Why is the B3 the pinnacle of organs? What came after?

[Rooster_Ties]

I did do some Googling, and the short answer appears to be that the B3 was the most portable, and thus the most popular -- so now they're in the greatest abundance. But still, that doesn't explain everything...

Why (presumably) wasn't the B3 subsequently improved upon further? Either by Hammond, or some other manufacturer (which would be another organ entirely).

What Hammond organ models (if any) post-date the almighty B3? Any of note?

Which reminds me, was Hammond the only game in town? Any contemporaneous competitor(s) of note?

In my Googling, I did stumble on this link, which might be helpful: Hammond and Leslie Production Models

Questions from an organ neophyte, obviously.

Edited May 22, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Jim Alfredson]

I think many people who love organ music outside of jazz would claim that the Hammond is a bastardization of the organ. There's an often told story about how Hammond was sued by pipe organ manufacturers because they claimed that the organ wasn't an organ at all (really it was because they were losing their asses to sales of Hammonds). You can read about it here:

http://thehammondorganstory.com/chapterxv.asp

As for "improvements", Hammond made a lot of models after the B3 that supposedly had "improvements" but I think the B3 was one of those fortuitous marraiges of luck, limited but ingeniously engineered technology, and hype. Even to this day, everybody wants a B3, even though a C3 or an A100 or several other models are just as good and sometimes even better. But the B3 has the name.

There is a thin line with the organ between cool and cheesy and as Hammond added more bells and whistles, in order to chase the "theatre organ" crowd (a whole different subset from the jazz folk... and Hammond, Roland, Yamaha, etc. are still making organs for them), the jazz, blues, and rock people just stood by the old standard.