shop so they are not likely to be viewed as high end in general but in the context of price level for a given location, they would be, meanwhile those dept store jewels would never be considered hi-fi but by those who have never seen or heard real hi-fi gear elsewhere.

It wasn't until about 1958 that stereo made any headway. Just prior to that, there wasn't much stereo recording and to play it back, you had to have two mono amps and speaker systems. In 1958, you would begin to see actual stereo amplifiers and tuners, phono cartridges being offered for sale. That was some really heavy duty and great sounding tube gear then and into the early '60's. After that, solid state begin to show-up, both from the US and then Japan, who became the new budget empire. Pretty much all makers switched over partly or entirely to SS gear production then and it wasn't until perhaps the '80s that I feel the SS gear really became as nice as the old tube gear, if it was designed and built properly. Things got more complicated in the '70s and then on as the change to SS mfg was really a cost savings more than a technological advantage in terms of hi-fi. Good sounding SS gear was still expensive. I guess the '80s was also the time that some really opulent SS gear became available to sell to the new generation of people who wanted and could afford the quality of the old tube "best" systems, and many of the old generation also bought SS gear as their tube gear fell out of repair.
-Bill

 

You can see that most of these components were designed to be installed in a custom console. Hi-fi was furniture in those days.

 

The book refers to "hi-fi" as the sonic upgrade that happened after the RIAA phono roll-off curve became standardized in 1954 and microgroove records eclipsed 78s.

 

P.S. action pact and all , the ESL tonearm was manufactured in Denmark by Ortofon, but had the Neumann/EMT headshell type instead of the Ortofon mount which was adopted by SME and became an international standard. ESL also offered Ortofon made MC cartridges in the USA as well. Arguably the first successful MC cartridge in the USA used by high end audiophiles.

 

From circa 1957 (Flanders & Swann):

I had a little gramophone,
I'd wind it round and round.
And with a sharpish needle,
It made a cheerful sound.
And then they amplified it,
It was much louder then.
And you sharpened fibre needles,
To make it soft again.
Today for reproduction,
I'm as eager as can be.
Count me among the faithful fans,
Of high fidelity.
High fidelity,
Hi-Fi's the thing for me.
With an LP disk and an FM set,
And a corner reflex cabinet.
High frequency range,
Complete with auto-change.
Flanders: All the highest notes neither sharp nor flat,
Swann: The ear can't hear as high as that.
Flanders: Still, I ought to please any passing bat,
Swann: With my high fidelity.

(Spoken)
Flanders: Who made this circuit up for you, anyway? Bought it in a shop? Oooh, what a horrible shoddy job they fobbed you off with .
Surprised they let you have it in this room anyway, the acoustics are all wrong. If you raise the ceiling four feet... put the fireplace from that wall to that wall... you'll still only get the stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard.
I see... I see you've got your negative feedback coupled in with your push-pull-input-output. Take that across through your red-head pickup to your tweeter, if you're modding[ more than eight, you're going to get wow on your top. Try to bring that down through your pre-amp rumble filter to your woofer, what'll you get? Flutter on your bottom!

Both: High fidelity,
Flanders: FFRR for me.
Both: I've an opera here that you shan't escape,
On miles and miles of recording tape.
High decibel gain,
Is easy to obtain.
Flanders: With the tone control at a single touch,
Swann: Bel canto sounds like double Dutch.
Both: But I never did care for music much,
It's the high fidelity!



BTW - the track was produced by George Martin.

 

MAD! Magazine was satirizing Hi-Fi as far back as 1958, so it must have been a thing:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/mad-magazines-guide-to-hi-fi-from-1958.197757/

 

The Williamson was a really important and influential design, something that most aren't all that aware of. My father built one from plans back when he was in high school and it will be my job soon to give it a going through and rebuild as necessary.

 

1956: