Jump to content

bonejob

Members
  • Posts

    6
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About bonejob

  • Birthday 06/25/1952

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Madison, WI USA

bonejob's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. I have found cloth that is very similar to the original at fabrics-store.com. Among other things, they specialize in vintage and all-natural fabrics, sought after by theater companies and movie makers - for duplication of period-accurate clothing and the like - as well as by off-the-wall folks like vintage loudspeaker collectors. This is what they call basic, natural, un-softened, unbleached, all-natural flaxen linen. No cotton blend, nor any polyester, rayon or other petroleum-derived fake stuff woven in either. The color is perfect and the texture is nearly so. The only problem is that its thread count is a little too fine at 47. I think the original's thread count was 30-32. You will lose some high-frequencies from your tweeters, but turning up the knob on the back of the speaker pretty much fixes it. From across the room, the finished look is nearly spot-on. Up close, you can easily tell the texture, especially the thread count, is not what came out of the factory 40-some-odd years ago. What I ultimately settled on using is some stuff sold by vintage-ar. They are a seller on eBay (seller #4061) - a so-called "Top-Rated Seller" at that - that specializes in fixing, re-furbishing and selling vintage Acoustic Research - mostly AR loudspeakers - as well as supplying miscellaneous goodies for AR hobbyist/restorers, like logo plates, replacement binding posts, grill frames and - of particular interest here - grill cloth. They claim that they obtained a bunch of NOS (acronym for "New Old Stock," or old stuff that never got used, found by somebody, sitting in a warehouse or attic somewhere, yada, yada...) grill cloth from a now defunct textile company in Massachusetts that used to supply cloth for various New England speaker makers, including AR, KLH and Advent - "the Klossies". I don't know about the truth of this tale, but what they are selling does look wonderful on both my vintage KLH Sixes and my dynaco A-25's. It is just the right color, texture and thread count. I've never found this stuff anywhere else. The bad news is, they charge up the yazzoo for it. One portion - more than enough for a pair of A-25's - costs $39.95 - kinda steep if you ask me. But I sucked it up and paid it, and I'm not sorry now that I've seen the excellent results. Despite the high price for which they ripped me off... er... sold me this grille cloth, I like these folks. They were helpful to me some time ago when no one else had a clue. I had a working, otherwise "near mint" Acoustic Research Integrated Amplifier from the 1960's. I say "otherwise" because the front panel was damaged. I knew these folks specialized mostly in AR loudspeakers, not AR electronics. They were purely a Hail-Mary pass after nearly two years of frustrating, futile searching. And they found me my front panel! It took them only a couple of days! They were friendly and shipped the item to me right away. Best yet, the item was in pristine condition. Unlike modern stuff with panels made of plastic or nearly foil-thin aluminum glued to plastic, the AR integrated amp front panel was milled from solid brass! THOSE were the days! They knew I had been looking a long time, and they knew they had me by the "short and curlies" and would pay nearly any price, but they charged me only $30 for it including shipping. So, I am a very satisfied customer, happy to go to them again and pay a ridiculous price for some grill cloth, and happy to recommend them to others. But if - despite my shameless plug - you don't want to go to the folks at vintage-ar and pay that $40 for only about a yard of linen, try fabrics-store.com. What they offer is a close, but not a perfect match. But at $7.21/yard, it is a hell of a lot cheaper, and I think most people - people less picky about "period original" than I - would be happy with it.
×
×
  • Create New...