Thanks in advance

Col.

Created quite a stir when robbo fitted them into a local reggae club. Well, at least till he fired them up!

 

Anyone else got any photo's?

Wonder how many they built? It would be great to see one.

 

John might have some info if he's reading this thread.

 

Then of course good ole David Lythe ( Volt Loudspeakers). There is nowt new under the sun

 

Used to put those 12's into Bose (YUK!) bass cabs as a replacement to the naff Emminece unit, then get the glue and pinner out, as most boxes started to separate. There are still qute a few out there working like this.

 

A good hijack too....

 

http://forum.speakerplans.com/atc-driver_topic43333.html" rel="nofollow - http://forum.speakerplans.com/atc-driver_topic43333.html

I saw those cabs at Kempton park race course think it was a Thames valley Sunday show, they were truly mental and driven off what looked like half finished amp just chucked on the flood, I don't know who drew more complaints Mega or ASS with Tony's wall of sound downstairs, but I do remember the staff of Kempton park shitting themselves because the chandler's were moving with the bass from all those 18's.

Those Thames Valley Sundays must have been one hell of a day out Colin!   

They were quite good, we did the Kent show a couple of time's (think it was SEDA) they were hard work but always good fun, set up the "stand" in the morning,and from 12pm show off the kit and have a few beers in the process, Tony used to do the SEDA show too (but not Mega) he had ASS we had Martin Audio you can imagine the end result  and not as stuck up and stuffy as Plasa. Very good times indeed

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mega-Mid-horn-loaded-ATC-driver-Speakers-/221114345261?pt=UK_ConElec_SpeakersPASystems_RL&hash=item337b71272d#ht_500wt_1245

Yes Simon I've already seen those, stonkin cheap at 200 quid a pair worth that for the drivers alone I would have thought.

I'd love a full mega system even if it was just to say I've had one.

I done Martin, Turbo, EV and ASS of the bigger stuff but never Mega, but I do love the look of it especially the glass fiber horns,

I thing the early horn loaded system's looked so mean and most of them sounded brutal back in those day's, don't forget back then most of the bigger systems were 3 way at most sub bass wasn't an option because it wasn't needed and half the time the cabs were never driven to their max power because most of the amps were quite low powered by today's standard's anyway. 

Think about it two of the biggest most common amps at the time (Crown DC300 & HHS500D) were only rated at 340watts per channel at 4ohms it would have been quite difficult to achieve the 400 watts needed to drive the commonly used drivers of the day like the JBL E140 or Gauss 4583A but the sound levels were still very impressive for the amount of actual power being used.

Hopefully someone on here got them for that price Ian.  I went to motion54 monthly event last night.  One of the sound systems used 3 phillishaves & 3 ladyshaves.  I like their sound.

Here's a bashed up version for those who haven't seen the FR3 system

Lovely sounding system for it's size.

And a hell of a lot lighter too, personally I've always preferred the smaller cab not so "in your face" and always seemed to have a little more finesse.

I also preferred the Emular comp too, The SSD1800 had a bad habit of self destruction when pushed to hard and tended to get a little harsh at upper levels.

Now you've just got to remember where you stored it ...

nice cabs though, if they were near me i'd snap them up

They were a bit bent, but sounded very nice, and were fitted with Gauss drivers, model number worn off the label IIRC.

 

Don't suppose there are any pictures of the system by any chance?

It was one Mega product i never saw.

there is no sticker on the cd

I've got a single mid horn, with a 9" ATC driver, is there anyone out there who might have a spare one so I can have a pair? 

very few and far between..

thanks

Here are some (badly scanned details):

any one got any info on the FR112 the full range horn cab ans hf, thats what im interested in is the x/o point which the comps are

thanks

thanks 

i would be really interested in them the FR112, even if the ports have been cut off/modded, thats then ones madboffin i talking about too

thanks

tbh interested in only the cabs if poss

thanks

Hi there. My name is Martin Burrow and I chanced upon this thread when out of the blue I decided to do a search for Mega Speakers UK. I used to work for Mega and my specialty was as the main builder of their speaker cabinets between 1976 - 1980ish. Unfortunately I don't have any speaker plans from that era although I did have a whole bunch of router templates which were stored at my fathers for many years but were disposed of after he died 2 years ago. So I'm sorry to disappoint you on that front. I realise this thread is quite old, but I thought some of you might be interested in the history of Mega from my perspective.

I started there around 1976 before it was called Mega. I got the job because I knew the guys at ATC who were just starting up and were based over the river on Strand on the Green, Chiswick. ATC was Bill Woodman plus an Irish guy whose name I forget plus a German guy called Hans who was marketing the products. Bill and the Irish guy used to work at Goodmans originally and went out on their own. Their first product was the ATC 12 inch with a 3 inch edge wound voice coil. I did an apprenticeship for carpentry/ joinery after leaving school in 1968 so they recommended me to Mega as they were looking for someone. 

