I have fond memories of my old Fischer xp95c speakers I bought at venture in 1982, big a$$ 15’’ woofer, 2 x 5’’ cloth mid, 3’’ cloth tweeter and tone controls on the front. $250 in texas dollars would probably translate $1500 now.
Vintage speaker suggestions
Set up: 2 McIntosh Mc2120 solid state amps, C-26 pre amp, and MAC-1700 receiver. Not changing any components other than speakers. I have a pair of Pioneer CS 99-As and 2 pairs of Original Large Advents, neither sounded bad, but I think I could do better. Trying to spend around 1000 or less and keep it from the same era more or less.
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fond memories come back when thinking about the original (wonderful) epos es14 and celestion sl6 - had them in college and working just after they had the metal dome tweeters that could ring a plenty (was awful when the first cdp’s came out) but with a good record player - i remember my micro seiki dd40 with a sonus blue and microacoustic cart - the slightly rolled off vinyl sounded very sweet, very right with those tweets, and the midrange was just lovely! |
If you have big space, Altec A7 rocks. https://youtu.be/Dt5M4Kg0qRM https://youtu.be/V51SekzxIhc If you have medium space, Altec 19 may work well. |
One of the great exceptions to the typical bad design of 70's Japanese mid-fi speakers, are the Kenwood SB-7000. Good quality drivers, correctly aligned vertically and horizontally, correctly time aligned, sophisticated crossovers, and better than average cabinet construction for the time. If you can score a pair of these, consider yourself lucky. Oops... Of course I meant, "Technics SB-7000", not Kenwood. |
Pioneer CS 99-As and 2 pairs of Original Large Advents, neither sounded bad, but I think I could do better. Trying to spend around 1000 or less and keep it from the same era more or less. The vast majority of those 70's speakers from Japanese mid-fi brands, were a real mess. Those Pioneers are typical of the time, throw as many cheap paper drivers, with very little rime or reason to placement, causing who knows what sorts of lobing, and interference with the other drivers covering the same frequency ranges. Put it all in a particle board cabinet with minimal bracing. Only use a cap on the tweets to protect them, use electrolytic caps and iron core inductors. Not to mention, the electrolytic caps are far out of tolerance by now. Now, to be honest, I have never opened a pair of those particular Pioneer speakers, but I have had more than enough similar vintage speakers, some Pioneer, and they all look very similar inside. As far as the Advents, they are substantially better, because they are closer to following basic acoustic principals. But even they, have problems. The acoustic centers of the drivers are way to far apart, for example. And stacking them opens an entirely new set of problems, like lobing caused by 2 tweeters covering the same range, and problems with vertical dispersion. One of the great exceptions to the typical bad design of 70's Japanese mid-fi speakers, are the Kenwood SB-7000. Good quality drivers, correctly aligned vertically and horizontally, correctly time aligned, sophisticated crossovers, and better than average cabinet construction for the time. If you can score a pair of these, consider yourself lucky. https://www.springair.de/en/technics-sb-7000/45225 I do like all these sugestions from JJSS39 listed above: https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649699406-thiel-cs35-loudspeaker/ https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649609041-vandersteen-2ce-signature/ https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649779755-audio-physic-virgo/ -- https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649778583-flagship-nht-33-towers-rare-find/ -- These will all have more detail, be more accurate, and image so much better than your current speakers. Those NHT speakers were one of the truly unheralded, great speakers. |
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