[Kw6]

Hi,

Is Cain and Cain still in business as I can't find a link on Google?

Does anyone have any links?

Thanks!

[MttBsh]

Hi,

Is Cain and Cain still in business as I can't find a link on Google?

Does anyone have any links?

Thanks!

I believe Cain and Cain went out of business not long after Terry Cain, the owner and designer passed away 10 years or more ago. His speakers do show up on the used market from time to time.

[Kw6]

Ok thanks for letting me know!

[SET Man]

Hey!

    Cain & Cain speakers are beautiful. All based on Fostex drivers which were common back then.... today we have more companies producing full range drivers.

   I've never heard a pair and I couldn't afford those beautiful Cain & Cain back then but one of his design inspired me to built a pair back in 2002 of which I still have.

    Well, if you see a pair up for sale you might want to check them out, in person if you can.

[Scottmoose]

Terry Cain sadly passed away in 2005, and although one of his staff made a half-hearted attempt to keep the range going, it essentially ended with him. There isn't anything in the commercial market similar, although there are custom-build designs that you can make yourself or commission a cabinet-maker to produce that are similar.

The nearest thing to an existing link to Terry is his old apprentice, Clark Blumenstein of Blumenstein Audio, although he doesn't commercially produce anything like the Cain & Cain range: https://www.blumensteinaudio.com/

[JLM]

His Abby's were his most popular model and were a pipe design.  As expected they lacked deep bass and super highs but sounded wonderful for small ensemble pieces.

[tybee]

I purchased a pair of alder wood Abbys when popular, but despite the excellent packing the soft alder wood were split upon arrival. Clark Blumenstein now makes a smaller Abby II made of baltic birch.

As a sidenote, I acquired Terry Cain's Audiotropic Moebius 6SN7 based tube preamp for a gentleman who helped settle Terry Cain's estate.

[skite30]

Cardersound  was involved in there somewhere…with his Madison model…a cain and cain design I believe,….a friend has a pair with fostex 207 drivers…great sound … need a sub and a large room required…

[MttBsh]

I've augmented my Abbys by replacing the drivers with Fostex FE168 Sigmas, adding a pair of Fostex T900A super tweeters for extra sparkle and a pair of subs on either side of my sofa (listening spot) to bring out the deep bass. I even had my wall built to accommodate the speakers. I put my electronics in my office behind the wall for the Wife Acceptance Factor.

[Scottmoose]

Cardersound  was involved in there somewhere…with his Madison model…a cain and cain design I believe,….a friend has a pair with fostex 207 drivers…great sound … need a sub and a large room required…

The CarderSound speakers were designed by me actually -Terry had nothing to do with Jeff Carder's short-lived company, which came a year or so after he had sadly passed on, and Cain & Cain effectively ceased to be. Unfortunately, CarderSound itself didn't last long -it was one of the many victims of the '08 financial crash that crippled the market for several years, and wiped them out within about 18 months of their starting out.

For anybody interested (or has even heard of them!) the first few v1 Tybone, Lissa & Madison models were productionised & renamed versions of my Saburo, Hiro & Sachiko designs. The subsequent v2 offerings and the small, single-terminus Nina were custom designs I created specifically for CarderSound, using the then-new En series of Fostex units which had just come out to replace the previous E series. One of those 'what might have been' scenarios -Jeff did some lovely work with fantastic attention to detail (just as Terry did with his Cain & Cain line). He had some great local partners who handled the veneering etc., he was a really nice man to deal with, and the horns themselves were good, if I do say so myself so if it hadn't been for that almightly financial mess, they'd probably be with us now. For reference, design drivers were:

Nina: FE126En
Tybone v1: FE126E
Tybone v2: FE126En
Lissa v1: FE166E
Lissa v2: FE166En
Madison v1: FE206E
Madison v2: FE206En

[skite30]

Thanks for straightening that out for me…the madisons are lovely sounding beasts…I
Thought cain and cain  built some madisons before terry passed…

[skite30]

Btw…He found a pair of the 208es-r to use in them…1600.00 and lucky to find them…

[DavidS]

great stuff guys - remember lusting after both Cain & Cains and Cardersounds around this period.  Still seem them come up occasionally and gets me awonderin.

[Scottmoose]

It would've been flattering if Terry had built any of my designs, but he didn't need any help on that front -he basically set the idea off (although there was precedent going back to Olson's studio horns of the '40s, which mine are probably closer to in terms of internal geometry -not saying x is 'better' or 'worse', they're just different other than the over-under termini, and from my POV, I wanted that to be the case so we weren't doing the same thing).

A few custom-builds of Sachiko, its still-current Kirishima successor, their commercial sister Madison V2 and my pay-for Vulcan planset have used FE208ESigma & the hyper-rare FE208ES-R; they were the nearest thing to 'default' upgrades, although FE208ESigma is designed to be used with one of the contemporary or current Fostex supertweeters. Nice units both and a step up from the standard E / En range the cabinets were designed for (they also work fine in practice with the new NV/NV2 units).

