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In Reply to: RE: RCA LC-1B - What possibly could go wrong? posted by Wojciech on August 07, 2014 at 23:50:38
Hearing a good, properly sorted pair might change your mind. Or maybe not. Mostly depends on your expectations. Like all speakers, the LC-1A's aren't perfect, but what they do well, they do very well.
Best to optimize your listening around a speaker's strengths, instead of 'forcing' a speaker to meet your expectations if it wasn't designed to do whatever it is you value sonically. Playing vintage speakers too loudly is a common modern audiophile habit, and often leads to disappointment. If a particular speaker doesn't suit your listening habits, source material, room, or electronics, get a different speaker, but don't damn the speaker just because it doesn't suit your application for it.
As regards Lowthers, I use mine what I'd consider to be 'correctly', which means exactly as intended by their designer--in vintage original, Lowther-built cabinets, running full range. (What you describe as 'correctly, I'd say is better described as 'experimentally', and I'm not surprised it has led to failure.) I can appreciate what Lowthers do well in their original configuration, without expecting that they should do 'everything'. With some recordings, on certain evenings, they are perfect for me. At other times, with other music, I switch to something else.
Yes, there were Jensen-sourced drivers in some older Magnavox units, and some are quite good. Not exactly sure it's correct to call them a Western Electric descendant, though, since WECo sourced their woofers from Jensen in the early days (just as Magnavox did).
The Tannoy 10's have always interested me. I had some Red 12's for a while, and they had virtues, but they have moved on. A 2 cu. ft. sealed box seems a poor match for a Tannoy, however.
Synergy is real. It's a bit harsh to call it 'all bollocks and junk compensating shortcomings of another junk'. You begin to sound like Romy. I prefer to think of it another way: No amplifier is perfect; no speaker is perfect; no recording; no preamp; no cartridge. If you are trying to build your audio system around finding perfect components, then assembling them into a perfect system, you are doomed to failure.
A useful analogy might be cars. There is no perfect car. Some do certain things very well, but are useless for other things. Your new Ferrari may be very fast, but it's useless for transporting lumber. A Smart car may get great gas mileage, but you can't fit the whole family in there. If you try to get a car that does everything well, you end up with something soulless and boring, like a Subaru Outback--decent mileage, decent space inside, reasonably reliable, has moderate gumption--but excels at nothing. Better to have a stable of cars, each suited to its purpose, and utilize them accordingly. I tend to do the same with speakers, amps, etc.
Best,
Follow Ups:
Actually , I'm quite easy to please. If the product is half good and doesn't cost $40k I hardly ever have a problem with it. Not that I don't post some nasty things from time to time but really, if those RCA's I heard just made some music , had proper tonal balance and resemblance of high quality units it would be alright
It exactly mirrors what Lynn Olson wrote about his experience with the speakers. I hope he will forgive me that I'll bring it up here.
"...I heard the elusive RCA LC-1A's, which I've wanted to hear for more than thirty years. The pair at the 2013 RMAF were in the appropriate prism-edged H.F. Olson (no relation) cabinets, and were powered with custom-made 50 DHT amplifiers. Quite beautiful, really, with the distinctive LC-1A cone with the famous little cones on them, as well as the "twiddler" tweeter. The front end was a suitably exotic turntable with the Frank Schroeder arm, and a Peter Ledermann cartridge. All quite impressive; no CD source or music server on this system, thank you very much. High expectations (I took the center seat in front, looking forward to the legendary RCA "Living Stereo" sound that I knew from many of my favorite recordings).
After all this buildup, what did the RCA LC-1A's sound like?
Ah well. Very tipped-up and out of balance. The bass in the 100~200 Hz range was at least 5 dB down from the 2~5 kHz range, and the treble, although not awful, was fairly ragged and somewhat distorted. The overall impression was very thin and threadbare sound, and high dynamics were not in evidence, despite the 15" driver. The imaging was non-existent, just a blur between the two drivers, with almost no directionality.
Gary Pimm, who visited many of the rooms on that day with me, was appalled. I was surprised, having read about the LC-1A for so many years, and having the utmost respect for H.F. Olson's work on microphones, loudspeakers, and acoustics.
After leaving the room, another show-goer mentioned that a pair of LC-1A's he knew of sounded considerably better than the pair at the show, and speculated that amplifiers might have been defective. Maybe, but I am a little dubious. It's really hard to give that particular spectral tilt to an amplifier; when things go wrong with SET's, they usually sound dull and murky, not thin and tinkly. Unless the output transformers were manufactured with a 200 Hz cutoff (almost no core at all), I can't imagine how any amplifier could sound like that.
Maybe the LC-1A's were not original and some wiseguy built their own cones, getting it completely wrong. I don't know. They certainly didn't sound anything like the FR curves seen in HF Olson's book, which are impressively flat for such an early loudspeaker.
So the RCA LC-1A's were both a surprise and a mystery; was that really the sound of the speaker, or were the amplifiers or phonostage defective? No way of telling. It was the last hours of the show on Sunday, so there was plenty of time to get the demo righ..."
Now I kind of wish I'd made the short drive down to RMAF last year. I decided not to go because I had become bored with RMAF and audio shows in general. All I ever hear is the sameness of the acoustics of the rooms (which are universally bad and so unlike any of my listening spaces that it makes useful auditions of equipment nearly impossible).The LC-1A's that Lynn describes must have been broken or misused somehow. When properly implemented, they are better than that. A lot.
I have had probably, I don't know, 20-30 LC-1A's of various incarnations through my hands and have seen and heard a bunch more. What's useful to keep in mind is that these speakers are more frequently than not damaged in some way as they were fragile from the beginning and did not age well. Their tweeters go bad (replacements are virtually unobtanium, though I know of a few). The surrounds on the woofers were treated with something when new that degrades over time (taking the paper surround with it). The cloth surrounds on the later versions were treated with something that becomes brittle over time, and skews the speakers' FR badly. There are VC alignment issues. And more. If you find one in ten that's in good nick, you're doing great.
All the above makes finding a good pair very difficult, and it's getting harder every day. I was just looking at a pair that were supposed to be in 'great' shape--owned by an ex RCA engineer who worked with Olson--but when I pulled them from the cabinets, there were the usual pushed in 'camel bumps' and fatigued surrounds. Mind you, they still played, but they weren't in the kind of condition that would interest me. If anyone wants them, they're still available (for pickup only in NJ).
We may have to agree to disagree on this, but I have LC-1A's here, and I know what I'm hearing.
Best,
Edits: 08/09/14
A differently spelled Lyn, jazz singer Lyn Stanley, said her record sounded just like the day that she made it. She sat and listened to the entire album on those old speakers. Three different online magazines listed the room as their favorite, too. So, it's different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Hey, that's what the hobby is all about, right? Otherwise, we would all have the exact same system.
I guess reference quality source i.e "exotic turntable" shone trough the somewhat imperfect rest of the chain :0)
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