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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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In Reply to: RE: Anyone remember Sonab? What's a modern version? posted by tfrazeur on July 21, 2013 at 16:07:59:
The Carlsson / Sonab speakers where made from the sixties up until 1979 by Stig Carlsson and the company Sonab. 1979 it unfortunately went under...
Stig Carlsson had some new ideas on how he wanted to develop his Ortho Acoustic principles and started working on these. In 1983 Stig Carlsson started up the manufacturing of his new line of speakers under his own name, the models Carlsson OA51, Carlsson OA52 and the Carlsson OA50. The speakers where made in a new factory and John Larsen was the guy in charge of the actual production of them.
The new speakers looked nothing at all like the old Sonab, It used only a single tweeter, and all of them had a very distinguished shape of the cabinet to perform according to Stigs Ortho Acoustic principles.
Sorry to say but the business went under again 1989 or so…
In the early 90’s Stig Carlsson and John Larsen got some samples of the new Scanspeak 18W8545 and 1996 Stig and John launched the upgraded versions of the OA50 and the OA52. The new name of the speaker was simply OA50.2 and OA52.2.
The OA52.2 had the Carbon fiber slurry coated ScanSpeak 8545 and the Vifa aluminum dome tweeter D25AG 35, some new felt damping of the cavity behind the woofer and “high end” crossovers with paper in oil caps and foil coils.
The OA50.2 had a new Peerless Woofer and the same aluminum tweeter as the 52.2.
The new speakers got very good reviews in Hifi-magazines but sadly Stig Carlsson passed away in 1997.
A foundation was created to try to continue Stig Carlssons work and to try to spread his Ortho Acoustic principles. After some years a new upgrade for the OA50.2 and the OA52.2 was launched, it was a new soft dome tweeter and a changed design of the loudspeakers crossover. New names for these speakers was OA50.3 and OA52.3.
John Larsen was still the manufacturer of these Carlsson speakers.
Some more years passed and the OA50.3 where replaced by the OA58. The OA58 was basically a squeezed-stretched OA50.3 with the necessary changes to the crossover to accommodate the new shape and placement of the drivers.
After some time Peerless discontinued the production of the OA58 woofer and a new one where developed. The new OA58 with this woofer got the name OA58.2.
In the end of 2006 the Stig Carlsson foundation and John Larsen ended their collaboration.
John Larsen had been making speakers for the last 25 years so what to do. In the spring of 2007 John Larsen contacted the loudspeaker designer Anders Eriksson and started up the design work of two speaker models inspired by the work he had been doing together with Stig Carlsson, carrying on the Ortho Acoustic principles .
The Larsen 4, a model in the same spirit and price range as the OA50.X and OA58.
New woofer and tweeter and a new design of the crossover, the price at introduction was 5000SEK ($760) .
The Larsen 6, a model that should outperform the Carlsson OA52.3 at a lower price.
The Larsen 6 had a shape and size of the enclosure similar to the Larsen 4 but with the more expensive scanspeak 8545 woofer, a new tweeter and a totally changed topography of the crossover.
The price at introduction was 13500 SEK ($2050), the prise of a pair of OA52.3 was 19000 SEK ($2890)
Both models worked out very well.
A little later the Larsen 8 was introduced a bigger speaker with two ScanSpeak 8545, a new ScanSpeak tweeter and two extra tweeters in each speaker to reproduce the ambient sound on recordings where they are present. The Larsen 8 is really a hit! It has a massive and at the same time a very natural and warm bass reproduction together paired with a big and life like overall sound.
This year both Larsen 4 and Larsen 6 where upgraded:
Larsen 4.2, new crossover (easy retrofit if you have an older version of Larsen 4).
Larsen 6.2, the better tweeter from Larsen 8 and a change in the crossover. (easy retrofit if you have an older version of Larsen 6).
John Larsen and Anders Eriksson has also continued to support the large crowd of Swedish Carlsson fans by developing upgrade kits for the OA50, OA51 and OA52.
These kits uses new crossover design and in most cases new drive units:
OA50.LE, same drivers as in Larsen 4 but with a new crossover design.
OA51.LE, same drivers as in the Larsen 6 but with a new crossover design.
OA51.LE2, same woofer as in the Larsen 6 and with the tweeter from Larsen 8, with a new crossover design.
OA52.LE, same woofer as in the Larsen 6 and with the tweeter from Larsen 8, with a new crossover design.
I myself are a huge Carlsson/Larsen –fan, I have the Larsen 4.2, Larsen 6.2 and I listen to quite severely modified Carlsson OA51, digital active crossover, together with subwoofers.
Regards
Stefan
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Follow Ups
- RE: Anyone remember Sonab? What's a modern version? - oa51 18:32:43 07/31/13 (2)
- RE: Anyone remember Sonab? What's a modern version? - tfrazeur 15:09:54 08/01/13 (1)
- RE: Anyone remember Sonab? What's a modern version? - jsch3 13:24:36 08/07/13 (0)
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