From michaelcasino@verizon.net Mon Apr 11 18:04:52 2011
Subject:Re: Bye, Bye VK8m

Hammonds design goal was to reproduce the pipe organ.

Leslie design goals was to recreate theater organ sounds. Hell he would
rather play a Gulbransen than a Hammond.



The magic Hammond / Leslie Sound is an accident of rock N roll, jazz &
blues. These organs and speaker systems were not designed for Rock.



The Leslie amp is a takeoff of a Western Electric (Webster) design Class AB1
to promote the sales of their vacuum tubes. Very clean when not pushed but
not Hi-Fi quality.



If you listen to a Hammond tone without the Hammond preamp you would not be
impressed. The Hammond preamp removes distasteful high frequencies and adds
color to the tone mostly due to the output transformers iron content,
saturation point and the way the tube drives that transformer.



Crossovers for Leslie amplification were designed around the available
speakers at that time by the manufactures of those speakers using outdated
hard to find calculations for components that you would be hard pressed to
get now.



As far as looks, the Leslie 30's 31's and 32H (Tall-Boys) were considered
god-awful ugly and commonly seen as resembling caskets with rich bass and
pleasant mid-range. Face it, all that was need then was a response of 30 to
6000HZ.



Clone manufactures have looked at a Speakeasy preamp and with today's modern
thinking, got it wrong.

Today's PA and Keyboard amps are made to maximize profit, not to appeal to a
small select group of musicians. As most of you note, something is missing.
The modern SS Leslie do not produce the pleasant even harmonics of tube
amplifiers. But if you don't have the ear for it, you are not going to know
it.





Let me try to put this all together.

Since this is a clone wheel discussion you want light weight. Clone
manufactures must be competitive in pricing to keep a product on the market
so a tube and quality transformer output is out of the question. Leslie
simulators are getting pretty darn good even if they only model a 122,
almost to the point of retiring the Leslie Speaker System. Flat response
power amps are plentiful but sound reproduction speakers no matter what they
look like at a decent cost fall short.



Mike



From: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Steve Hayes
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 5:12 PM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CWSG] Re: Bye, Bye VK8m





Guys

I am sorry. I do not write very well. Call me the nutty Engineer. To explain
how the cross-over & system works is way too long to write. Anyone wishing
to learn more. I would be happy to explain on the phone. Just give me a
call. 717-292-0814

Steven Hayes Sr Engineer / CEO
www.speakeasyvintagemusic.com