Natco Army Surplus Loudspeakers
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These four loudspeakers were discovered recently in a livestock auction barn and may have been hanging there since the 1960's. They were designed as extension loudspeakers for 16mm film projectors. The cabinet finish is rather poor, but the wooden cabinets themselves are solidly built and in great conditon, as the barn was warm and dry. And stinky!
My intent is recycle them for sound reinforcement, keyboard/synth, or acoustic instruments.
I suspect this was the power socket for an internal amplifier which, unfortunately, has been removed from the cabinet. I will be plugging this hole.
There are eight mounting holes on the bottom of the cabinets, four slightly larger than the others. I believe four of the holes were for amplifier mounting, and four holes are for the retractable signal cord. Just a guess.
I have seen this before on Bell & Howell extension speaker cabinets: There is a recessed socket on the front which was for a retractable signal cable with the mechanism inside of the cabinet, like the power cable on many vacuum cleaners today. The cable plug had a round ball behind the plug which took up the shock of the cable rewinding quickly back into the cabinet. This hole will become the port if required by the driver chosen.
If I "recycle" these cabinets, I'll probably install an 8" coaxial driver from Eminence, JBL or Atlas Sound.
On the rear of the cabinet are two clips and a center post which would store the take-up film reel for the projector during transport.
The rear panel is held on with eight brass screws and cup washers. There is a good cork seal between the rear panel and the cabinet proper. These cabinets were very well made.
