I came across these speakers, the
Specimen Hornlets ($1200), in a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog and thought they were a unique combination of desktop audio, classic artwork and old world craftsmanship.
It turns out the company, Specimen Products in Chicago, is also a unique and interesting company that manufactures guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, lutes and other stringed instruments as well as tube guitar amps, tube hi-fi amps and horn speakers, and in 2005 opened the Chicago School of Guitar Making to teach traditional methods of guitar making and repair.
I wasn't sure whether to post this in Enclosures or Single Driver, Wide-Bandwith Speakers, but I chose to post it here as the majority of the models use 3" - 4" Fostex or 6" Eminence full-range drivers (although a few of the very large models use woofers and compression tweeters).
What caught my eye was the vintage look and use of materials. In the case of the smallest Hornlets, a 5" Baltic Birch plywood cube with a front mounted Fostex 3" full-range driver and a top mounted octagonal horn hand built from recycled newsprint, dryer lint and shellac. Yes, dryer lint! ("
Dryer lint is one of earth's greatest squandered resources and we are now putting it to use. It has incredible strength from all the interlocking fibers"). Available in Natural, Walnut, Green, Orange and Red.
Steve
