07-02-2023, 11:12 PM
@Hartley118 your timing is impeccable. The Manchester Free Trade Hall Electrone was the third of the type-350 Specials that I omitted to mention in post #53, i.e. sister to Royal Festival Hall and Rowton Castle Shrewsbury. In 1974 it was transplanted to the St. Johns Wood residence of HJ Whitfield 'Whit' Lewis, architect to the LCC Housing Section. Here it was recommissioned with the help of Leslie Bourn and Walter Fair (the original development team at Compton) with a somewhat modified console and large freestanding speaker cabinets but original generators and action. It then moved to Surrey to another private owner, who augmented it with various extras.
In around 2006, shortly before I started collecting Electrones in earnest and trying to save the important ones, he offered it for sale but found no takers for the complete instrument. Having exhausted that option, he elected to re-purpose the console for a digital instrument and gave the generators to an enthusiast, located in the north of Scotland, who still has them. Thus, the last of the Big Three to survive complete was split up; had I been one year earlier off the mark with my research, it would still be complete today. If it were not for the present owner stepping in at the last minute, this last set of type-350 generators might have been scrapped altogether. No others are known or expected to exist; (the generators in mine, the Rowton Castle job, were updated to type-365's during a major overhaul by Compton.)
Re. speakers, I am not sure whether the Goodmans Audiom 60 and 90 were available in 1952 (I think they were at least from 1953) but they would probably have been Compton's main drive units of choice; they certainly were by the mid 1950s. The 90 was the first British 18" driver, rated at 50W with a choice of 35 or 50Hz resonance, specifically marketed for cinema, organ and large PA use. Prior to those, they would probably have been BTH or Vitavox e.g. AK151s.
'A disappointingly dull sound' is characteristic of all locked-phase organs, especially when unaided by reverberation and/or a rotating loudspeaker system, both of which were later used by Compton. The FTH organ was less dull than some, on account of having two sets of generators, therefore being capable of producing at least two unlocked versions of each pitch. One set (with six ranks including a breaking mixture) served the Great and Pedal, another with different complement of six ranks running at double-speed served the Choir and Swell. What was lacking from the sound of the small Electrones with 2.5" generators was the top two octaves of the human ear's bandwidth, which made them yet more dull. The 5" generators were much better in this regard and capable of covering almost the range of human hearing. Whether the speakers adequately reproduced the extremes is another matter, but the speaker cabinet pics above confirm that they put some effort into doing so.
FTH generator rack pic and one of the generator spec sheets below.
In around 2006, shortly before I started collecting Electrones in earnest and trying to save the important ones, he offered it for sale but found no takers for the complete instrument. Having exhausted that option, he elected to re-purpose the console for a digital instrument and gave the generators to an enthusiast, located in the north of Scotland, who still has them. Thus, the last of the Big Three to survive complete was split up; had I been one year earlier off the mark with my research, it would still be complete today. If it were not for the present owner stepping in at the last minute, this last set of type-350 generators might have been scrapped altogether. No others are known or expected to exist; (the generators in mine, the Rowton Castle job, were updated to type-365's during a major overhaul by Compton.)
Re. speakers, I am not sure whether the Goodmans Audiom 60 and 90 were available in 1952 (I think they were at least from 1953) but they would probably have been Compton's main drive units of choice; they certainly were by the mid 1950s. The 90 was the first British 18" driver, rated at 50W with a choice of 35 or 50Hz resonance, specifically marketed for cinema, organ and large PA use. Prior to those, they would probably have been BTH or Vitavox e.g. AK151s.
'A disappointingly dull sound' is characteristic of all locked-phase organs, especially when unaided by reverberation and/or a rotating loudspeaker system, both of which were later used by Compton. The FTH organ was less dull than some, on account of having two sets of generators, therefore being capable of producing at least two unlocked versions of each pitch. One set (with six ranks including a breaking mixture) served the Great and Pedal, another with different complement of six ranks running at double-speed served the Choir and Swell. What was lacking from the sound of the small Electrones with 2.5" generators was the top two octaves of the human ear's bandwidth, which made them yet more dull. The 5" generators were much better in this regard and capable of covering almost the range of human hearing. Whether the speakers adequately reproduced the extremes is another matter, but the speaker cabinet pics above confirm that they put some effort into doing so.
FTH generator rack pic and one of the generator spec sheets below.
