Although I no longer have them the Teledyne AR-9 was and still is a really good speaker wich I owned till about 2 years ago, still miss them. |
1978 Klipschorns. Love 'em. |
I use a few different speakers.Most modern speakers just sound too slow and smeared to me This seems to be a function of high power handling,rubber surrounds and long excursion cones.
Hence the gurrent interest in things like the Zu speakers.
I use a pair of late 60s Toshiba SS30s.These are high sensitivity 3 ways with cloth surrounds,light paper cones and alnico magnets.The tweeter is a bullet.They came with tiamping provision so Toshiba obviously had serious intentions for them.Fantastic sounding speakers but they need a good sub for the bottom octave.
I also have friends that use Goodmans Axiom 80 based speakers in preference to modern speakers.
I also have some B&W DM70 hybrid stats and used to own Crown ES212 hybrid stats.These are also excellent vintage speakers when restored. |
Tangent RS6, Tangent TM1, the New Large Advent and one or two others.... |
1978-ish Snell Type Ai's. Great sounding speaker...with every improvement upstream their performance just gets better.
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JBL 200 studio masters and Klipsch KG4 both very good and reliable! |
Hi
1979 Klipsch Cornwalls with upgraded crossovers, amazing sound
Larry |
Infinity Monitor IIa's - bought them new in 1975 and can't part with them. They hold their ground against most anything <$4000 as long as they're set up right. |
28 year old Tannoy Classic Monitor's .....wife loves them as well. Have tried various newer speakers but the Tannoy's are IPO the most musical pair of speakers for my taste of music. |
Wow, lots of responses. I don't often see anyone talking about vintage speakers on here, so I didn't figure there would be many responses to my question. Glad to see that I am not alone in my appreciation for vintage audio. Cool beans!! |
Fraziers and Vita vox speakers and of course BOZAKS -ALL AMAZING! - if you can find them . Some Sansui sp200,sp2000,sp2500 - cheap and really nice if you like that type of sonic signature! |
Large Advents - one of Henry's best IMHO. |
Rectilinear III, Ohm C2, AR3a, JBL LE14C, JBL Studio Master 200B, ElectroVoice, Jensen G610 Triaxial, KLH 5, and this morning I just picked up a pair of Janszen Z-600s that need 2 woofers and a tweeter. Yes, they all get some use now and then. My wife says I have too many!! (You didn't ask about a current reference system, so I won't mention one.)
They all have positives and negatives. I find the current offerings of speakers have less negatives. |
I still use a pair of Rectilinear III floor standing full range speakers in a secondary system. I bought them in the early 70s and they still sound good after all these years. |
Sometimes I really miss my old ESS AMT's.
May still be the best top end I have ever heard.
Bass was thunderous @ 400 wpc (dual mono Carvers) & my neighbors really loved me back then.
If I had the room - I would find another pair, just for old time's sake. |
Advent 1's in the bedroom system. |
Yes I use them I have 4 pairs older than 1985 I can think of. Posted a thread a while back got a lot of responses. What did you want to chat about? Everyone likes to talk about whatever the latest thing is. My speakers are any where between 47 years and a few months old. I just bought more in fact but haven't dated them yet. |
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My secondary gameroom system has New Large Advents, with the improved tweeter and walnut cabinets. |
Speaking of B&W...I forgot about the speakers playing right behind me...B&W DM1200 monitors from about 1983. |
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I use Tannoy Arundel, 15in. coaxial ca. 1980. Redone the crossovers (without changing the values) with Mundorf caps, Solen Litz coils, Mills resistors and WBT posts. Refinished the veneer with burr walnut and they are stunning. They may not have the most «hifi» sound but they are coherent and musical, can listen for hours without fatigue. |
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In one of my systems I'm using a pair of Tannoy Little Gold Monitors which date from right about 1972. |
Speakerlab SUper Sevens, made by Speakerlab in Seattle in 1979. 12", 10", 15" mid horn, and 4" tweeter per speaker. I moved to B&W 802N, my son put the Speakerlabs to his room, and every time I go to his room, he listens to hip-hop, and it sounds good even at very low volumes.
thanks |
1977 Klipsch Cornwalls-upgraded crossovers with Welborne Labs Moondogs 2A3 SET amps. 1983 Klipsch Cornwalls-upgraded crossovers that need to be installed with deHavilland Aries 845 SET amps. 1979 walnut Advent 1's, 1980 walnut New Large Advents-stacked double Advents-top Advent 1 inverted with Mcintosh MC 7150 amp. I like the sonic flavors of both Klipsch Heritage and Advents. |
I purchased a pair of 12” Coral 12-TX50 12" Full Range Alnico Coaxial Speakers on EBay. I can’t find any info on them. At the very least they look cool. I will play around with open baffle Enclosures... Any Thoughts.....
http://cgi.ebay.com/Coral-12-TX50-12-Full-Range-Alnico-Coaxial-Speakers_W0QQitemZ190016520245QQihZ009QQcategoryZ50597QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
arden |
I'm still using (and loving) my Infinity RS 1-B's! |
I have a mint condition pair of Electrovoice Patrician 800's - the ones with the 30 inch woofers and 103 dB sensitivity circa late 60's vintage. Unfortunately, they are way to big to get to my downstairs music room (~300 lbs each and very large) so they sit forlornly in the corners of our living room with nothing hooked up to them. They are really pretty amazing speakers considering they are over 30 yrs old. The low end is incomparable even against the best of todays designs.
