http://www.carlssonplanet.com/oa50.php

Been out scrounging this week and I think this is what I have unearthed for the sum of $14.00 American greenbacks. Anybody have any idea what this company is about?

I posted a bit about the Sonabs on your Marantz manuals thread in the Analog forum. You picked up a real bargain there! The OA50 was one of the last Sonab Ortho-Acoustic designs and would fetch at least £100 and probably a lot more over here.

Sonab were (are? I keep hearing rumours that some of the designs are in limited production) a Swedish company set up by Stig Carlsson that produced a range of speakers designed to use the listening room to create a more natural sound field. Stig passed away in '97 and the hifi world lost one of its true independent thinkers.

His original speaker design 'The Coal Scuttle' dates back to the 50's but the company had its grea-*test*-('") success (in the UK at least) during the 70's. Sonab also produced a limited range of amps and turntables, with the turntables being re-badged Yamaha designs.

Depending on your hifi worldview, Stigs designs can be seen as a visionary approach to creating a natural, believable sound field in the typical domestic listening room or the ill-conceived ravings of a complete nutter.

Personally, I like them a lot. Correctly set up they trade off a little in the way of detail and dynamics to create a very big, spacious and believable sound.

http://www.carlssonplanet.com/oa14.php

I fetched them home today and found a model # they are OA14 and have a walnut veneered cabinet. I am thinking some real thought went into these. I am going to hook them up to a Sansui 5000A that I have in the bedroom and give them a listen this evening.

I actually prefer the Sonab designs like the OA14 that use the Peerless SC165 woofer.

The very early models used a Philips full-range driver with a factory calibrated 'acoustic load' to get more bass. It's basically a plastic colander filled with fibreglass wadding encasing the back of the driver - and it didn't work terribly well.

Keep in mind that your OA14's are handed Left and Right - make sure you place them the right way round - woofers closest to the wall and 'aimed' towards the central listening position.

It's a different kind of presentation but give 'em some time and they should grow on you.

BTW, they are quite valuable (well, over here, anyway!) A pair of the simpler OA12's went for €160 ($230) recently on the German eBay site:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONAB-OA-12-R-Holz-S...86.c0.m14.l1318

Well - they sound pretty darn good. No actually they sound better than pretty darn good - they sound terrific. They are hooked up in my bedroom to a Sansui 500A and that is where they are going to stay.

KPLU plays jazz on Sunday afternoons and so I gave that a listen and then ran a little R.L. Burnside through them followed by Nat King Cole and I'm really impressed.

For such a small woofer the bass is incredible and with a whole flock of tweeters the highs are just filling the entire room. I can walk around the room and have yet to find a bad spot.

I intend to really listen to them a great deal this coming week.

I don't know much about this character that designed them, he may well be a nutter ...but by God this is quite the pair of speakers.

Honest to God, I had no idea what these things were when I bought them - I just thought "what the hell there has to be $14 worth of keeping myself entertained just checking them out even if they are not worth a damn. At this point, I'm just blown away by how they fill the room with sound.

This particular Sansui is just a particularly nice sounding old receiver - that is probably why I have not given it away or sold it. It has been with me for some time, some of the innards were changed out twenty years ago and while it is nothing special, it does have a nice sound.

Amazing. Where did you find them? I've seen pics before and the reviews are great.

There was a little estate clean out sale down around the corner from my home and I stopped in just to see if there was any photo or hifi gear. This was on a Tuesday evening??? Weird time to stage an estate sale.

The house has sat empty for a couple of years while the heirs fought. One of the heirs said that one of the others took all the rest of the hifi gear and from the sound of it there was some tube equipment - but who the hell knows what that was - it may have been just part of a television or good knows what.


The speakers are actually really quite impressive, I had a pair of bookshelf speakers on three foot stands in there so I am having to rearrange the room. I have been listening while working, I cannot wait to just kick back and really listen to them. I'm impressed so far though.

Ha! I thought you might be impressed - welcome to the world of speakers that work with the room rather than against it!

There is quite a bit about the history Stig and Sonab at the 'Carlsson Planet' website:

http://www.carlssonplanet.com/history.php

I think the guy was a visionary and way ahead of his time. For example, the first picture you see on the link above shows Stig next to the Coal Scuttle speaker (Lund LOAS 1001). It was an omni directional active design using a built in tube amp with a tapered cabinet designed to reduce standing waves. And all this in 1953!

I understand that Stigs design principles live on in the designs manufactured by Larson (website in Swedish): http://www.larsenhifi.com/index.htm

Anyway: Well done, Sir. There's nothing as satisfying the smug feeling when you find a genuine classic audio bargain!

I had a pair of the smallest Sonab's, called the Carlson Cube. It was a really nice sounding speaker. A very cool and interesting design.

I liked the small cubes enough to buy a cosmetically challenged pair of larger Sonabs from the same seller. Somehow the larger pair did not have the same sonic impact that the little cubes had.

I had some cool speakers rotated into the main system this year. The Sonabs and Gale GS401's were two of the more interesting pairs that I had going.

I think i have some of those tweeters laying around if anyone really needs them. I'm keeping them for DIY as I'm told they are very good but if someone really needed them to get original speakers back to 100% I might be convinced to part with them. I have 4.

Hey Gene, good to see you here (Kelly - KFA888 on AK) I just posted on AK about your surrounds :>)

I'm starting to get my mind around what these speakers have to offer - for me at least.

I am not a jazz enthusiast, by any stretch, but I was listening to something on KPLU that has some piano going on way over on the far right hand side of the keyboard and let me tell ya' it was really impressive how these speakers presented it. Remember the receiver I have them hooked up to really isn't anything special - it is an old sansui 5000A.

Piano, accoustic guitar, delta blues and that sort of thing they are quite impressive - but for pop they are really not really doing it for me. I don't have a large investment in time spent with them yet - but I am starting to develope a sense of what they have to offer.

Hey, don't knock that Sansui 5000A too hard if its this one:

http://www.classicsansui.net/images/Litera...5000/5000a1.jpg

Its a pretty damn fine vintage design. Very natural sound and reasonably powerful as well: 55 watts into 8Ω and 75 into 4Ω.

Back then, Sansui never really made a duffer.

I would agree that the Sonab's are not the best speaker for poorly recorded Pop or Rock - its hard to create a good stereo sound field when it doesn't exist on the original!

Try some Pop where the artist/engineer isn't hung up on creating the highest possible volume and still cares about the sound quality. You will still notice a softening of dynamics but the OA's will create a 'live' feel that's hard to resist.

I have been told that updating the tweeters with the last version of the Peerless cone design brightens up the presentation nicely - and (apparently) there is a Matsushita tweeter that works a treat as well. But then you are into the realms of serious tweakery.

Yes that is the one. It does have a nice sound, that is why I have never gave it away or sold it.

When I come across something interesting at an estate sale or wherever, I will buy it just to monkey around with it for a while and then sell it or give it away. This particular receiver I have never had the urge to let go of.

It has traveled from room to room and currently (for the last year) sits in my bedroom. It hasn't moved in quite some time and I doubt that it will move any time soon.

Isn't that the very definition of truly great hifi?

The component that insinuates its way into your life and you can't let it go?

Hey there Kelly!

Thanks for the plug, but don't get yourself banned.

Grumpy is a real greedy f@&#er!

If he comes after me for money again, I am really going to tell him where to shove it!