I don't know that these are "high end" but they are not garden-variety for
sure and rec.audio doesn't have a lot of discussion.
In the late 70s Technics started making speakers with a "linear phase array"
design wherein the transducers were staggered so that all their coils were
lined up in the vertical plane. This led to a number of unique speaker
styles, many of which never had much of an impact in North America judging
by how rarely I have ever seen them around. There were two main styles:
a "boxes" style where the mid-range and high-range transducers were simply
enclosed in boxes stacked atop the woofer enclosure, and a "horns" style
where the mid-range and high-range transducers were fronted with horns. The
latter style had rosewood-veneered woofer enclosures, and if you were a US
serviceman living in Germany you could get them with drab-olive enclosures.
A few of these speakers made it into my little city in the middle of the
Canadian prairies (Edmonton Alberta) and I have a pair. Apart from being
good speakers they are unique furniture pieces, with rosewood veneer woofer
enclosures and dark fabric covers, and two charcoal-grey horns on top of
the enclosure. I don't know about the other models, but mine have separate
amp inputs for woofer, mid-range and tweeter so I could have a stack of 6
mono amps running the pair. (A Quad 405 does a good enough job for me).
There's not a lot about them on the web, but here are some links to
pictures:
like mine:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/tanabeck/top/audio15.html (2nd picture)
with lighter fabric:
http://measurements.hi-fi.ru/gallery...0s/sb-e200.jpg
a visual timeline (start half-way down the page starting with the SB-4500):
http://measurements.hi-fi.ru/gallery...ics/ls70s.html
I've only ever met two other people in 25+ years who recognized them, and
even had a pair. One was a friend who had both the boxy and horned styles
and got me interested in the other pair that was in town.
I've lugged them through a dozen moves or more and always wonder why until I
unpack them and fire them up again.
Anyone out there still running a pair (or more)?