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Some people are collecting drivein theater speakers and junction boxes. Here are a couple of pictures showing the RCA speakers along with the RCA "Old Style" junction box. These date around 1948.

SPECO (Systems & Products Engineering Company) formerly known as Drive-in Theater Manufacturing Company is still the world's largest drive-in theater speaker manufacturer and parts supplier.

http://www.speco-usa.com/SiteResources/Data/Templates/homepage.asp?docid=514&DocName=Home%202 (http://www.speco-usa.com/SiteResources/Data/Templates/homepage.asp?docid=514&DocName=Home%202)

They make (under license) reproduction RCA drive-in theater speakers from original RCA molds. Speco supplies repair/replacement parts for many other brands of drive-in theater speakers such as Eprad and Koropp. However, they do not sell to end users. You have to purchase through your local theater equipment dealer. In my area that would be McRae Theatre Equipment in Seattle, Washington or American Cinema Equipment in Portland, Oregon.

Many drive-in theater speakers were held together with tamperproof screws such as the "Gulmite" head and "Holt" head. Speco still has some of those special screwdrivers for those kind of screws.

Those are Reed speakers. Manuals/parts lists at www.film-tech.com -> Manuals -> Drivein Equipment.

That website disables direct links. There are other drivein speaker manuals there too.

Download the SPECO, Projected Sound, Eprad, and REED manuals there.

In SPECO's manufacturing agreement with RCA they had to remove RCA's famous "meatball" logo from the reproduction castings and replace it with SPECO's "Drive-ins" logo. Funny but that agreement did not apply to the logo on the plastic volume knobs!

Reed speakers frequently were held together with "HOLT" head theftproof screws. Depending on the age of a particular Reed speaker, it may have had a 3 slot holt head or a 4 slot holt head. Both of those require different Holt head screwdrivers to take out the screws. Towards the end of the run for Reed spaekers, they were using Phillips head stainless steel screws.

RCA and Projected Sound liked to use the 4 slot Holt head screws. Eprad and Speco (Drive-in Theater Mfg) liked to use the Gulmite head. Eprad used the #10 Gulmite while Speco used the #8 Gulmite. Again, these required seperate special screwdrivers.

Holt heads were really hard to get out even with only the slightest corrosion of the screws. The nice thing about the Gulmite heads is that even if the screw was totally corroded the Gulmite screwdriver gripped the screw head like visegrips and easily removed it.

Here is a set of RCA speakers I just finished restoring.
I picked these up from a drive-in theater in Guthrie, OK several years ago.
I'd love to know how old they are?

Here's another pic.

Wow! Don't THOSE ever bring back some memories!
Neat!  :89-

1948.

Hello Ken,
Can you help me with this? I have a single Projected Sound speaker with the 4 slot Holt Head screws.
Do you know what size Holt driver is required and where I can get one?
What brand of junction box was used with the Projected Sound speakers?

Speco sells the Holt head screwdrivers. You want the 4 slot #8 size.

http://www.speco-usa.com/SiteResources/Data/Templates/homepage.asp?docid=514&DocName=Home%202 (http://www.speco-usa.com/SiteResources/Data/Templates/homepage.asp?docid=514&DocName=Home%202)

Speco does not sell direct. You have to purchase through your local theater equipment dealer. I've heard of people googling "4 slot holt head screwdriver" and finding some companies selling them.

As to the junction box question, Projected Sound speakers were usually sold as a package deal to be used with Projected Sound junction boxes. However, the speakers can be used with ANY brand of drive in theater junction box. In fact, many drive-in theaters mixed and matched speakers throughout their fields.