The Organ Forum

To whomever might know, I recently purchased a gulbransen Rialto from the local Salvation Army. It had come to the them complete and supposedly in working order. They separated the speakers and I have been researching about the 102/103 speakers. I have looked at a couple of sites and have no information yet on where I might purchase a set, other that the guy on ebay who wants a starting bid of $795 without shipping and doesn't know if they work. Any advice on where to get speakers or what modification options are available would be wonderful, thanks.

Trevor,

Are you saying that you bought the Rialto K without any speakers at all??  You should try to find out what happened to the speakers.  If they were sold separately I can only guess that they went to someone who thought they could be used with a Hammond (for all practical purposes, they can not). If that is the case the person may be looking to unload them.

The 102/103 speaker set on eBay is waaaay overpriced (in my opinion).   I think the price already came down; they were something like 900 bucks at first if memory serves.  I've seen entire Gulbransen Rialto K setups, speakers and all, go from anywhere from 100 bucks to a few hundred.

You really need to know what model Rialto K you have.  If your organ does NOT have a green piano stop and a black Multi-Rank Celeste tab, then the 102/103 pair would not work anyway.  These older ones are called the Model 1107; the later ones with the piano/multi-rank celeste are called model 1135.  Those can use the 102/103 pair.

If your organ is an 1107 then you can use either one or two 100GKs, 101s, or 102s.  Most of the 1107s came with the 100GK cabinet; from my understanding the later 101 and 102 are basically the same cabinet with some minor differences.  You do not need to have two speaker cabinets for the 1107.  You can occasionally find 100GKs around - sometimes the asking price might be high because someone thinks the Hammond people want them; after the inevitable disappointment the price usually comes down quick.  But its the shipping that will get you; try to find these locally. 

By the way, all of the speakers that will work with the Rialto K have 4-channel tube amplifiers.  No top rotor, only has a rotosponic lower drum (for Tibia tremolo). 3 stationary speakers on top (Main c, Main c#, Tibia with no tremolo) and one stationary 15" for bass inside the cabinet.  The 103 cabinet is a bit different; has 2 rotosonic drums to handle the multi-rank celeste and the tibia does not go through the 103.  It is meant to only be used in tandem with a 102.

There are a few users here with a Rialto K; one member in particular has both the 1107 and the 1135!  DO a search in the forum and you will find a lot more info about these organs.  I'm sure some of the others will chime in.

Good luck with finding at least one speaker for the organ; check craigslist/ebay/etc. often.

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Jimmy Williams
Gulbransen Model D, Leslie 204 (still restoring it), hobby organist/technician

Hi Trevor,

I somehow missed your post waaay back when and I was just curious as to what you ended up doing with your Rialto K?  Did you use the info that Jimmy supplied to figure out what model and options that you had?  I'm the one (well, maybe there are others) that has both an 1107 with a single 100GK and an 1135 with the piano, 102 and 103.  I'd been a theatre organ buff for a long time and had always heard that the Rialto K was a very nice instrument.  I stumbled across the 1107 when I got an email about a Rialto II.  It turned out to be a complete 1107 in decent cosmetic condition with a few technical problems that were easy to overcome once I figured out how to decipher the Gulbransen documentation and get a few tips from folks like Jimmy.  The 1107 is an absolute joy to play, great keyboard feel and Tibia's that are out of this world.  That really got me interested in hearing/getting one of the "legendary" 1135/102/103 instruments.  At the time most of the folks that advertised them wanted way too much but I finally grabbed a nice one off ebay for $225.  It hadn't been played in a while so getting the piano contacts cleaned and working again was a bit of a chore but well worth it.  Some mechanical problems with the two Leslies (they're a bit more complicated than the usual units) but she's working great now.

So why do I still have two of them?  Well I'd hoped that when I got the 1135 it would have the sound of the 1107 and then some but my ears didn't find that to be the case.  The 1135 added a great piano and some other nice features, the sound of the two Leslies with all the randomness and big sound from the three rotosonics and the two space generators really fills a room.  Maybe it's some balancing that I still need to do or the spots they're located in (1135 in a very live and spacious living rooms, 1107 in the garage "studio") but the 1107 has a unique sound that I just can't seem to part with.  I'm thinking it might be the combination of the rotosonic Tibia trem with the electronic (photocell) trem for the main voices on the 1107.  The 1135 generates all the trem for the Tibia and main voices with the Leslies.  Quite nice in it's own way but different.

I have seen a few 100GK, 102 and 103 out there on ebay, craigslist and other organ classifieds.  I may still have some contact info and they might still have the Leslies since they're not very useful for other purposes.  Sometimes takes folks a while to find that out and get realistic on their prices.  The shipping is always the downside but they're great instruments once you get them up and running.

 

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Gary
(Rodgers 321B, Gulbransen Theatrum, Hammond H-133, Gulbransen Rialto K with 100GK Isomonic Leslie, Rodgers 322 Trio Deluxe,Rialto K 1135 with 102 and 103 Leslie, Allen Theatre Deluxe with Gyrophonics and other speakers.

Hi Gary.  Remember that with the 1135/102/103 setup, the tibias will only be carried by the 102 cabinet.  That, and of course the space generator unit in the 102 and the fast-slow drums in the 103, probably has a lot to do with the "different" sound compared to the 1107.  Sonically these are two distinct instruments.

-jim

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Jimmy Williams
Gulbransen Model D, Leslie 204 (still restoring it), hobby organist/technician