The woofers could have already been damaged. They’re older speakers now and the only way to service them is having the drivers rebuilt or finding used drivers on the secondary market.
Help with Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grand
About 8 years ago, I had a friend who scored a pair of the Beethoven Concert Grand speakers. He was powering them with a powerful 2 channel amplifier from Emotiva. It was at least 200WPC, possibly more. They sounded great. Good resolution and complete from top to bottom with good bass and slam.
I decided to grab a used pair in great condition. I took them home and hooked them up to my Crown XLS602 370WPC at 8ohm amplifier. Yes its an atypical amplifier for home use and its not an audiophile amplifier, but it sure has a lot of slam and bass. It has never failed in forcing bass and slam out of any other speaker I have ever auditioned in my living room. It has actually bettered many boutique amplifiers I have owned in this regard.
I hooked the speakers up and the treble was good but for some reason, the woofers on both speakers barely moved. They all worked, sound was coming out of all of them, it was just a very anemic response and they all moved the exact same amount. The tweeters and the mids worked OK. I think I tried reversing polarity on the wires but it was the same result. I tried adjusting the gain knob on the amp, same result. I tried different songs, same result. The amp was at least as powerful as my buddies set up but failed to move the cones anywhere near as much. The result was very poor bass and slam. I am pretty sure the speakers were already broken in before I got them, they are not a new model.
I was very disappointed. I ended up getting rid of them not long after.
This has always bothered me. What do you guys think was up with the speakers?
9 responses Add your response
I have a pair of Beethovens Tweeter sold around 2000 and they still work great. I've used all manner of amps, B&K, Classe, Krell, parasound, Anthem, Hegel, and currently have an ancient 70 wpc 5.1 Harmon Kardon AVR driving them and the speakers are the most indifferent to source as any high resolution speaker I've owned. Makes me think either the speakers were damaged or your setup differed so much from your buddies that you didn't get the same boundary effect. The Beethovens have a warm full bodied sound, but spl is limited to mid 90 db's so even with massive power spl will be limited. |
paradisecom252 posts The woofers could have already been damaged. They’re older speakers now and the only way to service them is having the drivers rebuilt or finding used drivers on the secondary market.
Yea, I guess I should face up to this very real possibility. But for ALL of the cones to be damaged in this manner? There was no sound of a broken cone, just anemic response... |
knock1159 posts "I think it would be good idea to try different amp. However, if your Crown worked well with your other speakers...? Still, lack of synergy, maybe."
Yea, perhaps synergy issue. I dont think I had another amp on hand to try at that time though. |
dekay5,329 posts What power cord were you using?
Was using standard generic power cord, nothing special.
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