was there a double Martin 115 once?

Yes there was I had four of them, two were loaded with JBL's E140's and two were loaded with Gauss 4583a's and your right they were ta total bitch to move about despite the castors and they wouldn't fit through most standard doorways,

The actual 2x15 was the first and is the cab that was drawn up for copyright. These cabs were made by the the firm I bought in '78 which had been making the 2x15's. Bob Wates who was my Jig and Pattern maker was responsible for building the first single.

The actual copyright date for the cab is, if my memory serves me well, is 6th July 1971.

As has been said, the 215 (later known as the 215 Mk1) was the original Martin bass bin. As far as I know this was also the first product to be sold by the company, in 1971.  As Tony mentioned, Dave Martin filed it as a "Registered Design" with the Patent Office and the cabinet work was contracted to Heathpoint.

The ones used in the Sundown systems were a bit unusual. One side (actually the bottom, in normal use) of the cabinet was cut  to expose the rear chamber and the box was fitted on top of a special rectangular plinth with a matching cutout and a port in the front. This effectively provided a large rear chamber tuned as a Helmholz resonator to extend the low frequency response.

I recall somebody once told me that they had come across a 215 bin that "some idiot had cut a triangular hole in the side of, why on earth would anyone do that? " and was amused to hear the true explanation.

The Sundowner's hybrid "rear ported & front horn loaded" technique was quite a common one - it wasn't only used with short horn bins like the 4560. The Vitavox version of the RCA bin, and Court Black Box LF were typical examples.  Martin RS800, VRS800 and VRS1000, had something similar. Several of the company's current products also use this and their marketing blurb makes much of it...




Edited by madboffin - 06 April 2013 at 11:57am