virgin post: Early Polk history question
mhardy6647
Posts: 33,634
It's hard to believe that after ca. 26 years as a Polk owner (Monitor 7A's in charming rosewood vinyl, as well as one of the world's few LF14 subwoofers) it's hard to believe I never visited Polk's website, or forums, unitl yesterday.
So, I decided to look around for some information on early Polk history. I didn't find much, so I'll ask you all one question. When I was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins in the 1970's, the on-campus student pub (the "Rat") had a pair of white-cabineted speakers which were reputed to be the original Polk production model... the Polk Model 9. They were tall thin towers with a bunch of drivers in them.
Can anyone tie the JHU Polk 9's with Polk reality?
So, I decided to look around for some information on early Polk history. I didn't find much, so I'll ask you all one question. When I was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins in the 1970's, the on-campus student pub (the "Rat") had a pair of white-cabineted speakers which were reputed to be the original Polk production model... the Polk Model 9. They were tall thin towers with a bunch of drivers in them.
Can anyone tie the JHU Polk 9's with Polk reality?
Post edited by mhardy6647 on
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They were Polks, that's for sure. 4" drivers if I recall correctly, and an Audax tweeter. Should have had forward and rear firing drivers.
I talked with Stu Lumsden @ Polk about them, the prototype they had mentioned calling it the 'Bozo', because of what Bose was doing with direct-reflecting back in the day. He brought a picture of them to the Texas Polk Gathering back in January.
Obviously, the name didn't fly.
Cheers,
RussCheck your lips at the door woman. Shake your hips like battleships. Yeah, all the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service. -
yup, I heard the Bozo story too... actually the story as I heard it (late-1970's) at JHU was that Polk was going to make Bose knock-offs, but that they received a 'cease and desist' letter from The Mountain (or wherever Bose was at that time... probably Cambridge rather than Framingham), which led Matt et al in a slightly different direction.
Gratuitous aside. Bose's US sales manager goes to our church... guess what kind of PA system (speakers, at least) we have?
BTW... guess I just should've asked at AK :-)