Eldarford- How many current violin manufactures spend two to three years on one instrument, or use wood from the Little Ice Age (Maunder Minimum ~1645-1750), or perhaps Northern Croatia(another theory) that possess the density that give Stratavari's violins their tone? Of course no one really knows why they sound the way they do, and the secret died with him. I much prefer Harleys from 1936 thru 1965, but don't consider them better than what is built today. I like them for nostalgic reasons, and they are much easier to work on(unless you need parts). The new stuff is much more powerful, uses much less oil, is more durable(better alloys, etc), gets better mileage, I could go on. Do I want one: No! I used a Dahlquist DQ-LP1 active filter to bi-amp my system for over 25 years. No one had designed anything that was as transparent, and created less phase shift in all those years(lastly with a Placette Passive Linestage). That wasn't nostalgia, but simple fact. Now I'm using a TacT RCS 2.2X. Virtually as transparent as that last combo, but with the added benefit of it's time aligning my woofer/main interface and getting rid of the Sabine Reverb generated peaks in the room. I figured if The Absolute Sound gave it a Golden Ear Award: It probably sounded enough like live music to satisfy me. I haven't looked back. I'm still using the transmission line woofers that I built in 1980 to go with my Acoustat Model IIIs. I've updated my amps several times since then, but the Nestorovic woofers(polypropylene) haven't needed any updating except for the butyl surrounds(newer material) I treated them to. They were already fast and accurate enough to keep up with 'stats, they do a fine job now. Not nostalgia- they just sound like the real thing between 20 and 250hz. If I hadn't found newer systems that sound more like live music than the Model IIIs, I'd still have them too. As much as I've disliked horns in home systems for their lack of musicality/imaging/sound staging, if I could afford them- I'd love to own an Avantgarde system complete with Bass Horn. Newer, better materials/technology/design has brought a better illusion of live music in a real venue into a lot of homes. As someone on this thread stated: It's a matter of preference. I'd venture a guess that less than 10% of the people reading this listen to live music in a real venue once a week(at least). What is their reference, if not simply their preference/taste/opinion? Those that do listen to live music(whether acoustic or amplified): please check in, and note your preferences just for fun(new technology or over 20 years). I suppose this constitutes an honor system. |
I had those same Sansui speakers and they are what got me into hifi when I was a teen in the 70's and inherited them from my older bro -- who got the big pyramidal Ohm speakers.
Were they better? Was I less fussy? Perhaps the fact that I was usually listening after smoking whatever pot my older siblings (college age) could spare made the experience so good that the speakers live in some sort of elevated pantheon. Maybe I had lower expectations. Whatever the reason, I fell in love with music and stereos back then.
I do know that the Sansui speakers kicked my friends JBL Jubals in the butt in a side by side test.
But I'll stick with my current Aerial 9's.
I also heard a set of Sansui speakers recently, and they still sound good....but not up to current standards anymore than my old Dual automatic tt sounds like my decked out LP-12 or my Sansui 5000A sounds like my Cary SLP05/MB500 setup....or my 30 feet of zip cord sounds like Kubala Emotion.
BUT -- I'm still listening to the same vinyl I bought then.
My first album, purchased when I was 12, was Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill. I still play the same album with pride on my new gear as on my 1973 system, but I don't know that I experience quite the ecstasy that I did when I was newer to the game.
Old speakers DO NOT sound as good as new stuff, but old (and jaded and critical) ears don't hear as well either....
YMMV
Rich |
LOL: Well spoken Eldartford!
