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All Pre 1970 Vintage speakers suck! Prove me wrong

Have tried many vintage speakers.

My conclusion: All pre-1970 vintage speakers suck. Well-made but crappy  sound.

Used with both vintage amps and modern.

I do like many vintage amps such as Radio Craftsmen RC-500, Marantz tube, Scott tube, Heath W5, Lafayette and Pilot tube.

But back to pre-1970 speakers:

No bass, harsh, or honky mids and no highs. Not musical or listenable to me.

Tried many including Acoustic Research AR-3a, 2Ax, etc. The entire AR product line. Also Klipsch Horn, Large EVs. Altec VOTT. Pioneer CS-88 and 99.

Nothing pre 1970 is even close to the better modern speakers.

I challenge you: Prove me wrong.

lion
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,336 posts
 

180 out from the K-man....

 

raysmtb1's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
raysmtb1
793 posts
 

You are absolutely correct

realgoodsound
43 posts
 

Definitely the Rectilinear 3's.

deep_333
880 posts
 

True, a whole bunch of them were goofball designs...

larryi
3,756 posts
 

There are MANY good modern speakers that do almost everything well.  I like the top end Rockport speakers, Arion Acoustic planar magnetics, Maggies of all sort, and a lot of other modern designs.  But, almost all of them are dynamically a touch lifeless at low volume and do not engage my interest in the same way high efficiency systems, particularly horn systems do.  Is it a fault of the speaker or the kinds of amps needed to power such speakers?  The amps I really like are low power amps, particularly low power tube amps.  It doesn’t really matter which is to “blame.”

There are many modern systems that are high efficiency that I do like, but they are not commonly found.  I will mention a few I really like: Charney Audio Companion with AER driver (they come with several alternative); Cube Audio Nenuphar Basis (wide range driver system with a built in powered woofer); Songer Audio with field coil wide range drivers (both the single driver and two-way system); Audio Note AN-E.

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