Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hare Theatre Audio Equipment

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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-09-2016, 08:42 AM:

I'm looking for information about the Hare company, circa mid 1950's, that manufactured theatre audio equipment.

Were they an independent company, or a division of some other? What products did they manufacture?

I have been told that they manufactured speakers for Cinerama Corporation among other things.

I can find no information online about them, so any info would be appreciated.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-09-2016, 08:20 PM:

I never saw a Cinerama speaker that was other than an A4-x or a variant.

Don't know about Hare.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 05-12-2016, 02:51 PM:

What little I know about this topic is the result of some research I did
several years ago after an audiophile friend of mine acquired a "DGC HARE"
tube amplifier. All he knew about it was that it originally "came out of an
old theater", which, of course greatly aroused my curiosity.

Like you, I found scant info online. But I was able to discover a few things.
Some of what follows is from memory, and some is from some notes I took
back then which I found still buried deep in my computer.

The DGC HARE audio company was founded some time in the late 40's or
early 50's by a Dr Donald Hare. I believe "DGC" were his initials. They were
a small firm that practically hand-built high quality vacuum tube amplifiers,
but as I recall I could not find any mention at all that they ever manufactured
loudspeakers; so maybe they did, or maybe they didn't.....

At some point, DGC HARE Co got a contract to manufacture the (vacuum tube)
amplifiers for some of the first CINERAMA theater installs. DGC later claimed
to have developed the first transistorized theater amplifier systems, also for
Cinerama.

Dr Hare was a personal friend of Charles Litton, founder of Litton Industries,
and they later became business partners. Some time in the late 1950's Dr Hare
sold his audio interests to Sangamo Electric.

He then went on to become founder of The Grass Valley Group industries,
manufacturers of a variety of television & radio broadcast equipment. Grass
Valley is still around today. For a while it was owned by Thompson Industries,
another broadcast equipment manufacturer, who later sold it to some
big corporate conglomerate, which owns it today.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
You can see a You Tube video of a GDC HARE 6416 tube amplifier HERE

The old notes in my computer contained several links to several newspaper
articles about Dr Hare, which include mentions of his getting a contract with
CINERAMA, and of his later work with Litton & founding of Grass Valley.

The articles themselves are quite lengthy, so I'm not going to post all the
text here. But the URL's are still good and you can read them yourself:
Dr Hare Link 1 (Has a picture of Dr Hare, who in reality, is actually hairless)
Dr Hare Link 2 (Mostly about GVG, but mentions the Cinerama connection)

I'm not sure if Dr Hare is still alive, if so, he'd be quite old, so I'm guessing
he's passed on by now. . . . but you know that old saying- - "Hare today,
gone tomorrow!"( [Roll Eyes]

Sorry- I just couldn't help myself!)

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-12-2016, 03:17 PM:

Thank you Jim.

I asked about this because I acquired a Hare Perspecta Sound Integrator (decoder), new old stock, in it's original shipping boxes, with the Railway Express stickers indicating that it was shipped from Cinerama headquarters in Long Island NY to Stanley Warner Theatre offices in Camden NJ.

I was told that it was re-capped and calibrated about 8 years ago by John Anastasio, tested out, and then placed back in the boxes and never used again.

I haven't decided yet whether or not I am going to keep it or sell it, but I can't image being able to ship it. I would not trust those 61 year old boxes to modern shippers.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-12-2016, 10:29 PM:

Grass Valley made the Cinerama transistorized amplifiers.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 05-12-2016, 11:05 PM:

Small world! A former business partner of mine worked at Grass Valley Group in the 1970s. I had not really known its history. The articles posted were a great introduction to its history. Their video equipment was the standard for television.

Harold

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-13-2016, 06:41 AM:

Andy Marglin at Kelmar would know. He installed many Cinerama systems in the 50s and 60s.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-13-2016, 08:47 PM:

Thanks for posting those Jim! Interesting stuff.

Mark

Posted by Robert Koch (Member # 3728) on 06-13-2016, 12:58 PM:

I had an experience or two with the great one,his description of himself,not mine. I brought one of his amplifiers to Grass Valley for him to repair for a Cinwerama house i was taking care of. The whole visit consisted of a monologue of how brilliant he was. a very tiresome man in my opinion.
Later on,a very fine and brilliant man of my aqquaintance, W.Herbert Hartman, then chief engineer of KCRA Sacto decided to join Dr Hare at Grass valley. Big mistake. Herb then formed his own company:Research Derivitives" and it was very successful.
I guess,from all this, you have figured tha I was no fan of Dr. Hare e