Have Turbosound's Early Loading Techniques Been Lost?
The Music Nerd
I'm currently following the development of early Turbosound equipment eg
the 18" Partial Horn Loaded Subs, And The TurboMid Device 10" with 1" Mylar
Compression Driver Mid High Cab.
Now I've had the pleasure of working with this equipment, dose anyone know
what has happened to the fundamental techniques that Turbosound/Function One
established?
Now I Am A Teenage Student, Sound Is The Area That I Am willing to get Into,
Now I Am Not A KnowItAll And I only know what I know thanks to some great
sound guys In My area, who incedently introduced me to turbosound, but yet I
have Heard And Used Gear from BOSE - Meyer - JBL - Turbosound - LEM
Thankyou for reading and if you do replying
BTW the only reason I used turbosound Is As I don't know is you guys
(&girls) know of early itialian LEM turbo copys.
TMN!
(Australia)
Postmaster
Lew is largely correct - Funktion One are the people who originally founded
Turbosound.
The 18" Partial Horn Loaded Subs are still going strong as the F-118 and
F-218 bass enclosures, these use the same loading but have evolved as better
technology has become available and are still among the best sounding bass
bins around.
As the patents have now expired, even more people are copying them (with
limited success generally).
The mid device has evolved a great deal. The current incarnation is in the
Funktion One Resolution Series.
The Meyer design actually came after the first flared waveguide Turbo's.
The patents were taken out to protect what was a fairly major step forward
in live sound and the amount of work involved, not as a marketing tool.
There was really nothing else at the time offering the same quality of
sound, which was why it quickly became the system of choice for many of the
worlds largest acts that had a reputation for high quality recorded
material. It was rather less hype than a determined effort to get quality
sound out there, although I agree the marketing dept. got a rather out of
hand with trademarks on just about everything with Turbo in the name
(Turboteacup TM anyone?)!
The marketing also worked against them in some ways aswell, as some of the
old school resented it and could not see through it to the product itself.
Lew, When you say: "The company now has a fairly low profile......." - I'm
not sure if you are referring to Turbo or Funktion One, but the Funk One
Resolution system has recently been used in some major stadiums such as the
43,000 seat Tokyo Dome and Osaka Dome, one of the purposes for which it was
designed. Perhaps you were referring to Turbo who I believe have a new large
scale system in the design stage.
For further reading try the Funk One website
http://www.funktion-one.com/news.htm
http://www.funktion-one.com/home.htm
http://www.funktion-one.com/products.htm
and http://www.funktion-one.com/res2_3d.htm for a 3d view of a cab.
Or email them
Best
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lew Veldas" <lewv...@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.audio.pro.live-sound
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: Have Turbosound's Early Loading Techniques Been Lost?
"The Music Nerd" <themus...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<3ce516e3$0$2523$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au>...
> Well Hello All, My Name's The Music Nerd Or Adrian,
>
> I'm currently following the development of early Turbosound equipment eg
> the 18" Partial Horn Loaded Subs, And The TurboMid Device 10" with 1"
Mylar
> Compression Driver Mid High Cab.....dose anyone know> what has happened to
the fundamental techniques that Turbosound/Function One established?
>
I don't know if you guys (&girls) know of early italian LEM turbo
copys.
>
> TMN!
> (Australia)
The Turbo Bass Device and Turbo Mid Device were patented by two of the
original founders of the company, Tony Andrews and Tim Isaac, in 1977.
The patents have now expired so the designs are public domain. The
designs are still in use in various products.
Tony Andrews is now one of the owners of Funktion-One who manufacture
the Resolution speaker system, the successor to the
Flashlight/Floodlight system.
Tim Isaac is one of the owners of ATC Loudspeaker Technology and has
designed their range of electronic products, as well as crossovers and
amplifiers for some other well-known manufacturers.
The original Turbosound company was sold to AKG around 1990, along
with its sister companies in the Edge Tech group. AKG was taken over a
few years later by Harman. The Turbosound company is now owned by its
present management who bought it back from Harman a couple of years
ago.
The original Turbo Tube was a parallel-sided waveguide with the horn
flare established by the centre plug, this gave a flat wavefront at
the horn mouth at higher frequencies, giving high directivity and
improved coupling in multiples. It was used in a 2-box
TFA-Electrosound system as well as the famous Turbosound Rentals
festival rig. Later versions were flared horns fairly similar to the
Meyer mid design. The bass "device" was just a neat way of fitting a
"bandpass with short horn flare" into a small box using the minimum
amount of woodwork.
The patents were really marketing tools, and as such were very
successful for the company during the period when it became the first
European pro-speaker manufacturer to engage in massive marketing and
hype campaigns to promote sales. This was to lead to major changes in
that industry, which had effectively consisted of small specialist
toolmakers and has now become a consumer style marketing-led industry
with all that implies for product value for money.....
The company now has a fairly low profile but is expected to relaunch
itself in the near future with a new marketing campaign. They are
likely to concentrate more on the MI and markets than on major touring
systems.
LEM were not the only people to copy the designs - Turbosound took a
number of manufacturers to court for patent infringement with varying
degrees of success.
You could try asking the Funktion-One guys if you're really interested
in Turbosound history.
Best regards
Lew Veldas
Tim S Kemp
> lost their way, with a confusing product range consisting mainly of MI
> and mid-market items. This could turn out to have been a classic
> example of exchanging a company's goodwill (ie "the reputation
> attached to a brand name") for short-term gains. Unfortunately , the
> Turbosound brand on its own can no longer be relied upon to sell
> product, especially without all those full-page glossy adverts,
> editorial puffs, and high prestige tours.
The TQ series and the TCS series, despite being unashamed "me too" copies of
other peoples boxes are very good.
The Music Nerd
and I love what I'm seeing about the resolution gear.
Some Info On Those turbo copys:
They are actually a slightly scaled down version of the Lem 18' Turbo Copy,
they have resonance feqs of (from memory) 23Hz, 56Hz, 100Hz up to around
260Hz. I Hope they are correct, They Are quite significantly larger than the
Turbo 15's I think that the turbo 15s were around 5 cu. ft, while the copys
of mine are around 8.2 cu. ft! Now These Actually Put Out Quite A Bit Of
Bass Energy Even If It's Not Below 40Hz, As You Can See Above They Put Out A
23Hz Sub Harmonic, The Testing Conditions Were In A Half Space Environment
Measured At 1m At A Local Speaker Manafactures, I havn't yet got the full
readout, but thats a rough estimation.
To Lew (or anone else) Do You Think That These Would Provide More Lower Feq
Responce compared to the turbo 15's?
And On The Makemanship, I Actually Seen The Work Every afternoon and no
shortcuts were made, the curve is actually made from 5 sheets of hardwood
ply making it around 20mil thick, the baffel Is made from one peice (not 4)
and It has a double back (as to get the 33 1/2 or 32 1/2 deg angle)
But Once Again I Can't Thank You Guys Enough!!!
Yours,
The Music Nerd
Adrian Davis
Shaun
> First Off Thanks To All The People Who Responded To My Firt couple of posts,
> and I love what I'm seeing about the resolution gear.
<snip>
Hey, please don't capitalize your words. First word of a sentence, proper
nouns, certain abbreviations, etc. Your posting style makes it too hard to
read, so you won't be getting very many answers...
--
Shaun Wexler,
Hellsgate Sound
http://www.hellsgate-sound.com
mailto:sh...@hellsgate-sound.com
The Music Nerd
This is my first attempt at using newsgroups, and
thanks for making me aware of my bad typing habbits!
It will obviously come in handy for future posts.
TMN
(Australia)