Mark |
I still have a pair of ESS Heil speaker that I bought back in 1971 still sound wonderful.. |
I'm using some Altec 887a Capri's. I recently had to fix them because the magnet came apart. Overall they are decent ( except maybe lacking some treble. I like the fact that they use an 8" woofer instead of the typical wimpy 6 incher.
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Quad ESL-57s
Just got them, they're amazing, not perfect for every kind of music, difficult to set up in the room, but when they work, oh my gosh they work. Right now Schubert's second piano trio Op. 100 with Stern/Istomin/Rose is so perfectly precise, just rich enough, you'd swear they're in the room with you.
Surprisingly my AKSA drives them with no sweat whatsoever.
Refurbed by Wayne Piquet from Florida and up on his big rigid metal stands. They're white (see the system page).
Patrick |
I THINK I'm using vintage speakers. I got a pair of Dali IV's from used record shop for twenty bucks. I'm awaiting new woofer surrounds as the foam is flaking away. Even so, they sound great, though the bass is too boomy for my tastes. I hope new foam surrounds will tighten up the low end. Does anyone know when Dali IV's were manufactured? |
I have Acoustic Research 93's bought in 1979. Very natural and honest sound. A bit hard to drive but worth the cost in amplification. I still love the sound but will need to replace the aging rubber suspension for the spaekers sometime soon. The old acoustic suspension design still sounds great with whatever you run through them. Very tight without any muddiness found in so many bass reflex speakers. |
Ive got a pair of Tannoy Red 12" Monitors 1950s extacted from Queen ElizbethII cruiser.I am using them in one of my system with Sansui AU 111 vintage tube amp and Thorens SME 3009 II arm combo.
Ali |
use them in the kitchen/family room. remarkable how nice they sound 20+ years later! |
KLH Model 6.....I use them in a scond (bedroom) system and they still sound great. |
Bozak B-410 CG's, EV12trxb's and Audax A-105 vintage 15" coaxes..all awesome in their own way! I had before
JBL L-96's, Quad ESL-63's. |
LOLO....any pics of the Vitavox drivers?? I have been considering getting some as they come once in awhile on ebay...to compare to the Tannoy Monitor Golds I had. |
Klipsch cornwall's, chorus |
Speakers A = Yorkville YSM 1 studio monitors, Speakers B = Tangent TM 1, all powered by a vintage Marantz 2220 B...awesome natural tone used for mixing my own music played and recorded live off the floor of my design build showroom ! |
Vintage? You bet!! I started using vintage speakers when first infected with this hobby because it was all I could afford. I've now spent more on upgrading vintage monitors than I would have spent on a "great" modern speaker but I bet you can guess which gets my hair to stand up! ;-)
Vintage monitors (good ones like Altecs) compete with the best current offerings and when carefully tweaked they simply BLOW AWAY most of the best current offerings. The only downside is a loss of imaging. They can image, but they don't make you duck and hide from overhead sources like some speakers can do.
It's really about the drivers. I have had great luck with vintage Altecs and JBLs placed into upgraded cabinets (thick MDF with better fill, bracing, and joinery) while keeping with the same internal dimensions (volume) of the originals. Put some sort of anti-vibration adhesive coverings on metal horns, update all cones and diaphragms with OEM factory originals (where available), put modern terminals and wiring in the enclosures and stand back.
There is nothing like a great modern day tube amp pairied with a vintage Altec two way monitor. |
Acoustat 1+1 from the mid-late 80's with Medallion transformers.
Still sounds great! |
i dont have any speakers that arent vintage;
Teledyne AR-9
Teledyne AR-91
ADS L-810
ADS L-710
Large Advent Utility
Wharfedale W60-D |
I've been using a pair of Wharfdale WS/2's (mfr~1963) for some time now in our living room with respectable electronics (meridian cd player, "vintage" Carver amp) and friends are blown away by how life-like they sound. I enjoy what they do with vocalists, acoustic and small venue jazz. My dad was the original owner and had a stereo store in the '60s. I'll always keep them for sentimental reasons, and though I plan to use something else in my dedicated room (Verity/Totem/Joseph/Revel??) I'll never tire of the expression on faces of those hearing something really good for the first time. I imagine that's part of the reason dad enjoyed demo-ing this stuff 40 years ago! |
Tannoy Westminster HW. Fantastic! And HUGE. Just added a non-vintage component - Tannoy supertweeters ST200 designed especially for Westminsters and the rest of the Prestigge line. Now it's absolutely fantastic! |
My home theater speaker system consists of kg4's (mains) a kv3 centre and a pair of kg1's as rears. I pieced this all together over the past several years and am quite pleased with the performance. The kg4's seem to have lost some of their low end, but my 10 and 12" subs fill the void effortlessly. |
I'm not sure if these are considered vintage, but I have a 1986 pair of Rauna Tyr II monitors in my bedroom system. |
Still using a pair of Polk SDA-2B that I bought used many years ago. I remember the first time we played music on them, wife and I just looked at each other with that "so this is what we have been missing" look on our faces.It's great getting speakers that sound better than the previous ones...sort of like rediscovering your music collection all over again! |
Hi, yes, I am using Acoustat 6 with Acoustat direct drive tube amps. I have owned the 6's for close to 20 years and prior to that a pair of Acoustat 3. They are indestructible and I plan on listening to them till I can no longer breathe.
Bob |
