Vintage Inspired PA Systems

I'm writing this article from Caracas, Venezuela. Yesterday we experienced a significant earthquake which damaged infrastructure all over the country. Fortunately everyone my wife, Eylin, and I know is safe, but it was a scary experience. We are currently waiting on information regarding the opening of the airport as we are scheduled to return to the US over the next few days.

The country is quiet now. It will take quite a long time for things to recover. But this also provides some downtime to consider our progress with Cathode Bias.

One of the most important changes we've made recently is working with new carpenter for a cabinetry construction. He is a true craftsman, and as of now, all our cabinets will be custom made from Baltic Birch (as long as it is available) in Central, FL. We are able to ship via freight all over the US, and potentially beyond. This frees up my time to focus on other areas like standardizing and improving our cabinet and crossover designs.

The Altec 811b horn has been a staple in our systems for the past few years. We source them different places, and as of now, they are fairly available as they were commonly used in Altec's home speakers in the 60s and 70s. I enjoy forging vintage and modern components into new designs.

But the 811 has some performance anomalies which are known and measurable. The Altec 19's classic sound somewhat results from trying to address these issues in the crossover. Our new passive crossover for the 811b is meant to make similar adjustments in conjunction with a modern compression driver. I think the changes open up the upper mid-range potential of the vintage horn.

But it is expensive and difficult to implement using passive crossover components. This is keeps leading me to the conclusion that powered speakers using a DSP is likely the way forward for our systems.

I need to be realistic about how customers are using our systems. Cathode Bias came to this point via vintage HiFi. Much like car collectors enjoy the engineering of old classics, for years, I've been intrigued by the engineering of vintage HiFi, including tube amplifiers.

But in commercial environments, especially how I see audio being used in the US, the HiFi concept is becoming less applicable. I now see our systems as vintage inspired, bespoke PA systems, with more in common with PA and commercial sound systems than classic HiFi.

Until recently I had a dream of Japanese style Jazz Kissa listening rooms in the US, but with a few exceptions, this isn't where the market is headed. What I see demand for is traditional bars with an improved listening experience either with a DJ or vinyl. I still see this as an improvement, and I enjoy a well curated DJ set, so I'm not against that direction, but I need to adapt my way of thinking to reality.

So while in the near term we will continue to offer passive speakers which work with traditional HiFi systems, I see that direction changing over the next year. I expect our speakers to reflect the realities of US listening room.

I will keep plugging away and business is steady. If you have a project in mind, please feel free to reach out anytime. In the meantime, we hope to be back in the US next week.