Especially those ss powered ones. Much better highs....... |
And modern violins are much better than those old Stradivarius fiddles. |
I would take my 1974 sansui sp-5500's over anything made today.... |
This always strikes me as a weird argument - that somehow older technology is supposed to be better. In nearly every area of edeavor/advancement technology is welcomed as improving results/performance. Yet somehow older audio equipment is supposed to be an exception. No way. I'd never trade the new gear with such fabulous sound for older equipment. And that's coming from someone who enjoys vintage gear; right now I have several pieces including amps and speakers which are considered past their time. They don't come close to the level of performance of the new equipment. There may be a few exceptions, extremely few. But to pursue older equipment unless on a tight budget. Never. There's an awful lot of subjective/nostalgic evaluation in the opinion that older/vintage equipment sounds as good or better than current offerings. |
i have wondered with great interest the reviews that the older B&W matrix speakers have received, especially during the time when digital audio was still in its early stages of developement. these speakers were designed as studio monitors, and their treble response was often criticized. i also would hear them driven by earlier levinson solid state amplifiers which were a bit too "honest" in revealing poor cd-recordings as well as the sound of "jittery" cd players. later on however, i had chance to hear the 801's with pass aleph electronics and a levinson #39 cdp, with far better-recordings to boot. i could hardly recognize the "signature B&W sound"- forward and overly revealing- all that had vanished, and was replaced by a sweet/smooth musical presentation, far more like analog- not colored, but simply no longer "in your face" brashiness. in fact these were the same speakers i traded away for a pair of eggleston andras, because of the superb soft-dome tweeters they had, plus admittedly better integration of the drivers. but i also gave up some of the superb subterranean bass the 801's could produce.
so when you re-read some of the reviews during that critical period when digititis was rampant and every 6 months a slew of newer/better dacs were introduced into the market (at ever-higher prices), the "sound" of everything else also took a beating, especially speaker systems.
if i didn't hear proof of this myself i wouldn't have believed that the supposedly inferior transducers (B&W themselves trashed their crossover and tweeter for the "anniversary or series-3 model", which was not all that superior to the series-2, just a little different) weren't all that inferior- they just told you (the truth of) what was going on further up the chain of command. of course stereophile and the absolute sound never dusted off some older speaker models and listened to them again, with "better everything" feeding them a "tastier meal". now it was more in vogue to talk about speakers that cost, instead of $4-5k, speakers that delivered the goods for $8k, $12K, and $20k. and before you knew it along came speakers for over $30k, and finally 40. they were "so amazing" that the time when the B&W 802 -$4000, or the 801-$5000 (RETAIL!) were assumed to be technically challenged-designs. well go back and read what the abs.sound and stereophile had to say about them not that many years ago- that you could pinpoint musicians in an ensemble or an orchestra, that you could tell what make of bassoon a musician was playing, that you could hear a truck idling outside the recording studio, crazy stuff like that. sure, speakers have gotten better in a lot of ways, but i swallowed HARD when i upgraded to the andra's- $15,000 at the time. i just never got to hear all the things my previous speakers were capable of until after they were gone. |
Total disagree with the past having as hi a performance as modern. Only loudspeakers I can think of that would compete with modern in home are quads and some vintage horns maybe a reel to reel the vintage TT stock and modified for me has also been proven wrong.I think many feel what they grew up with is the best, this is very commen in hobbies people look to the past with rose colored glasses. What we had or wanted but couldnt have in our youth is highly coveted today.I have collected many things beside audio and this has always effected values of said items. You should of seen how many british motorcycles we sold in the late 80s early 90s to boomers who where too young or broke to buy the BSA or Norton back in the 60s many would say these old motorcycles where much better than modern again while I love vintage motorcycles this also is not true. Same happens with vintage audio today. The guys that grew up when this kit was about are mostly the sameones proclaiming how damn good it is today. I tried much of it, all sounded dated to me, fun but dated....I still collect vintage audio kit my collection starts at 1890. Neat stuff great to know hear our history but compared to modern why not compare performance of a 1940s ford to a 2008 ford. |