Mega were based under the arches on the Kew side of Kew Bridge, Surrey.The company was run by 2 guys, Steve Borrill from Canterbury who was previously the bass player in the UK band Syprogyro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirogyra_(band) and Ian Williamson who originated from South Shields. When I started there I think there was probably just the 2 of them and maybe one or 2 others working part-time. Including Rick Biddulph who was a bass player from Canterbury and Steves friend. Rick's Canterbury friend Doug Chandler also worked there for a while later on and he went on to start Chandler Guitars in Sandycombe Road, Kew. I remember him bringing lumps of brass with him in the evening and shaping brass bridges and nuts on the huge orbital sander. 

Joining Mega coincided with the business taking off. At the start I seemed to be building nothing but JBL 4560 type cabinets or the bigger 15" versions. I'm sure I must have built these the 2 x12 mids which were various popular as well. http://www.cmvintageaudio.com/detail,item_id,130-jbl-4560-bass-bins.php plus. I could build 7 or 8 4560's in a day. They were made with 3/4" finish birch ply but after a while we sourced some Russian ply which was just as good and cheaper. We developed the 2 x 12 bass bin with ATC and I can vouch that it was certainly solidly built with the wooden handles. Steve Borrill did all the drawings and cutting lists. He was amazingly organised and the linchpin of the business. I was constructing everything in Arch 2 using compressed air staple guns and screwdrivers. I would receive a big pile of cut wood and off I went. When they were built they would go down to Arch 7 to be painted with a mixture of black paint mixed with PVA. (After filling and sanding of course). Then the castors, corners and handles etc were fitted. We got all our hardware from CP Cases who were also over the river on Strand on the Green, next to ATC conveniently. So it was like the perfect storm. What with ATC and CP Cases being so close, orders escalated pretty quickly so it was a fruitful arrangement for all of us. Besides the Mega range were building for Martin Audio, Kelsey Acoustics, Entec and a company called Electrosound plus other I forgot. Plus later on we were building speakers for Neil Grant whose company name I forget at the moment.I think it was Boxer? I also remember building bass rigs for Bruce Thomas from Elvis Costello and the Attractions and aneven bigger system for Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers.There were others but it was a long time ago and I wasn't really taking notes at the time. Dave Lyth also rented some space in one of the arches later on and started designing his Volt systems which we were also building. He was a very nice guy and it looks like he still going http://www.voltloudspeakers.co.uk/the-volt-team/ They were great days and I look back on them as probably the best times of my life. Talking about it makes me feel nostalgic. It seems like another lifetime now.

Towards the late 70s Mega and CP cases decided to merge and became CP/Mega.They acquired a large factory premises on the Great West Road near Brentford. So we upped sticks and moved there. Although Ian Williamson stayed at the arches and was making bespoke joinery. The atmosphere at the Arches, Kew Bridge was amazing like a little village and quite different to a factory environment of the Great West Road.I hung in there with CP Mega for about 6 months but missed the unique atmosphere of the arches at Kew Bridge as did some of the other guys who had moved with me. So we basically resigned and moved back to the arches and kind of set up in competition. Much to the chagrin of Steve Borrill and Chris and Pete of CP Cases. Ian had a massive order for Gale loudspeakers and it was then he made friends with Neil Grant so we started building his systems. It was great fun but less disciplined than the old days and probably less profitable. We were never really competitive enough to take on Mega/CP. Plus I became more interested in playing music and renting out a PA I had built so after a while I went freelance. After going freelance I did some cabinet building mainly for Roger Quested who started Quested studio monitors. Steve Borrill later left CP/Mega to run the Turbosound factory in Dorking. In fact I built one or 2 prototypes for Tony Andrews at Mega earler after he turned up in his Aston Martin and longhair. He was quite a character and a smooth operator. He was famous for his pyramid bin at the time although I never had a chance to make one like that. I lost contact with Steve after he moved to Turbosound. In fact I'm out of contact with everyone from that era unfortunately.

After I quit CP/Mega I was approached by Dave Martin to set up and run his own factory and had a meeting with him but decided against it. I felt the vibe wasn't right plus I didn't really want to take on such a responsibility. My professional speaker cabinet building days probably ended around the mid-80s and I feel proud of what I achieved during that time. I have hardly any photos of interest from then. Obviously there was no social media and no smart phones so it was less easy to take photos unless you were a keen photographer. I wish I had documented my times there but I was living in the moment never really thought about the future and that anyone would be interested in the history. So that in a nutshell is my abridged history of working with Mega.

All the best

Martin