Vintage Whine
Empire, Part 2
Our first installment on Empire mentioned the beginnings of the company in phono cartridges and tonearms, soon followed by turntables. The jump from record-playback gear to loudspeakers is not one that many audio companies have made—but that is indeed what Empire did. And how did they get from A to B?
One clue comes from a statement by Empire President Herb Horowitz quoted in the “High Fidelity Newsfronts” column in the May, 1963 issue of High Fidelity: “The more they publicize stereo [consoles], the more audio-oriented the public will become—and the more components they will buy.” The column continues, “Horowitz backs up his optimism with reports of high component sales, the opening of new component shops, and the fact that major department stores have added component departments to their merchandising operations. All in all, Horowitz feels that ‘1963 may well prove to be the biggest boom year in our industry’s history.'”
Given such an attitude from a company’s President, you’d expect that company to expand its operations—and they did. But meanwhile, Stereophile ran its one and only review of an Empire product, the 880p cartridge. It was a rave, sorta, in J. Gordon Holt‘s patented way that often made you feel, “yes, it was good, but it should’ve been better.”
Moving on from that, by the middle of 1964, ads began appearing for the Empire Grenadier, the first of the columnar end-table speakers that were an Empire trademark for many years. Initially there were two models which were similar, but not identical: the Grenadier 8000 was of simple tubular structure, with a 12″ down-firing woofer mounted at the bottom, radiating through grillework around the entire cylinder; midrange and tweeter drivers were mounted on a die-cast acoustic lens assembly on the column’s side, near the top. The top was polyester laminate, safe for cocktails as an end table. The Royal Grenadier 9000 was bigger and better, with a 15″ woofer mounted at the bottom of an “exclusive non-resonant rigidized heptagonal sonic column” with “hand-rubbed satin walnut finish” and a top of “imported Italian Periata marble.”
The full-line 1964 product brochure can be seen here. In addition to the Royal Grenadier 9000 and Grenadier 8000, there was a 3-way bookshelf speaker called the Imperial Grenadier 8200, which seemed to have used the same drivers as the 8000. The only other place I’ve seen this speaker is in the second catalog pic below–never in an Empire ad or review.
Also shown were the Troubador 398 record player, which was mentioned in Part 1: 208 table, 980 arm, 880p cartridge, and “handsome walnut base”. Confusingly, the package was also available without the base as the Troubador 388.
But wait! There’s more! The company definitely had a talent for creating a bewildering array of very similar products with nomenclature seemingly designed by an ex-Army supply clerk. The 1964 catalog also lists the Troubador 488 record player, with a smaller chassis than the 398/208/whatever, and primarily designed to drop into a console. The 488 package consisted of the 408 table, 980 arm and 880p cartridge, mounted on a walnut mounting board. The 408 table introduced the suspension system that would be characteristic of all subsequent Empire tables—and just to further muddy the waters, the package was available with a walnut base as the Troubador 498. You could go blind reading the fine print on their model listings.
If you’re determined to sort through all the variant turntable models made and sold by Empire, this guide will help you to do just that.
More speaker models appeared: the 7000 appeared identical to the 8000; the 5000 was a 2-way system; then there were several lower-priced models that appeared to have been short-lived: the “Cavalier Kitten” (???) 2000 and 3000 were more like footstools than end tables. The 2000 was a 2-way system; the 3000, a 3-way. Other than these catalog pictures, I’ve seen no mentions or reviews of the “Kittens” in any period hi-fi mag. No sense of whimsy, I guess.
The 8200 mentioned above as seen in the 1964 full-line brochure was also seen in the Lafayette catalog of that era, along with the slightly fancier 8400:
The February, 1966, “High Fidelity Newsfronts” column in High Fidelity refers to an in-wall or on-wall 3-way system which used the drivers and crossover from the Grenadier 8000 mounted on a walnut baffle board. The ubiquitous Herb Horowitz is quoted as saying the unnamed custom speaker would sell for $185. I haven’t found mention of this model anywhere else, and can’t verify that it was ever produced.
Horowitz, circa ’67.
So, who was this guy Horowitz? One industry bio mentioned, “Herb has been in the industry since 1942 when he was a junior engineer with Pilot [Radio].” The next link in the chain was in a blurb quoted in Part 1: “Mr. Horowitz spent many years as chief engineer of Electro-Sonic Laboratories and chief of audio products for CBS/Columbia.” Another bio states that he went to CBS in 1954, ESL in 1956, and helped found Empire—then still Audio Empire, a division of Dyna-Empire—in 1958. When contemporary sources don’t agree, it’s difficult to sort things out sixty years or more later. At any rate, Herb was a busy guy, prominent in the biz, even after Empire—but we’ll get into that in the next issue.
All that aside, the mid- to late- ’60s appeared to be a good time for Empire and Horowitz. He once again pops up in High Fidelity, this time in the September, 1969 “News & Views” column: “Recently we took an excursion to Garden City Long Island to have a look at the new Empire Scientific plant and have a talk with Empire president Herb Horowitz. Herb always seems to have something interesting to say, and he is, moreover, one of those manufacturers who really cares about high fidelity.
“His sense of personal involvement was never more evident than it was as he showed us the cabinet-making operation. Empire has been in its new building about a year, bringing cabinetry, raw speaker manufacture, assembly, and other hi-fi operations under one roof for the first time. As we walked, Herb would pick up a milled panel or a strip of walnut and reminisce over the pitfalls the operation had climbed out of on the road from outside suppliers to full production in its own shop, a look of amused triumph twinkling in his eye.
“Naturally, we discussed with him the subject of turntables….Herb confirmed that there may be new life in the manuals market. He cited a sharp increase in Empire’s sales of manual turntables and attributed the turnabout to the quality of the modern $75 cartridge….with even the fanciest changers, he believes, you can’t get out of these new cartridges all they have to offer.”
