My old Avid 330's, sheepishly guilty pleasure


Can anyone tell me more about my vintage 3-way speakers ? I remain fond of my ROCKIN Avid 330's. Simple non-vented, shallow, rectangular enclosures, with 3 vertically aligned speakers, and a room balance control for the high and mid range speaker set.

I understand that Avid is long-gone ... relegagted to manufacturing disposable airline headphones or some such (embarassing) venture.

These speakers are my guilty pleasure. An early childhood purchase ... and I can't seem to part with them. They have a hefty magnet driven (10inch) woofer, with a pair of matching soft dome mid range and tweeter. They produce a surprisingly detailed voice. Very forward and in your face. Yet capable of reproducing a balanced range of frequencies. They still sound great, even after my amatuerish re-foam job.

I bought these in the 70's for a bargain price from a pretty smart (now defunct) "high-end" SF Bay Area ... I think it was called "Sound Distinction". My brother and I squandered a few dollars in our time purchasing 1/2 mastered Nautilus vinyl from that shop.

I think of these as the little muscle-car in my speaker garage

Any insights ... is it time break these things up for firewood ?
fountainhead
Ahh, a thread about Avid speakers. Brings back good memories

My first "real" HIFI speakers were a pair of Avid 102's. Had them for 3-4 years until I replaced them with a pair of ADS L520's. I gave the 102's to my younger brother and I think they did end up being firewood. Sad.
Just found your Q today and sorry for the very slooooow response. I bought my 330 speakers directly from Avid at the 1978 NY Audio Show for an insanely low price because the Avid guys didn't want to schlepp them back to RI and threw in the Avid stands for free when my friend and I picked them up Sunday night. I always enjoyed their sound as compared to the other speakers back in the day replacing my Maggie 12s which suffered from severe UV degradation in a very short amount of time (Lyric HiFi gave my money back :) ). I found them to be very articulate and detailed without being fatiguing and with plentiful bass from the big 12" woofers that were patterned after the AR 3 woofers - they may have been the same but I don't know that for sure. I always had the settings attenuated for the mid and tweeter because the Phase Linear 400 amp and 1000 preamp were a bit bright.  I still use them today in my second system in my home office but the X-overs need to be rebuilt and I need to replace the woofers as they have been refoamed 3x and the edges are rather thin. I still enjoy their sound but they can't compare with my Revel Ultima Studios.