Does anyone like vintage speakers?

"If that's all you've heard, then I submit you haven't heard a properly set up vintage system."

I have heard more than a dozen vintage systems in a few countries, in a variety of rooms from small to large, and with a variety of amplifiers. They all seem to have the same colorations. Maybe you are submitting that none of them knew what they were doing - and you would be right. After all, if they had a clue, they would get rid of their horrible vintage systems and get something modern :)

I am using the Great Plains Altec 604 drivers in a large 11.5 cubic foot MLTL enclosure made by Serious Stereo. I agree with Onhwy61 that many of these speakers need a larger enclosure to sound their best. I am getting deep tight bass, very high resolution and an incredible wide open soundstage. There is a presence to the music that I find missing in most modern speakers. Overall I think vintage speakers can be as good or better than some of the best new technology speakers as long as they are implemented properly.

At the this summer's Capital Audio Fest in DC, I thought the two best sounding rooms were a modern and a vintage room---polar opposites really. One had Wilson Sashas driven by the D'Agostino solid state amps. The other had Western Electric/Jensen field coil speakers driven by electronics using Western Electric transformers and other vintage parts. Hearing Peter McGrath's uncompressed recordings in the Wilson room was a real treat; they had a spooky transparency and natural detail that seemed awfully close to "real" in my book. However, ordinary CDs in the vintage room also sounded "real" although lacking the frequency extremes and dynamics of the Wilson setup.

Overall, I would have chosen the vintage system for smaller scale acoustic music at medium volume levels. The midrange just sounded right to me. But with orchestral music at realistic volumes, I would choose the modern room. Fortunately, I didn't have to choose (I forgot to bring my checkbook.....)

In my own system, I have a similar choice between modern speakers (Spendor SP-100) and homemade speakers using vintage Jensens and Altecs. Each speaker favors a different amplifier. On most days, I prefer the sound of the Jensen/Altec speakers using my single-ended 46 amps, as opposed to the Spendors using Emotive Audio Vita tube amps. But who knows, tonight I may prefer the Spendor/Emotive combination. In any case, I would certainly not dismiss vintage speakers as a group for being too colored or for any other reason. Some vintage speakers are capable of excellent sound by any measure.