I have no numbers on how big Empire’s speaker business was, but judging by their continued presence in ads and reviews for many years, it must have been reasonably sizeable. Not AR-big, but then, what besides AR was?
Oddly, I never heard any Empire speakers when they were new—and through the decades I’ve heard dozens if not hundreds of vintage speakers, but I’ve never even seen a pair of Empire’s once-popular end table speakers, much less heard them. I wonder if they’ve all been consigned to landfills or the backrooms of church thrift stores, as tastes have drifted away from marble-topped tables…
I’ve asked a number of veteran hi-fi folk about Empire speakers; most respond with a shrug or an unenthusiastic “meh”. Copper contributor—and oh yeah, renowned speaker designer— Ken Kantor surprised me by saying, “the first time I heard those things [Empire Grenadiers], I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard…’course, I don’t really remember what I was used to. Probably just old consoles….”
But people still remember the turntables. In the next issue of Copper, Part 3 of the Empire story will get into the later, more-famous turntables…and what ultimately became of the company.
It always surprises me how much better my Empire table (298/398/whatever) sounds when I simply lift off the metal cover hiding the motor pulley. Pierre Sprey showed me this trick, called the motor cover a “resonance sink.” Another useful trick is to replace the tonearm with a 9″ Jelco SA-750, a literal drop-in replacement, especially if you leave the original Empire arm’s “collar” in place. Makes a pretty amazing difference.
Hi Fi News(England) tested the 9000M and stated that it had the worst resonances ever observed in a speaker and that the sound was not good as a result.
I wish that I had access to that test report to post it.
Leon
That would be interesting to see. Back in those days, it probably would’ve been written by either John Wright or John Crabbe—both were really, really scrupulous and precise.
The Lafayette Radio store on Rte. 9 in Natick, MA was a full line Empire dealer. I listened to the 9000M many times and when I first heard them thought they could not be beat. The problem with them for me was that they were ugly with a capital U and did not lend themselves to easy room placement. Then with more experience and comparison to the AR3a, which really was a very good speaker, the 9000M just faded from interest. This was in the mid -1960s.
I rescued three Empire 9000Ms that were going to be tossed out. They are the front channels of an HT system in my bedroom. One had a defective midrange or tweeter and I was able to buy a replacement assembly for $40 on e-bay. As I don’t like the way anybody’s speakers sound the way they are manufactured so like all the others, I re-engineered them. The main problem is in the treble. I had to add one front firing 3/8″ poly and five upfiring 3/8″ polys at the rear. With equalization they are a very fine sounding speaker now for both music and video. I really don’t know how deep the bass could go because I’m powering them with a 100 wpc Pioneer HT receiver that probably can’t put out much power below 50 hz. I don’t think it could come even remotely close to my AR9s. There are still precious few that can I think.
I always wondered about those down firing woofers and how they wouldn’t sag over time. They have accordian pleated surrounds like professional speakers. The woofer and the entire speaker weigh a ton. I had to remove the woofer to get to the access where I was able to replace the midrange tweeter assembly. What a horrible job that was. The drivers I think are all made by CTS. Like everything else that Empire makes the midrange tweeter assembly is a gold plated machined aluminum casting. The woofer is claimed to have a magnet with one million lines of force. Strange thing about it was that while there was stuffing inside the cabinet it was inside a plastic bag. I left it that way. The crossover network was mounted on the underside of the top of the speaker cabinet which is wood. Since you have to invert the speaker to work on it, getting to the crossover network to recap it was one PITA. The body of the cabinet itself is a 7 stave barrel. The design is rather clever I thought. The front has a one inch space between the woofer itself and the base of the speaker creating a slot loading in the front and a closed enclosure in the back. This creates a higher pressure zone in front of the woofer that makes it appear that the rear of the enclosure is much larger than it is.
At the time they were marketed I never would have considered buying them, I’d have chosen AR3a instead. But how can you argue with free? The only thing I don’t have are the marble tops. I made some out of wood but I think one day I might try applying a marbleized epoxy finish on them. As I said in part one about Empire I’m a great fan of their products. I think their turntables, tonearms, and cartridges would be hard to beat even today. Frankly I think this guy Herb Horowitz was a nut case. he went to more than extremes, he went where no one had gone before. Who ever heard of machining a large individually matched journal bearing for a turntable to +/- 1/100,000 inch? And how many tonearms are dynamically balanced and have the same weight on both sides of the pivot point? Sapphire bearings? Of course. The 398 GA added anti skating with a small weight the way SME had at that time. in fact it was an SME/Thorens rep at a trade show who advised me to buy the first Empire turntable instead of his.
I’ve had many exchanges with Ken Kantor at Classic Speaker Pages. Ken is a graduate of MIT with a degree in electrical engineering. I felt sad that he didn’t find something more interesting and challenging to do than design speakers with all his potential. But I guess that’s what he enjoyed most. Ken worked for several speaker companies including Acoustic Research. AR was in the business of making the most accurate speakers they could. I was also sad to learn that Ken spent most of his spare time at the Paradise Club listening to the same kind of music he blasted through his AR LSTs periodically blowing out and getting free tweeter replacements time after time. I joked with him that they kept 8 tweeters ready for him under the service counter and knew as soon as they saw him exactly what he had come for. I told him AR had to hire him, that was the only way they could get their money back. Unfortunately he never went to nearby Boston Symphony Hall to hear a concert. The consensus among acoustic experts is that as a room in which to listen to music in, Boston Symphony Hall is the best one in the United States and one of the two or three best in the world. It’s on my bucket list to visit Boston and listen to concerts in that room, preferably at least once or twice during practice sessions when there is no audience.