Ambient Music

Ambient Music

Written by Frank Doris

The Luxman L3 integrated amplifier, sporting one of the coolest logos of all time. Howard Kneller paid $395 for it at New York’s Harvey Electronics in the 1970s, quite a sum of money at the time.

 

Among the L3’s many features were Class A operation, dual tape monitoring, and these separate bass and treble controls for each channel. From Howard Kneller’s personal collection.

 

Who needs high-end audio when you’ve got a boombox with 1980s Panasonic Ambience Sound! Earth, Wind and Fire look like they were digging it.

 

The Audion Piano, 1915. Created by triode tube inventor Lee De Forest, this contraption used heterodyning, the technique of combining two high-frequency sounds to produce a lower tone within the audible range. Thanks to Ivan Berger for finding this.

 

1975 Tandberg ad: we’d buy these for their looks alone.

 

Howard Kneller’s audio and art photography can be found on Instagram (@howardkneller@howardkneller.photog) and Facebook (@howardkneller).

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