VITAVOX in Cinema's

[guy sergeant]

How widespread was the use of Vitavox components in Cinema's. Reading descriptions of old cinema's that were based in the South West of the UK it seemed that BTH had a virtual monopoly on the installation of speaker systems in this area. Were Vitavox stronger around London? Are there any Cinema's still using Vitavox equipment? I'd imagine many of the sound systems in the west end have been modernised but in provincial towns they may still be working.

As a separate question. Did Vitavox ever make any Field Coil HF drivers before Permanent Magnets became viable?

[Datubie]

Guyser,

I'm in Singapore which was once a British colony. I'm sure most of the theaters here used UK made equipment before the early 1960's. After this period they switched Altec and finally JBL in the 80's.

I managed to salvege a lot of BAF/Gaumont Kalee(GK) and Altec Lansing equipment when the premier 'old style' theater closed down in the mid 90's. All of the BAF/GK stuff was stored away in store rooms & looked to have been that way for 30-40 years. When I got there, the stage(?) in main hall had the 80's JBL system in the middle with a pair of unconnected Vitavox/GK speaker systems flanking them. I was told that at one stage there were 5 of these units. The center 3 were probably disposed to make way for the Altec/JBL equipment that came later.

I didn't get any pictures, but I'll describe the original Vitavox/GK speaker system as best as I can.

HF Section

Utilized the Vitavox Type 220C 531 horn (15 cell 220 cycle cutoff) with BAF Model 379 pressure units.

LF Section

The LF enclosures were modeled after the Altec 210 cabinets with 2 Vitavox K15/40 or Goodmans Audiom 80 bass units.

The whole system was driven by 30 watt PPP KT66 GK amplifiers through a GK passive network.