Some say that speakers peaked in the late 60's to mid 70's and then went down hill after that....... If we stick to sound quality... I'd agree with the above, as the audiophile market definitely went in the directiion of art deco furniture (tall and thin - expensive veneers instead of good drivers) and "boom boom tizz" for sound (little or no midrange and sloppy mushy ported bass with etched highs). I don't blame manufacturer's as they only make what people want (sells) and makes money (low cost) and the duplicitous reviewers simply sing Hallelujah for every aesthetic new model (pretty much all get praised for their sound and the issues boil down to "flavor"...like ice cream - just pick the flavor you like) At the low end, I think that decent sounding speakers have become very cheap compared to the past (this to me is an improvement). In pro audio, active designs have certainly improved the sound enormously since the mid 70's. I was just in the local music store yesterday and listened to a pair of active Genelec 8050A - extremely impressive - they beat Focal, KRK, Dynaudio, Adams and Mackie's and NOT by a small margin...(by the way these were ALL active speakers, as musicians/pros rarely bother with passive anymore...of course they were also ALL ugly looking speakers - but, for some, the sound is actually relevant). |
Mrtennis, we seem to share this preference for planar speakers, especially for stators and I would add the Quad 63 and the good old Beveridges to your list. I've owned most of the gear you've mentioned and to this day I (at least imagine to) hear the colorations of cones, which a good planar speaker, inspite of other drawbacks simply doesn't seem to have. I've held onto my Quads 63s with Gradient subs practically until now and in the years following their first appearance never really found something better, except for stacked 57s perhaps, but now having changed house, I've finally settled for the big Sound-Labs. I've listened to a lot of (cone) speakers of current production and although I found many of them impressive in certain aspects of reproduced music, I could not agree more with your final statement. Those speakers you refer to, held the secret of "musicality", a highly subjective term of course, but sometimes, if driven right, they came uncannily close to the real thing, whereas many modern designs fail to impress me in this respect. Perhaps there are less and less concert goers amongst the designers and within the buying public. I wouldn't know. |
it is a matter of preference:
personally, i prefer the apogee duetta signature, quad 57s, infinity servostatic, koss electrostatic, accoustats, and tympany 1 d, to any speaker in current production. |
There are quite a few old speakers that have stood the test of time. In some ways, particularly in the lowest octaves, they were generally superior IMHO.
Infinity RS, Kappa, IRS series
Dunlavy
Hales
Apogee |
Thank you all.
Rodman I think you make some very good points, especially when you mentioned the change in materials used in cabinets. And of course the cone materials. |
A lot has been gained in the last 20 years in the area of materials used in the manufacture of speaker systems. From the use of gold/rhodium plated, oxygen free copper 5 way binding posts(for a better connection), higher quality (tin foil/teflon film, polypropylene, polystyrene) capacitors for improved signal transfer, stronger magnets( barium/strontium ferrite, neomidium) for higher flux density, stronger and lighter cone and dome materials(carbon fiber, titanium, diamond) for less flexure/distortion, faster response. Denser, stiffer cabinetry to reduce resonance/coloration. There are a vast array of modern speakers that can play at very high SPLs, and yet sound like real music, unlike the Junk But Loud of old. Yes- the professional speaker manufacturers built some systems for home use, but the quality of the drivers/x-overs in those systems never approached that of their sound reinforcement equipment. The horns that were designed for projecting sound far into an audience, when used in a home environment, could generate a headache faster than a jackhammer with their peaky responses, and metalic resonances. Much has been gained/learned with regard to horn systems as well, and the old can't even compare with current designs acoustically(Acapella/Avantgarde). Of course the way we test/design systems has changed drastically as well. The proof is always in the sound though, and naturally: There are those that can't hear the difference, and will claim there isn't any. |
It depends on the music. For "big" music, symphonies, organ, loud rock, etc. the old JBL, Altec, and the like with 15" woofers are best. But you can't play such speakers at realistic volume in an apartment, and the speakers probably wouldn't fit anyway. For pinpoint imaging of a female vocalist with piano accompaniment, (which seems to be the official audiophile test signal these days) modern speakers excel.
I couldn't live in an apartment, or even in a development with houses close together. |
Some say that speakers peaked in the late 60's to mid 70's and then went down hill after that....... |
I would say - oh no - Paper vs Plastic. Most old speakers were exclusively paper cones, while most, but not all modern speakers use polymers. |
