If you’ve hit a recent audio show, chances are you’ve had an opportunity to hear Burwell & Sons loudspeakers. The bespoke, vintage Altec driver designs are beautiful to look at, and convey true tone, timbre, and “in the room” playback capabilities. Gordon Burwell Sr., and Jr usually have a pair of their Homage Series Mother of Burl designs on hand, but for the California Audio Show they are mixing things up by showcasing their Plain Jane model, and introducing two completely new loudspeaker models. The press release on what’s happening is below, and I’ve already sent Gordon Sr. a lengthy Q&A on just what these new models mean for the small, family-run company.
–Rafe Arnott
Press release:
Burwell And Sons Loudspeakers is excited to announce our late entry to the 7th California Audio Show. The show is held at the Hilton Oakland Airport from Friday, July 28 to Sunday, July 30, and we’ll be there for every minute of it.
We set some ambitious goals for ourselves with this show, and have taken this opportunity to showcase some new and exciting products for our friends here in lovely Northern California.
First on the agenda is the chance to show our neighbours here the Homage Series loudspeakers with our 3way conversion and sub woofer package. We’ve been showing our Mother Of Burls this past year; our demo units are still in New York, so we’re using this show to unveil an updated three-way crossover we’ve installed in our lovely Plain Janes. Coupled with the “Single Jack” sub woofer package, this combination has finally balanced our performance with our beauty. The Plain Janes have always been our favourites as they have the most exquisite English Walnut horns atop their elegant walnut cabinets.
Rogers High Fidelity will be with us again powering the Plain Janes in the large room. Our friends at Rogers build some of the finest amplifiers we’ve ever heard, so we’ve arranged to do a number of shows with them this coming year. They’ll be bringing a number of gorgeous amps and phono pre-amps for your listening and viewing pleasure.
VPI Industries has provided us with two turntables, one of which we’ll be using here at this show. The Avenger is currently set up at our showroom, and we’ll be bringing the Prime in all its luxurious Rosewood glory. It really shows nicely with with our speakers, and of course the performance is incredible.
Oppo, located here in Menlo Park, has come on board with two items we’ll be using in our two rooms. As some of you may know the younger Gordon handles all of the technical duties, and if he were writing this could explain exactly what we’ll be doing with these beautiful Oppo components. It promises to be very cool.
Finishing out the large room will be Transparent Cables, a Mytek DAC, and Audio Vault equipment rack.
The big news for this show is the introduction of two “concept” loudspeakers that have been on the drawing board. With pricing still to be determined, it is safe to say these models will be considerably more affordable than the Homage Series. Tentatively named “Lil’ Browns” these two models will feature 15″ woofers and compression horn drivers on simple wood horns.
The introduction of two models was the brainstorm of the younger Gordon and the idea is simple, yet genius. For starters, these loudspeakers will use contemporary woofers and compression drivers that are of the same bloodline as their vintage counterparts. Housed in a basic bass reflex cabinet, one model will satisfy the needs of a true audiophile with the use of a traditional two-way passive crossover. The second model will be a powered speaker with built in electronic crossover, EQ, and DSP room correction.
The powered set will be showing in the small room. Geared towards today’s younger music lovers who may hold their entire music library on their phone, we hope to encourage them to explore the wonders of high fidelity stereo equipment with the basic foundation of any quality system which is great speakers. This room will be operating with a simple Oppo unit and DAC.
Having just completed these two concept speakers in time for the show, very little time has been spent listening and tuning. Please bear with us, and understand that we were anxious to share these with our friends and fellow music lovers here in Northern California. While some details may change with the final production run, the overall look and style is indicative of the new line.
They are purdy all right. SET here we come