| At age 13, Omega Founder
and President Louis Chochos built his first speaker.
Using drivers freed from their comfortable but confining
home in a 1960's console, Louis got his start with these
three way wonders. By the age of 16, Louis was building
Kicker-boxed car speakers and custom 2-way home
designs. Some invaluable experience and apprenticeship
work with Ohm and Becker led to Louis' first speaker
company. At 20, Louis started Marathon Speakers and was
selling his first model; a floorstander with a Seas P21
Re and a Focal T90K in a sealed box.
 Louis'
self-taught woodworking skills got him seriously
involved in designing and manufacturing jewelry boxes.
This focus lasted a number of years and further refined
his woodworking skills until the audio itch returned and the
Marathon name was revived. Marathon built 2-way stand
mounted speakers for a company who was selling music and
home theater gear through a group of stores. Louis had his
own shop and was doing well selling the Marathon 2-ways but a
desire to explore low-powered Single-Ended Triode
amplifiers and the purchase of a 2A3 SET amp set him off
in a new direction.
 "I'll
never forget an article I read about a Jensen
engineer describing a 6x9 full-range car speaker and how
great it would sound with SETs. So I got a pair of 6"
round Jensen full-range drivers and tinkered with them.
I learned a lot about them and cabinet construction for
these drivers: how different MDFs sound; the different
types and combinations of damping; how decoupled baffles
and backs and different glues can effect the sound - in
short, many of the mechanical means of tailoring the
sound of the speaker. I did this all by trial, error and
listening."
"Then I found Fostex. At the time, they were selling
drivers out of their HQ in California. I picked up a
pair of FE207s and the first Omega speaker was born, the
TS1. After seven different cabinets, I went into full
production with single-driver designs and never made
another traditional multi-way speaker again."
Omega Speaker Systems is based in Norwalk Connecticut
where they design, manufacture and assemble every pair
of single-driver, SET-friendly Omega Speakers. |