For reference, the Cain & Cain double-horn range had three production models, all using the Fostex FExx8Sigma and later the FExx8ESigma drive units. In ascending order of size, they were:

IM-BEN (Fostex FE108ESigma)
I-BEN (Fostex FE168Sigma, and latterly the FE168ESigma when the original Sigma range was replaced by the ESigmas)
BEN-ES (Fostx FE208ESigma)

BEN [nominally] stood for Big ENough.

The first of them in prototype / production terms was actually the I-BEN, followed by the BEN-ES and finally the IM-BEN; that's why the earliest of the I-BEN units had the original whizzer-cone FE168Sigma drive unit, & the other two always ran (in production terms) with the ESigma series, as Fostex were in the process of updating their model lineup more or less as Terry was developing his range. Single BEN production models AFAIK always had the FE208ESigma. As I recall, the handful of Walla Walla Wall o' Sounds (a wide-baffle, side-firing design) built all ran the FE168ESigma. Abby always had the FE166E, with the Nearfield Abby and Super Abby running the contemporary FF165k, to which the latter added a rear-firing T96a supertweeter with a variable volume control. The Bailey sub (named after Terry's dog) ran a Seas L26 aluminium cone woofer. Goodness knows what prototypes he knocked up & kept relatively quiet about though. I know his prototype Voigt (which was what got him going) used the evergreen 40-1354, & he did at least one prototype pair of Abbys which he modified to run the limited edition FE166ES-R. And of course there was his BIB, also with the 40-1354, which was essentially a design from the old Fostex craft manuals, converted to Imperial & with that unit dropped in rather than the FF125k of the original.

You still might see a few of his (stunning) skeleton plinths for the Garrard 401, which was about then starting to garner its cult following, & a few of his custom amplifier bases too.

[SET Man]

It would've been flattering if Terry had built any of my designs, but he didn't need any help on that front -he basically set the idea off (although there was precedent going back to Olson's studio horns of the '40s, which mine are probably closer to in terms of internal geometry -not saying x is 'better' or 'worse', they're just different other than the over-under termini, and from my POV, I wanted that to be the case so we weren't doing the same thing).

A few custom-builds of Sachiko, its still-current Kirishima successor, their commercial sister Madison V2 and my pay-for Vulcan planset have used FE208ESigma & the hyper-rare FE208ES-R; they were the nearest thing to 'default' upgrades, although FE208ESigma is designed to be used with one of the contemporary or current Fostex supertweeters. Nice units both and a step up from the standard E / En range the cabinets were designed for (they also work fine in practice with the new NV/NV2 units).

For reference, the Cain & Cain double-horn range had three production models, all using the Fostex FExx8Sigma and later the FExx8ESigma drive units. In ascending order of size, they were:

IM-BEN (Fostex FE108ESigma)
I-BEN (Fostex FE168Sigma, and latterly the FE168ESigma when the original Sigma range was replaced by the ESigmas)
BEN-ES (Fostx FE208ESigma)

BEN [nominally] stood for Big ENough.

The first of them in prototype / production terms was actually the I-BEN, followed by the BEN-ES and finally the IM-BEN; that's why the earliest of the I-BEN units had the original whizzer-cone FE168Sigma drive unit, & the other two always ran (in production terms) with the ESigma series, as Fostex were in the process of updating their model lineup more or less as Terry was developing his range. Single BEN production models AFAIK always had the FE208ESigma. As I recall, the handful of Walla Walla Wall o' Sounds (a wide-baffle, side-firing design) built all ran the FE168ESigma. Abby always had the FE166E, with the Nearfield Abby and Super Abby running the contemporary FF165k, to which the latter added a rear-firing T96a supertweeter with a variable volume control. The Bailey sub (named after Terry's dog) ran a Seas L26 aluminium cone woofer. Goodness knows what prototypes he knocked up & kept relatively quiet about though. I know his prototype Voigt (which was what got him going) used the evergreen 40-1354, & he did at least one prototype pair of Abbys which he modified to run the limited edition FE166ES-R. And of course there was his BIB, also with the 40-1354, which was essentially a design from the old Fostex craft manuals, converted to Imperial & with that unit dropped in rather than the FF125k of the original.

You still might see a few of his (stunning) skeleton plinths for the Garrard 401, which was about then starting to garner its cult following, & a few of his custom amplifier bases too.

Hey!
   
   Good info there Scott. I remember drooling all over looking at his double horn. Sadly never got chance to hear any of his speaker.

    It was his BIB that inspired me to build my own pair of which I still have. I use Fostex FE167E for my pair, maybe a bit unconventional choice but sound great to me even after 22 years later. But sadly mine slapped together with void free baltic plywood are not as beautiful as his speakers.

[Scottmoose]

Neither were any of mine, but they worked, and if they do the job, that's what counts. It's pretty much what Terry thought also -he was simply in a position to be able to make them look good, which he certainly was the first to appreciate.

IIRC, the prototype pair Terry built with the 1354 (the 167 is a good unit for a pipe horn) were also in BB ply; having a huge sliding table saw he was in a position to easily chamfer the edges 45 degrees & fold the thing up, once the internal baffle was glued in place. He just finished them with a spray lacquer, used an offcut piece of hardwood for the base & turned what became his trademark sub-baffles on a lathe.