Stuff from the early days!!! - Roger Squires. |
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graymac
New Member Joined: 03 January 2016 Location: Ireland Status: Offline Points: 1 |
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Reading this brought back some memories. I also worked for Mervyn in late 80's. when he rebuilt his shop on Uxbridge Road I managed it for a while as well as djing for Rainbow in UK and Greece. I remember Mark Cooper was the tech then.
As for the decks at the time Mervyn had rebranded powered Newham Audio Conquests sporting the Rainbow logo. They were heavy but fairly reliable. I remember once hiring a set of gear to the BBC which I am pretty sure ws used in the episode where Rodney gets married in Only Fools. The Newham Audio were slowly replaced with Citronic Populars over time. Speaker wise at that time Rainbow was using Scott and Bose. They were happy days. |
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tv00
Old Croc Joined: 10 August 2009 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 1886 |
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Whow I also had a "dj" console, with two recordplayers inside, worked fine!
Don't remember what happened to them or who I sold them to:-( |
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www.facebook.com/babysoundsystem
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Calbarrie disco shop on Wellington Street Luton was taken on by Chris Henden and renamed to (I think) Luton Disco supplies. Chris ran a disco called 2001 RoadShow with his brother Mike (then still at school) as light jockey. Launched his Hendy series of speakers some two or three years later, previous to that they had sold the Calbarrie line (Barrie [surname] retreated to Bedford and carried on making mixers and speakers) nice little speakers mainly 1x12's with a full-width port across the bottom. Best of them that I heard was what they called the Labyrinth, looked like a folded horn but no idea whether it was a 12 or a 15 inside; never used them myself since I had a pair of 2x15's (2ft x2ft x 3ft) with Gauss inside from Mike Turner in Hanwell together with one of his re-badged DC300's in a Turner case, Fane Crescendo 12's for mid and piezzo for the top run from August 125-watt amps (courtesy of Dave Simms at Simms-Watts), no active cross-over of course - everything ran full-range apart from the bins which had a low-pass on the amp. Getting Gausses was how I first met Mike Cotter, but that's aother story. Chris Henden's main claim to fame was designing add-ons for himself to go on the Optikinetics (also in Luton) Solar 250 - using both the accessory slots so that the wheels turned either in the same dire tion or contra, at different speeds - using different types of glass, plastic or whatever; I believe that Optis gave him a considerable reward and launched it as (damn what was the name) Dynamic Rotator kit or some such similar Edited by BJtheDJ - 07 December 2016 at 11:33am |
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James Tengo
Old Croc Joined: 09 May 2008 Location: Brighton Status: Offline Points: 2155 |
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Dynagraph and Rotograph, two seperate sets.
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Dynagraph, that was the beastie :) Having mentioned Chris and Mike Henden it seems unfair not to mention their sister the divine Caroline :) |
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madboffin
Old Croc Joined: 03 July 2009 Location: Milton Keynes Status: Offline Points: 1537 |
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All the Turner amplifiers I ever saw (and the ones I still have) were his own design. Probably the same circuit, which came from the RCA Applications manual, but a better implementation than the early Crowns. I remember seeing a pair (FOH + Mon) of Turner mixing consoles at his workshop, wonder what happened to those? They were quite advanced for the time (c. 1980). |
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Back in his early days Mike had a shop in Hanwell, just across the Uxbridge Road from where Mike Cotter's place was some time later (Mike Cotter at that time was handling Gauss out of the old car showroom by Ealing Town Hall two miles up the road, I lived in Acton); Mike's first amps where wooden cases with DC300's, from panels removed, inside with accurately graded and indented pots on the front. Mike Turner's main claim to fame right then was the construction of Bowie's 'Ground Control' (Sound Control ???) pa system with it's flared and ported bass bins - I had four of those at one time with JBL K140's - two of them with an EV 1829 driver on an 8HD flare together with a JBL 075 bullet and a passive xover hidden behind the back of the 1829; running that from two Sound City 200 watt PA amps. The whole lot was two heavy for my then Austin J4 and too loud for most of the places that I worked so they went back in for the 2x15's which were a lot easier to handle. Lunchtime one day he was playing me the BeeGees 'Nights on Broadway' running full welly and we went to the pub on the corner just up the road, and when we got back the stylus was in the playout groove with the front windows of the shop visibly quivering with the final 'click' - I met my then girlfriend Pam cos she was one of the girls that made up his cabling; remember he had some kind of big American car with a 10-inch JBL in the drop-down arm rest of the back seat. Edited by BJtheDJ - 08 December 2016 at 11:07am |
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Just remembered, had an engraved plastic plate on the front 'Turner Power Block'
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Robbo
Old Croc Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 4221 |
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Yeah we ended up with four stacks of the modular PA that Mike developed for Bowie--The 10" flared mids were a real Joke as they were the same size as the bass bins with a JBL K110 inside but half the height and all of the cabinets were fitted with wrap around metal strip which used to rip your hands apart--Pete Winkelman MD of Milton Keynes Dons had it for a while when he was managing bands in the Wolverhampton area.
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Yep, a light-grade file and some steel wool cured that for me - but took the shine off :) Didn't matter anyway since banging two together accidentally dented both of them on the 'cutting' edge. |
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BJtheDJ
Young Croc Joined: 28 November 2012 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 884 |
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Mike Turner also had a sense of humour, viz. the lavatory bowl with a 4-inch bass driver in the outflow and an 075 in the downflow - left playing in his shop doorway one afternoon.
Sounded better than a lot of discos at the time; thinking about it better than a lot right now |
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madboffin
Old Croc Joined: 03 July 2009 Location: Milton Keynes Status: Offline Points: 1537 |
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Thanks for the info, souped-up DC300's! Must have been the inspiration for his own product line.
There was a band in West Yorkshire in the early 70's with one of those Turner PA systems that Robbo describes. Name was "Azel" or something similar, they were in the same genre as Yes and always too loud... I visited Turner's place in Uxbridge Road on a few occasions, also Mike Cotter nearby and later at Steele Road. On a similar topic, does anyone remember the old pre-Brit Row "ruggedised Phase Linear" maroon coloured racks with the transformers mounted in the bottom? Edited by madboffin - 08 December 2016 at 6:23pm |
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