Sonographe SL-21 speakers


I am not really asking a question on these speakers, since I may have had the only pair in the whole country. I just want to make a few comments on these fantastic little speakers.

I purchased these speakers by chance, I heard about them and drooled over them in the late 80's, but I could not afford any high end gear at that time.

After spending hours searching up and down on the internet, I couldn't find diddly-squat on these speakers, but there are no shortage of info for the Sonographe SA-120 and the SP-1, even the SG-3 is mentioned quite a bit on the net, that really makes me sick.

Anyway, the SL-21 has very attractive real oak veneer, the front and back are sloped, hence involved some time-align design, but like I said, I could not find anything on them. Even when I called C-J, the guy named Ed who handled vintage C-J equipment couldn't tell me a whole lot about them, at least Sota could tell me quite a bit about the SG-3 for crying out loud.

The SL-21 has very wide soundstage and solid bass for it's size, 6.5" woofer and 1" soft dome tweeter, and a 1" port in the front baffle, they also have very nice midrange. The speakers virtally disappear from the room while playing, that proves these speaker are well designed. During the knuckle test, I heard no cabinet echo or resonance, very solidly built, that tells me they are well damped inside.

If anyone who know about them, please charm in. These may be the only pair that left in the country, and they are not for sale.
sovtek6922
I'm guessing that c-j's direct involvement with the "synthesis" line might have been some what limited.
I believe that the speakers used the very unusual Bessell filter alignment which features both a very rapid out of band rolloff and is maximally phase coherent as well as being fairly flat in band. The Spica speakers are another example of a loudspeaker that uses this crossover alignment.
Sota made similar looking speaker once upon a time. I am wondering if they had a hand in the Sonographe SL-21, after all I think they designed the Sonographe SG-3 turntable.
the gentleman(can't remember the name) that designed cj's speakers left and started his own line, which failed too. they all ere outstanding. sota's panorama line were incredible as well. two unit sats and subs thats outwattpuppied the watt-puppy...once again they didn't last.
I believe Dave Fokos designed speakers for C-J . I do not know if he designed SL-21.
I own other speaker of his design Icon Acoustics model Parsec. They sound great. Icon Acoustics was his own company. After IA went out of business Fokos worked for Boston Acoustics and Bay Audio. Do a search for Dave or David Fokos.
Quote from inc.com :

“In June 1984 (Dave )Fokos, fresh out of college, landed a job as a loudspeaker designer for Conrad-Johnson, a high-end audio-equipment maker in Fairfax, Va. In the next four years Fokos would be the principal designer of 13 speaker models for C-J, an experience he calls "an invaluable apprenticeship" for running his own show. Fokos founded Icon Acoustics in April 1989, believing the niche he sought had scarcely been explored.”