[TONEPUB]

Watch for an upcoming review in our next issue...

Mr. Janzsen will be here tomorrow to set up his
new speakers.

We'll keep you posted!

[bpape]

 aa 

[TONEPUB]

These are pretty cool.  David has picked up where his father left off.
The model one is more like a martin logan, (no curved panel though)
where it is a full range electrostatic with a 12" woofer. 

It's a three way system, all internally powerered.  You can hook
an iPod up to the damn things and get music!!

Pics to come in a couple of days!

[budyog]

That is interesting news! I have a lot of the old 4" Janzsen panels and electronics stored away. I knew the guy who took it over from Janzsen back in the early 70s and had a company here in Minneapolis called DLK, (sold through Schaak electronics stores) Don L. Kleawer? (Not sure if I have the correct spelling) then he went from DLK to Soundmates and then sold to Koss? That is the way I remember it. Dons DLKs and Soundmates were very good speakers in the day! I had many versions. A bunch of my friends worked at his company and we use to all hang out, build speakers, party and then blow speakers!
Don made 2 sets of super panels that consisted of 32 4" Janzsen electrostatic panels in a wire stand/cage. They were like 4' tall. I had one set and supposedly someone like Luis Armstrong/Herb Alpert? had the other set. I used my set for my band PA system along with 4 10" Sony woofers in cabinets made out of 1" high density particle board. Extremely heavy! Our roadies hated them and we made special cases for the big electrostatic panels.  Not roadie/band friendly! We had 2 of those per side 8*woofers per side)with the 32 panel stats on top, custom DLK amps made by a guy also here in Mpls, I still have 4 of the amps too! It sounded great. Very unique look and it blew people away. The down fall is that they were very inefficient. Suck up power like you wouldn't believe. I think I still have some of the Sony woofers (no cabinets) somewhere! Aah, traveling down memory lane! I believe Don has passed away. R.I.P. Don.

[TONEPUB]

I used to work for Schaak Electronics back in the late 70's right before they
went out of business!!

It's a small world after all...

[DavidS]

waiting eagerly on the review of the Janzsens - any teasers or table setters on your session with Mr. Janzsen now that you have teased us first  aa?

David

[TONEPUB]

Unfortunately, not at this time. 

The goons that shipped the speakers out here damaged one of them pretty badly.
David flew out here and spent the last couple of days trying to get this one repaired
but it has to go back to the mothership....

I should have the new one back here in the next couple of weeks if the freight gods
smile upon us!

However, I am listening to the one good one in mono and its pretty nice!!

David is a great guy too.  He has a lot of insight into the audio world and was
a charming guy to hang out with considering all the duress he was going through!

I can't wait to get the other speaker back and get on with the review, I think it
is going to be very exciting!!!

Ill keep you posted!

[R_burke]

   Nuff said

[jjay]

I used to work for Schaak Electronics back in the late 70's right before they
went out of business!!

I bought my first pair of decent speakers from Schaak Electronics in Minneapolis in 1978. The speakers were JBL L166. I still have them in the lower level of my house. They sounded too good to give up.
Jim

[TONEPUB]

I bought a pair too!  I just sold em to my good freind out here...

They live on!

[Tweaker]

Is that JansZEN? If so here's a link to the website:
http://www.janszenloudspeaker.com/

[TONEPUB]

I should have mentioned earlier, that the Janszen thing is not happening after all.
We had a pretty big go around with the damaged speaker and David flew out
to try and repair the one we had, with no success.

We ended up shipping both speakers back to his factory for updates, which ended
up taking another week or two, by the time the freight company got here and got
the speakers back to him.

He then wanted to send the 300+ lb (each) speakers back here and the review
rushed to get in what would have been our April issue.  As we were at deadline,
I explained to him that it could not be accomplished in such a short time at which
point he got pretty cross with me.

The whole relationship pretty much melted down from there and I haven't heard
from him since.....

Because of who his dad was, it was pretty unfortunate as we would have liked
to review the speakers, but honestly I'm spending more time reviewing stuff
that weighs less than 100 lbs each.

I hope it works out well for David, but it's a pretty long road to travel, considering
there are already very successful electrostatic speakers from Quad, Martin Logan,
InnerSound and Final already on the market with dealer networks and support
in place.

He will have the speakers at CES again this year, so anyone interested, stop
by and take a peek!

[pbrstreetgang]

sounds like someone to give your money to. 

[KCI-JohnP]

I explained to him that it could not be accomplished in such a short time at which
point he got pretty cross with me.

Not a good way for "Junior" to start out, what a shame as I was really looking forward to your review. Sorry to hear this......thanks for your efforts though.

Regards,
John

[JoshK]

Before coming down too hard on "junior" you have to see it from his perspective. I understand why Tonepub couldn't accomodate him but you can't also blame David for being upset.  I can imagine it cost him a bit to send the heavy speakers out for review and then to also fly out to try to fix them, then more shipping.  All the while a new business is typically tight on cash having it all invested up front. To then not end up getting the result you wanted, has to be quite frustrating even if it wasn't anyone's fault.  Maybe he shouldn't have gotten mad at Tonepub and gang since it was out of their control too.  But its a human thing to displace anger.

[TONEPUB]

Truly, I felt terrible for him.  I know shipping 1200 pounds wasnt cheap.  That's part of the problem
with these guys making stuff that is so heavy, the laws of physics are just against you. 

Then he wanted to rush ship them out again.  I had explained to him that he should just ship em
slow and we'd get them in a future issue.  As it was, I only would have had about three days to listen
to them before deadline and that would not have been fair to write a review of a 30 thousand dollar product
after only listening for such a short time.

Even though its a limited product in terms of price, I'm sure there are still plenty of people
that would be intrigued and still able to afford something like that, especially considering that for
30k you are getting the speakers AND power amp.

So if you figure 15k for the speakers, 12 for the amp and 3k for speaker cables you don't have to buy,
that's not crazy at all.

I hope he is able to get it all worked out.

[NealH]

I am sorry to hear about these issues and the delay in reviewing them but, with speakers that heavy and, being electrostatic which adds another degree of vulnerability due to their delicate nature, its not surprising to see some shipping damage from time to time.   I am sure, being a new company in all respects, that there is a lot of pressure on Janzsen in the course of day to day business.  No one likes roadblocks, set-backs and show stopper issues.  Just never a good time for these. 

We'll have to patiently wait a little longer but, being electrostatic and, with the Janzsen reputation I am sure there will be a lot of good things to tell.  And, good things are worth waiting for.