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Recommendations for Vintage Speakers

I’m currently looking to put together a vintage system and am wondering what a good pair of full range, floor standing speakers would be. They would be powered by a Pioneer SX-1250. I listen to a very wide range of music, a lot of live Grateful Dead, Classic Rock, Metal, But also enjoy Jazz and even a little Big Band music once in a while. Thanks for your help!
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helomech
1,739 posts
 
Depends upon your ROOM more than anything else (except your wallet, of course!). Try a small set of newer Magneplanars and see what you think about the clarity of listening to the actual recorded music instead of the "horny" sound of horns or the booming of speakers like Advents, JBL's, etc., which were great in the day but have been out-engineered easily by today's designers (no disrespect to Henry Kloss, clearly an audio icon). Whatever you do, LISTEN TO IT IN YOUR ROOM first.
Weird, I don't have any bass boom with my Advents and they're significantly more detailed than the 1.7is I owned. Magnepans are not very detailed/clear speakers in the grand scheme of things - why there exists the phrase, "Maggie mist."
willieva's avatar
willieva
61 posts
 

I miss some of the older speakers with all of their flaws and colorations.. ..many just sounded musical.. These speakers all got to me thru a song or two that I heard thru them which  gave me goose bumps at the time.

I used to sell high end audio gear in the late 70's very early 80's

before moving on.

Altec Model 19 Jackson Browne The load out-Stay

Kef 104-AB .. Elton John  Love song

DCM Time window  Fleetwood Mac Gold Dust Woman.

Acoustat Model 3's  Christopher Cross  Sailing

Dahlquist DQ 10'S   Doors  Riders on the Storm.

Snell Type A.. Rolling Stones  Slave .

Rogers Studio 1   Supertramp  Even in the Quietest Moments

ADS 2030   The Police    Shadows in the rain.

Infinity Rs 4.5   The Police Don't stand so Close to Me.

Quad ES -63   Joni  Mitchell   Court and Spark

Acoustat Model 4..  10cc I'm not in love

Dahlquist DQM 9     Steely Dan .. Hey Nineteen

B&W 801.... Bruce Cockburn Wondering where the lions are

Kef 
105    Loggins and Messina Angry Eyes long version.

ADS  910    Led Zepplin In the Evening

Acoustat 2+2    James Taylor Something in the way she moves

thanks for the memories




jtgofish's avatar
jtgofish
515 posts
 
There are some very good vintage speakers  and several of them have been suggested but the suggested JBL Century L100 is not one of them.Probably the worst sounding speaker I have owned.No crossover on the woofer so you get a heap of cone break up interfering with the rest and the tweeters sound terrible.Some people describe it as sizzle but it more like the sound of an arc welder.


jtgofish's avatar
jtgofish
515 posts
 
I have owned most of the speakers suggested and some of them are very good but I think on balance Gale 401 are the best of the lot.Most of all they do not sound like boxes,are very refined yet also very dynamic and are great on a wide range of music. and sound very clean and composed even at high volume.Not so good on classical music for some reason but very good on everything else.
Toshiba SS 30 speakers circa 1960s also deserve a mention.Fabulous sounding things.
willieva's avatar
willieva
61 posts
 
Gale 401's were very musical , I remember hearing those at a winter CES show .. They had the chrome tops and bottoms, laying sideways on some chrome stands .. sorry i did not get the chance to spend any length of time with them, but If i remember correctly they had some hefty low end. Can't remember what they were powering them with.
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