less than common

[tomt]

speaker


http://cgi.ebay.com/BALLANTYNE-XL-0-...QQcmdZViewItem

1hour 9 min

[Steve Schell]

Hi tomt,

That woofer was made for Ballantyne by Stephens Tru-sonic, probably in the early to mid 1940s. It uses the earlier Stephens magnet structure, originally intended for a field coil. When permanent magnet speakers started becoming popular Stephens fitted a large center slug magnet in lieu of the center pole and field coil.

Stephens also supplied speakers to Motiograph. A pair of field coil 15s is currently on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...6935&rd=1&rd=1

It is surprising that Stephens speakers do not appear in greater numbers on the used market. They were a large company from the mid 1940s to the 1960s, and occupied a building nearly a square block in size in Culver City beginning in 1947.