An audio pioneer, his friend and the finest home stereo system I ever heard.

I was 20 years old in 1974 and working in an electronics store called Hi Fi House in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

It was operated by a gentleman named "Skee Trenner" who was a gem of a man.

It was a small store, but we did very good sales, in what I now realise, was very high end equipment indeed. Tube and transistor amps, Quadriphonic receivers, Marantz, Crown, Tandberg, Revox, B&W, Advent, Acoustic Research, JBL, Thorens, etc.  A lot of these brands were not prevalent in the US yet, so we got people from New York and surrounding states who showed up. I was also involved in installing home theater and stereo setups and learned quite a bit, including the fact that true audiophiles spent more on prepping their basements than the entire rest of the house. A few were divorced for obvious reasons, but all were unfailingly polite and a pleasure to work with.

I also met Floyd Toole and Irving (Bud) M. Fried, who are now considered true legends in the field and can be found on Wikipedia, but obviously I didn't know that then.

Bud Fried, a very good friend of Skee Trenner's was in the store a lot and brought in a pair of IMF speakers which had a folded path, bass duct system as well as tweeter and mid-range installed. Trying to A/B or even listen in our store was a nightmare since we were surrounded by speakers that would soak up the acoustics, but we thought they sounded better than the Large Advents, JBL Century 100's and AR3As, which were our top sellers.

IMF A'3 MODEL

We took them to the Philadelphia Audio Show and set up our display. We were driving all of our our speakers with two Phase Linear 700 watt amps and a Crown IC150 Preamp, Dual 1229 turntable hung upside down on long springs with an Ortofon M15 moving coil cartridge and the demo record was clipped into the platter. It was impressive, I had nothing to do with it!

I wandered around looking at the displays in the conference rooms and halls of the Holiday Inn on City Line Avenue and especially admired the new Bose 901s, which Skee refused to sell but everyone else was Gaga about.

As their demo, they were playing some orchestral pieces with a lot of boosted bass and mid-range to account for the "reflected" sound coming out of the back of the speakers. Very impressive, to some!

Bud asked me to clamp a record to the upside down turntable and then turned up the Amp/Preamp to about 70%, claiming he didn't want to hurt anyone. I had no clue what he was talking about...

The record was a Deutsche Gramophone recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture featuring recordings of the actual 1812 cannons being fired as part of the symphony recording.

The music swelled, everyone there knew the symphony, and then the first cannon went off! It sounded like someone had set off a large bomb, which technically, it certainly was. People came running, including some of Philadelphia's, dressed in blue, finest. 

Once everyone was reassured that this was a demo, not demolition, they were intrigued.

The Bose guys were pissed! They had driven down from Boston cradling their precious 901s and had been literally outgunned by the local boys.

IMF sold a lot of speakers at the show and later. There are entire forums dedicated to restoring them with new components, since the original foam bordered cones are long time toast. You can buy them today, online, used.

Bud died in 2005, at age 84, firmly believing that Dr. Bose had attended one of his lectures, since the 901s had a miniature version of the folded duct bass system Bud invented, but never patented. He also knew his speakers were far superior and truly enjoyed the cannon shots at the show.

The following is a description of Skee Trenner"s home stereo system, accurate in all respects, because I can never forget it or how it sounded. He allowed me to play the Rolling Stones and Ten Years After on it and, for me, it was a religious experience. Less so for him, I'm sure....

Marantz M1 tube amps, one for each speaker. North of 500w each channel.

KLH 9 Electrostatic panel speakers. They have re-introduced them recently at $12,800 for each speaker. They stand 7 feet tall.

Acoustic Research 10 inch woofers, since electrostatics are not great on the very low end. These were in custom built, tuned enclosures.

Crown IC150 Pre-amplifier. I had mine for 11 years and they are unbelievably fine!

Thorens TD125 turntable, Rabco straight tracking arm, Ortofon M50? Cartridge. I had the same setup, but I used a Shure V15 Type II cartridge instead.

I have never heard anything better than this, and I am a 68 year old audiophile.