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Guy Sergeant’s system

As was documented by Peter in his description of the Living Voice Air Partners, my first real contact with Vitavox occurred in 1992. Until that time I had been using and enjoying Lowther Audiovector auditoriums using PM4a’s and PM2 Mk 1’s.

I returned from the Paris HiFi show having heard a 4 way Onken based horn system that was demonstrated by La Maison de L’audiophile (a very specialised retailer) and had the desire to try to make something on a similar scale. I had seen the 191 system in a dealer’s showroom in Seoul a few years earlier but wasn’t sure whether Vitavox were still in business and if they were, whether they still manufactured the right sort of speaker components to build up a system of that type.

I discussed the project with Kevin Scott of Definitive Audio Nottingham and he decided he wanted to make a commercial product of it so we set about trying to contact Vitavox.

We had several conversations with the then managing director, Neil Young and were delighted to receive a catalogue detailing those items that were still in production. We visited the factory in Stanmore which was fascinating in itself. It was apparent that they were scaling down that side of their business and focussing more on the work they did as defence contractors to the military.

We saw the jigs used to cut out and assemble the fabricated 220 Hz horns, various speaker units with marine applications and even a huge ship’s horn made from cast aluminium sections and driven by a compressor.

They seemed keen to support what we were trying to do and suggested that we look at the Thunderbolt for inspiration. Neil told us of a Public Address specialist in Luton who had a pair of Thunderbolts for sale so soon afterwards I hired a van and collected the speakers to take them to Definitive in Nottingham. This PA system vendor had a few tales to tell particularly how he and his associates would take and test an array of ‘ship to shore’ loudspeakers on the back of a pick-up truck to a park on a hill in central Luton. This would have alarming consequences for passers by.

The Thunderbolt system with its S3 AK157 complement was impressive enough but didn’t really lend itself to HiFi use as the cabinet construction did allow panels to vibrate in a way that was readily audible in ‘HiFi’ terms. I’ve no doubt they’d be stunning as a moderate sized PA rig.

With help from David Young, (Neil’s brother, the chief design engineer at Vitavox) the design was refined and cabinets were built by Bill Webb, the cabinet maker who made their System 191’s.

The driver complement was S2’s, AK157’s and (on the original pair) some Gauss tweeters although these were soon replaced by the JBL 2405’s. Kevin made and sold several pairs of Air Partners before developing a more manageable speaker (Tone Scout) using S5 drivers in RH330 horns and a 12 inch driver from Fane. He also acquired the mould tooling for casting the RH330 horn.

I kept hearing the Scouts in their various incarnations at shows or when I visited Nottingham and vowed that when possible I would get a pair of something similar together.

I started by buying some S2’s on ebay and then added a pair of JBL2405 Alnico’s. One of the S2’s had a faulty diaphragm so I obtained a new one from Mike at Octave and it seems indistinguishable from the other. Fitting it and setting it so it didn’t buzz or rattle was a fairly time consuming business but was worth it in the end. Kevin obliged with a pair of RH330 horns which need the same hand finishing that Peter describes in the account of his own system. My problem was finding a suitable bass system to go with them.

Several options were possible. I obtained the drawings for the 191 cabinet as well as those for the Hartsfield but both were beyond my woodworking skills. (I have a circular saw but limited ability with it.) They were also possibly too large for my 14’ square listening room. I considered and was starting to build a Karlson type bass system (actually a corner version of the Fulmer design on the Karlson website) but on a visit to Nottingham spotted an interesting pair of cabinets lurking at the back of Kevin’s storeroom. These, it turned out, were the Oracle cabinets, made by Vitavox and were fitted with CN458 crossovers and the AK157 bass drivers.

They may have been the first prototypes and were perhaps the only pair actually made. If anyone else has, or knows of, another pair I’d be interested to hear about them.

I asked to try them and took them home. One of the cabinets had the Alnico K15 driver fitted which gave an entirely different measured performance to the AK157. I managed to exchange this for another AK157 and fitted the midrange horns and drivers. The RH330 severely curtails the upper range output of the S2 so the tweeters were blended in to crossover at around 5K. A series resistor (Clarostat rheostat) of 8 ohms and 8 paralleled 1uf Jensen pio caps protect each tweeter. This runs the 2405’s a little lower than they are supposed to go but as I never use amplifiers above around 8 watts there doesn’t seem to be a problem and the transition is, to my ears, inaudible. The CN 458 also works surprisingly well giving a very smooth crossover between bass and mid. It is necessary to use the 8 dB attenuation setting for the S2 or the midrange is just too prominent. I’ve wired in all the drivers with Audionote silver speaker cable.

The complete speaker gives enough bass to be satisfactory and what there is is very quick and realistic. The S2 midrange driver is a fabulous device, good with all types of music particularly female vocals. The 2405 has a similar character and works well above it.

The rest of the system comprises a Technics SP10 Mk2 turntable with an SME V and Audionote Io cartridge. Audionote AN-S6 transformers. A home made valve phono stage, line stage and either a single ended EL34 power amp or single ended 300B power amp. I am slowly building a new, quieter, 300B power amp with Tango interstage and output transformers. I have high hopes for this. I also use a big TEAC CD player (don’t know what model) and a Leak Troughline tuner. All the wiring is Audionote silver. I also have a Tandberg valve reel to reel recorder and some AKG 3000B microphones so occasionally get out to record some of the musicians who play acoustically in the local pubs.

At last I have a speaker system which allows me to enjoy all types of music and yet is not so large as to cause domestic unrest. I’d still like to investigate field coil drivers and to look at a different horn for the S2’s but these items currently work together so well I’m not in any hurry to make further changes.

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