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In Reply to: RE: RCA LC-1B - What possibly could go wrong? posted by gilmorneau on August 08, 2014 at 19:52:14
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..."
Follow Ups:
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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