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The Story

     

     Our facility affords us the luxury of building two sets of loudspeakers at a time. I say luxury, because four cabinets at a time take up a considerable amount of space. For a small family run shop on the San Francisco peninsula where space is at a premium, some people actually describe our facility as a compound. We describe it as efficient.

     

     The Plain Jane’s were built simultaneously with the Mother of Burls. While shopping for veneers for the two sets, we looked no further than our first stop at MacBeths in Berkeley. We wavered when we spotted the two sheets of walnut burl because our personal tastes lean towards a less showy kind of look, but the burl was drop dead gorgeous. A more traditional, low key batch of black walnut would complement the other set.

     

     After the rough construction of two sets is complete, we “trim out” one set at a time, and the burl went first. Time constraints put the other set on hold as we showed the MoB’s. The Mothers happened to make it into background shots for an article in the San Francisco Chronicle and soon got whisked off to Oregon for an official review while the second set patiently waited their turn.

     

     Once finished in the more basic yet lovely black walnut veneer, we mated this set with a luscious set of English walnut horns. It may be the prettiest set of horns yet and are nicely complimented by the understated elegance of the cabinets.

     

     The English walnut used to create this most beautiful set of horns was originally destined to become rifle stocks. Harvested from California’s central valley in the 90’s, this batch of raw material was rough cut into sizes and shapes that might have ended up on a Winchester had it not been intercepted by an artist friend who did various wood carvings he sold at craft fairs.  

   

      Our first listen triggered a trip down memory lane, and I thought back to an old high school sweetheart. Her eyes kept people’s attention from noticing she had a lovely figure, and her style leaned more towards Mary Ann than Ginger. I thought she was really pretty. As my attention turned back to the wonderful music wafting through our listening room, I knew right then we were listening to the Plain Jane’s.