After the thrill is gone

I’ve had my B&W 801 with custom outboard crossovers for over 50 years! Albeit it’s not my primary system, the thrill is still as I remember when I installed the crossovers 25 years ago. In fact, I enjoy them more than my recently acquired Wilson Benesch. 

My wife and I have been married 52 years and she gets a strong say in the decorating department! In 2020 we had a minor fire which resulted in major redecorating of the house due to some smoke damage. She talked me into getting new speakers to replace the ones I built in 1976 at the age of 26. Too large and ugly. In 1976, after reading a couple of books on speaker building, I proceeded to build a large pair of ported speakers using 15" Altec-Lansing bass guitar woofers with horn tweeters and horn midranges. The horns were purchased from the now (long) defunct "Speakerlab" out of Seattle. I purchased a spool of 18G enameled wire (I still have the partial spool) and wound my own inductors. The crossover capacitors were surplus. A friend helped me cut the cabinets from birch plywood. They were never beautiful but they looked OK until they were used as plant stands and the tops got spoiled. Anyway, I purchased a used pair of Klipsch Forte II with upgraded crossovers as the replacement speakers. They are OK but not as good as my home-built, largeish size speakers. My listening room is now in our finished, (walk-up) attic. I saved all of the components (from the old speakers) so I could try and rebuild using a different cabinet design but unless I build them in the attic, it would be most difficult to get heavy speakers up the steep attic stairs. Anyway, for anyone considering "rolling their own", the results can be most pleasing. I do get the sense that most Audiogon members are typically not "do-it-themselvers".

To me, speakers with horn driven mid-ranges cannot be beat. As for the Altec-Lansing instrument speakers, they were always a little shy on low bass but contributed to the overall sound of what were very dynamic and beautiful sounding loudspeakers.

My second reference system (c. 1975) was Maggies and tubes (Dyna 70's). I've gone through many combinations over the years and I would still take Maggies & Tubes like I do mac & cheese: Bring It ON!

How I relate to the op is, I have a pair of speakers that excel at this so I listen to x til my ears fall off. 

New music is the best way to keep the boredom from catching up, that and a fantastic system.