From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Mon May 20 05:05:54 2002
Subject:Re: VK-77 preset problem WAS RE: 73 key organ like Electro?

James,

>B+ is valve (US: vacuum tube) terminology and dates from the days
>when Hammond organs took the power supply for their pre-amps from
>their external tone cabinets. Cynics would say that Hammond did it
>so that customers could only use his tone cabinets, as opposed to the
>engineering reason of saving on having to provide a low voltage DC
>supply within the organ.

The cynics would have been at least partially right. Several former Hammond techs and salespeople have told me that 1) Laurens Hammond didn't think the Leslie Speaker improved the sound of his organs, and couldn't understand why others did; and 2) made several changes in interconnect design over the years specifically to try to make Hammond organs incompatible with Leslies. While Mr. Hammond was holding the reigns of the company, collaborations such as internal Leslies on spinets was unthinkable.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com