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Last Record Update: 07-12-2026
General Information Interesting Info

Isophase Speakers

1958

This was an eight page flyer produced in 1958 by the Pickering Company to promote their ISOPHASE line of speakers and they had Shep write a review about his personal use of the speakers and their features. Text: FOR THE PAST few years the mind of the average hi-fi enthusiast has been bombarded by the industry with a thousand and one so-called new words designed to describe, for the most part, familiar equipment. In short, much of the new jargon is cooked up to sell old equipment and is really on a par with the well known "miracle" ingredients contained by every soap on the market. As a hi-fi buff myself, I have waded through Ions of promotional material, patiently picked up at every hi-fi show, in order to sec what really is new in the field. Everything that comes out seems new, but I have found that the truly new and revolutionary is a very rare thing indeed in any field of human endeavor. Hi-fi is no exception. Incidentally, newness itself means nothing unless the change brought about is truly worth while, not to mention worth the investment of hard cash on the consumer's part. I - IN OTHER WORDS - have become a bit weary of wild claims and incredible "reports" of sensational new products that turn out to be very little when all the dust settles. It has cost me some cash to develop this hard earned cynicism. Let"s call it realism. For this reason when I first heard, the term "ISOPHASE" I didn't give it a second thought. The word sounded much the same as a thousand others I had heard in the last few years. Then came the most recent New York Show. I wandered into the PICKERING exhibit and promptly was rocked back on my heels with what I heard. It was the most delightful sound I had yet encountered. L was hearing an ISOPHASE Model 58 1B. At this point 1 would like to say that I do not work in the Hi-fi business, nor do I have a vested interest in PICKERING, I am merely one who loves good equipment and has for a long time felt that there could be something better in the way of speakers than was available. I INVESTED in 581 B and have used it in my own system for some time now and I continue to be amazed at it. Many times a piece of equipment will impress a listener for a short time and then after a while flaws show up and it turns out to be not nearly as great as it seemed at first. This has happened to me more than once. Not so with the 581 B, as a matter of fact, I appreciate it more today than I did when I first bought mine. At the New York Hi-fi Show I was introduced to Walter Stanton, President of Pickering. I told him of my reaction to the ISOPHASE and he asked me if I would write a few notes about the speaker. He felt it would be something that the average non-technical Hi-fi enthusiast would be interested in reading. Here is the story. I'm USING a Mcintosh sixty watter with my ISO PHASE 581 B and I am one who enjoys pouring the juice on from time to time when I feel the neighbors are away for the weekend or when I want to break a lease. In addition, my system runs practically all day at the low volume while I work on scripts and so forth. In other words, I particularly am interested in a speaker that is efficient at low power and that doesn't mush out or blow up when the coal is poured on. In this department, the ISOPHASE is really magnificent. The highs come through as well at whisper level as at window shattering power. Great. There are reasons for this and when I sat down to knock out this piece I did a lot of reading and nosing around in order to get at the facts about the ISOPHASE speaker. FIRST OF ALL the word ISOPHASE itself actually has meaning. It is a composite word, as are most coined words, derived from ISO meaning equal, and PHASE in the technic sense meaning; a particular stage in a series of periodic changes or movements. Thus ISOPHASE has real meaning in application to sound. Sound is composed of extremely rapid periodic changes or movements of air in various pitches and wide ranges of intensity. For a long time a genuine bug in the hi-fi lab picture was finding the means with which to project these movements or vibrations into a room with a truly uniform or equal dispersion as opposed to the very unreal "point" sources of sound which we are accustomed to in the conventional speaker systems. By "point" I mean that the sound in the ordinary speaker comes from a comparatively restricted point that varies with the diaphragm diameters from 3/4" to 1" in the case of horn loaded speakers, to 3"' to 5" in the cone type speakers. In contrast to this situation, the ISOPHASE is an electrostatic speaker known in the lab as an "area device," or one that projects sound from a base of wide area many times that of any other device used in sound reproduction. This large area reproduction works with high efficiency in the middle and upper frequency ranges over a full dynamic scale with results that really make comparisons with more conventional speakers unfair. WHILE THE ISOPHASE is a mid and high frequency reproducer it should not be confused with ordinary tweeters. It is in an entirely different class altogether. Ordinary tweeters are of two types. They are either horn loaded compression drivers (with small diameter diaphragm) coupled to a horn, or small diameter speakers (3" to 5") with stiff cones. Both arc point source reproducers which disperse the sound in the same manner as an old fashioned megaphone. On the other hand, the ISOPHASE is a large area source reproducer using an effective diaphragm which measures 24" by 32" over its operating surface. This is more than 750 square inches of actual sound source. In other words, the entire surface of the device is creating sound not merely shaping it as do the horns and baffles of the older type speakers. Incidentally, the ISOPHASE uses a curved almost massless diaphragm that is only 3-1/2" at its deepest point. This alone is worth the price of admission because, as far as I am concerned, the ISOPHASE is the most flexible piece of gear I've seen yet. It is light and can be mounted a variety of ways ranging from cabinet installation to hanging from brackets on a wall just as a picture would. It can be hinged to a cabinet in place of a cabinet door or simply set atop the woofer enclosure as I have done with mine. By the way, it is one of the lightest components in my whole system. As for performance, the ISOPHASE has an effective operating range of from 200 to 35,000 cps and it handles transients in such a way that the whole experience of listening has taken on a new interest for me at least. For my taste, it is the most pleasing sound in Hi-fi today. I NCIDENTALLY the ISOPHASE is an extremely interesting component in operation. It uses a very thin plastic diaphragm on which a metallic coating has been evaporated giving it an almost weightless nature. This is suspended in the frame between polarized electrodes which operate on a power supply that comes with the speaker. By the way, the spacing between the diaphragm and the electrodes is maintained by myriads of tiny "stand off insulators" since the electrodes are somewhat like a flocked screen. You can see, I've been delving into the guts of this thing. It is truly a fascinating piece of ingenuity. ONE NOTE that I should tack on to this is about the woofer that should be used with the ISOPHASE. It can be almost any make provided the efficiency is good since the ISOPHASE IS much more efficient than conventional tweeters. So much so that, it is easy to get too much fine reproduction in the middle and high ends with the ISOPHASE and then find that the woofer is not putting out enough bass to provide a realistic balance. As you know, this is the direct opposite to the usual problem of good bass but no highs. As FAR as the actual sound itself is concerned it has to be experienced to be appreciated. I know that in my case, I continually hear things on tapes and recordings of mine that I had no Idea were on them. My equipment, I might add, has always been pretty good, at least expensive, and I realize now that for a long time I have heard only a small part of what actually was in some of my program material. Another thing I have noticed is that the large area reproduction of the ISOPHASE gives me a feeling of bigness in the sound more approaching a live performance than anything I have known. This characteristic makes the ISOPHASE excellent for stereo as well as mono. All in all, I think that anyone who is truly interested in fine sound should investigate the PICKERING ISOPHASE speakers. As for myself, my business revolves around sound in one fashion or another and I feel that the ISOPHASE is about the best investment I've made in Hi.fi since I threw out my old crank-wound windup turntable with the green felt spinner and the cups for used steel needles on the side.

Photos:

1958
Page 1

Courtesy: Gene Bergmann

1958
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Courtesy: Gene Bergmann

1958
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Courtesy: Gene Bergmann

1958
Page 4

Courtesy: Gene Bergmann

"Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory?
Think about it, friends. It's not just a possibility. It is a certainty." - Jean Shepherd - 1975