AGA Baltic & Lansing

Before the WW II, Swedish film theaters bought Lansing sound reproduction systems as any other movie theater around the world. During the war such transactions became impossible, and AGA Baltic, already in the business of making radios etc., started to manufacturer Lansing drivers under a license. This story of the origin of AGA drivers is possible but not confirmed. AGA most likely did copies of Lansing drivers before the WW II. The below ad of a AGA speaker is from 1942.

The below AGA speaker units owe to the Lansing Iconic, one of the most influential speakers ever, from 1937. It’s a result of Jim Lansing and John F. Blackburn deciding to design a smaller 2-way version of their Shearer Horn. For the purpose they made a new 15” woofer, Model 815, with a 2” voice coil and 1600 ohm field coil magnet system. The cabinet was ported.

Frequencies above 800 Hz were taken care of by a 4 x 2 cell horn with a new Model 801 compressor engine (4000 ohm field coil). The crossover was of the second order. The manufacturer promised +/- 2db frequency response between 40 Hz – 10 000 Hz.

The ingredients of this project are the bigger version of the AGA 8 cell horn (Lansing 805) with a huge and heavy motor, plus the Sinus 15” woofer with a mighty Alnico magnet. Both the horn and the woofer are 20 ohm designs. The woofer sits now in Altec 816 cabinet; the front horn loads the woofer down to 200 Hz, below which the woofer is reflex loaded down to 50 Hz or so.

My first impression of the sound is that it has a great potential. The bass is extraordinary, and the sound of the HF horn has no obvious flaws. In fact, and giving its size in a small room, the performance is surprisingly smooth and correct.

But the whole project has just begun. The best cabinet for the woofer? The best active crossover for the purpose? The best tubes for the HF horn? The best amp for the woofer? A tweeter from 7 kHz upward? A subwoofer below 50-60 Hz? And dozens of similar questions, and numerous experiments are foreseen.

We’ll report of our findings on these pages as we proceed, along with what our colleagues in Norway do with their Altec A5 and A7.