Lansing Salon Iconic / 901B

[peahix]

hello

i just acquired a lansing salon iconic speaker in great condition, with its original slip cover. it has a 901b driver (serial 111), which i can't seem to find mentioned anywhere on this site or on the net. obviously it's related to the 801b. does anyone have any information about this?

thanks!
pea

[rs237]

pic´s please.

[Steve Schell]

Peahix, you have a very rare speaker, for several reasons. The Lansing Iconics are extremely rare these days as only perhaps 1,500 or so were built in the various forms. Few have survived, and fewer still intact in their original forms.

The Salon was a special furniture case model built in small numbers relative to the utility version. In ten years of collecting Lansing gear I have seen exactly two Salons in person, one early style (in the JBL collection) and one later style (short cabinet, vertical dowel grille bars) which is likely what you have.

The 901b driver is the permanent magnet equivalent of the 801b field coil driver. It is slightly larger in diameter than the 801b, and the outer pot structure is a cast Alnico ring magnet. This differs from the later 802 driver, which used an internal magnet. The permanent magnet components of the Iconic became available about 1940, and were made until the demise of the Iconic about 1945. I have seen permanent magnet Iconic drivers labeled as both Lansing (metal nameplate) and Altec Lansing (decal). The permanent magnet Iconic woofer is the 1565; I have seen these in both cast frame and stamped frame versions.

I'll second rs237's request for some pictures. If you include close ups of the nameplates or decals on the drivers I can probably nail down the date of manufacture to within a year or so. In any event, you have a very rare, very fine, very valuable speaker. Don't let anyone talk you out of it, including me!

The only literature we have up on the site that covers the permanent magnet Iconics is located here:

http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/...alogs/1943.htm

[peahix]

thanks for the information! as requested, here's a few quick pics. i haven't opened the cabinet yet. the qc dates on the tags indicate summer of 1940. oh, and as far as i can tell, it's been stored for years and years with the slip cover on, so apart from a few minor chips off the finish here and there, it's in really nice condition.

[spkrman57]

Not many that old in that great of shape!!!

Ron

[peahix]

oh, btw, i realize it's hard to see it in my photo, but the qc tag indicates the woofer to be a 1518, serial 441.

[hjames]

Gosh, its just gorgeous! So much easier to appreciate the how that classic speaker looks in your pictures than it did in this thread of Les Paul's garage/Studio

Thanks for taking the time to take these nice pictures and posting them here for us.

[rs237]

Thanks for the pictures. Very beautiful loudspeaker.

regards

juergen

[Steve Schell]

Wow, what a beauty. It is fortunate that it has survived in such fine condition. Maybe one thing that helped is that, being permanent magnet, it didn't have to survive through several decades of people thinking that it was nearly worthless, as was the fate of the field coil models.

I've never seen a 1518 woofer, though it is listed in that 1943 catalog. Now we can add one more reason for the rarity of your speaker.

Here is a picture of the Salon I saw several years ago. Tags indicated that it had been built in June 1942. It is field coil, and was in good working condition when I saw it. The enclosure reveals that it has had a harder life than your almost pristine example.

[peahix]

i think the main thing that helped this speaker survive was the habits of its previous owner. this came from the estate of a guy who worked for bell & howell, western electric, and some other companies during the golden era. his relatives were liquidating the house and wanted stuff gone FAST. let's just say this is not the only thing i scored at that estate sale! anyway, he obviously had acquired lots of items through his business that he did not personally have use for himself, and so there were a surprising amount of things new-in-box, or maybe he pulled it out once to inspect it, and then put it away, never touching it again. this speaker appears to have enjoyed such a fate- it looks as if it were never hooked up.

although it feels really silly for me to complain about items that someone else grabbed (i got most of the stuff, but missed a couple things), let's just say that i missed the new-in-box western electric 728B (for $20) and the new-in-box pair of jbl minigons ($20 for the pair)...

btw, and i hope this is not off-topic, but among many mics i bought from this estate, there's one tube condenser with no markings on it at all, and i've tried in vain via google image search to identify it. all i can find are mics of a similar design, nothing exaclty like this one. i THINK it may be a western electric, given the overall context in which it was found. there was no power supply or anything else with it. here's a couple pics, if anyone has any ideas. it has a couple of rca 230 tubes in it.

[speakerdave]

If someone could post a straight-on photo of the front so we could see the proportions, that would be much appreciated.

David

[mrid88in]

'' this came from the estate of a guy who worked for bell & howell, western electric, ............. but missed a couple things), let's just say that i missed the new-in-box western electric 728B (for $20) and the new-in-box pair of jbl minigons ($20 for the pair)... "

Hi
The 728B is on Ebay.That was pretty fast.
I have no connection with the auction.
Regards
Rajiv

[mrid88in]

Hi
Sorry forgot to post the link.
Regards
Rajiv

ORIG GRAYBAR BOX~ESTATE OF BELL & HOWELL REP~BUY IT NOWItem number: 230174873194

[peahix]

yeah, and i'm the guy he refers to who got there earlier!

[peahix]

here's a few more pics for those interested...