diytube.com

I am not sure if this is the AR or the KLH speaker factory, but "Mister Shaggy" is looking like he is having a real fun time Photo is from the early 1970s or late 1960s. No, this isn't me, I was in the army at the time, and they didn't go for that kind of free-spirited hirsute-ness





It looks like the typical old NE mill building dump inside, I've worked in lots of those places...

/ed B

OK, it is not AR nor KLH, lets look for a few more clues:




Note the high tech word processing system, data filing system, and the antique writing implement renovator, mounted on the wall




EPI must not have paid their employees very well, some poor guy there can't even afford to buy himself a shirt

But then, many 1970s vintage NE factories didn't bother with the extravagant luxury of air conditioning, which would be needed only for a few weeks per year, at most.

/ed B in NC

I worked a short stint at a Panasonic (Matsushita) plant in Knoxville, TN that manufactured car speakers back in 1994. Didn't look anything like those pics.

Shannon

the black-and-white print on the factory wall of the dude, in the bottom photo...thats the same dude who is in the other photo, looking down at a stack of photos no?
that pencil sharpener on the wall instantly transported me back to elementary school...

I think that must be Winslow Burhoe, founder of EPI.

Shannon

The mobile I'm having hauled to the landfill is in better shape than that building!

The hairy guys at the EPI factory remind me of a lot of friends and co-workers back then

That grungy old building is very typical of old "recycled" NE mill buildings, most of which were in the textile business in the 1800s. Anyone who ever worked in DEC, Maynard Mass at "the Mill" would really know all about that...

What was fun about working in those old buildings, was there often was a lot of old abandoned "junk" left behind by previous owners and tenants, and much of that was freely available for the "picking" , it was like having a swapmeet and a flea market built into the workplace, what a great concept

That was well before the modern era of overly sanitized, sterile and ultimately boring "cube farms" or as I used to call them "day jails".
Give me a musty, dusty and crusty old dilapidated building work place any day

I've also heard some interesting, legendary, stories about a cash bar and skin flicks in the production area,
after business hours....

A few places I worked at back in the 70s would entice us worker bees to work overtime with time-and-a-half, plus beer and pizza after 5PM. If one worked satuurdays or sundays it went up to double time and even double and a half time, and the $$$ were rolling in.Even better if one worked over a holiday, and Thanksgiving weekends could be a real money-maker even at the relatively low 1970s wages. Though we never had any skin flicks.

/ed B

That first picture kind of looks like my basement now when it is organized...

2nd picture is a IBM Model D Executive typewriter.. I was trained by IBM to fix them July 1977... hmmm come to think of it, in 1 more week will be my 34th anniversary with IBM.... 14 more years to go until I can retire at 66...

Sal

I worked in an old Textile mill in Lowell Mass back in summer of 75 making of all things transformers.On the floor above the auto weaving machines ran 24/7 and it was loud. Those oldest buildings were actually the best built, but dusty as all hell,or Texas. I was the guy who got to wait at a line standing in one spot and pump high voltage (no amps) through the coils to check for shorts. Sometimes a wire would touch my leg and I would get a few 100KV of a static type shock, but the worst was having to press the spring loaded plungers to expose the leads that I touched to the wires. My hands hurt the whole time I worked there.
I worked in a 50s factory that has really hazardous to your health, a 60s place that wasn't bad. Not all in that order, after working the the place that was going to kill me I sold my motorcycle, got my backpack and hit the highways riding my thumb. Wild times in 76, lots of fun, lots of getting scared and being hungry, but I made it back to the farm my mom was born on, and lived there, worked in town and when I was 21 got my ass into college. Life sucks if you can't get a job where you can use your brains along with your body. I was not like most freshmen I was in class with in middle town Texas in the 70s. Yippee Ki Yay,etc!
Thatch

Thermion bought a nice pair of EPIs yesterday at the Peoria Superfest. $50 - great deal. The seller even helped lug one back to the car.

I think these are scheduled to go immediately into service. The two-way drivers looked clean.

Shannon

Looks decent condition for a 40 year old speaker..

That's Newburyport, Mass. partially hidden behind the toothy washer (which I strongly suspect was an after-market modification
.