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My brother and I were talking about "Vintage" speakers.
The question is which speakers from the bygone eras would be considered among the best speakers ever made even in comparison to todays speakers?
Any suggestions?
Follow Ups:
Because of my financial circumstances during that era I was pretty much confined to going no higher than mid-priced speakers.
But one of the best of those IMO was the KLH Model Five, quite an outstanding bookshelf acoustic suspension design. Drove them with Dynaco electronics. The Five was a smooth, listenable speaker with pretty good bass - but laid-back sounding. It wasn't for those who liked a forward sound.
I regret I ever gave them up. Not that I would use them these days in a main system, but I think they would make nice speakers for a second system.
The first Soundlab A1, Magnepan Tympani IV with the ribbon tweeter, the original Apogee ribbon, the Duntech Sovereign, Thiel's 5i not to be confused with the “Point 5” the 5 was the flagship before the 7, both the 1983 ElectroVoice Patrician II 30th anniversary (which looked remarkably similar to an Infinity RS4.5 with the grilles on) and Hartley with the 24” woofers the EV had the 30”, I would mention the Dukane Ionovac tweeter but it came out in the 50s whereas Magnet in Germany introduced their plasma tweeter in the 80s and the Acapella plasma is out the time frame introduced in the 90s, Metaxas Audio in Australia with their ESL, most of those at the end of that time frame, and I'm probably forgetting a few others, like the Goldmund Dialogue sometime between 82 and 85, and the Westlake Audio monitors from the 70s to 80s.
Plus, some already mentioned; back at the beginning of course there was the Quad esl 57 then their esl 63, and the JansZen esl models in the 60s and 70s, the KLH 9s and the Decca and Strathern ribbons, the Heil Air Motion Transformer tweeter, the Dahlquist DQ10, the Fulton J Modular (often ignored and almost forgotten but it influenced Wilson with his WAMM system as both used KEF B139 woofers and JansZen or RtR esl tweeter panels), B&W with their Matrix speakers the first 801 and 802 series were in that time frame, Acoustic Research with the invention of the dome tweeter and the first use of ferrofluid cooling, the Snell Acoustics speakers, and Shahinian's Obelisk and the Vandersteen 2 both introduced back in 1977, Infinity RS-1B the baby version of the IRS and their first flagship speaker the Infinity Servo Static in 1968 also their QLS which used the Braun 2” midrange domes in a 6 pair line array (they may have been OEM'd from Philips but it was copycatting the Braun design mid dome); Acoustat and Dayton Wright electrostatics from the 70s to early 80s and at the end of that time frame the Martin Logan CLS and STAX F-83 and F81.
Not to mention the mini monitors; BBC Rogers LS3/5a, the Braun L100 and ADS models back in the 70s, ProAc tablettes introduced in 79, Celestion SL-600 with the aluminum case, Sequerra metronome and his ribbon tweeter, and the Spica TC 50 from 1983. Some might include the RS Minimus 7 made for 28 years and the cheapest speaker on this list.
Numerous outstanding speaker systems were introduced during that time frame. I don't believe that the subsequent twenty years 1986 to 2006 had quite as much innovation.
The Snell Type A series 1-3 was an outstanding design .It was in production from the late 70's to the early 90's.
It really is impressive the number of remarkable designs that came out of that era.
It is interesting to note that the wide baffle speaker typified by the Snell Type A, Infinity RS 4.5, ElectroVoice Patrician II, and one I forgot to list, the Crown ES 212 and its big brother the ES-224 which had a massive array of RtR tweeters, 48 in total, even more than the Wilson WAMM which only had 18, all had their heyday in the late 70s to early 80s and were all but gone by 1990. The only recent speaker of that design I can think of is the Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage.
PS. As a side note, if anyone cares, the Crown ES series problem was that they tried to crossover the RtR array at too low a frequency 375 hz, using the ESLs as a midrange which they are not. Wilson's WAMM array was used above 5 kHz, strictly tweeter territory and much easier to drive the electrostatic panels; far less distortion too above 2 kHz. Even the original JansZen esl only used the panels above 1500hz and that was pushing them to go that low.
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My speaker of choice in the early 80s was the Ohm F. Had to be at least 4 feet from *any* wall to really shine.
Robert C. Lang
The Altec Model 19 from the late 1970s has a large following among hornys who are not otherwise into vintage gear.
You're looking at 20 years of what many consider to be the "golden age" of loudspeaker design. The list of developments during this period is very long, so the list of notable models is also going to be long. Here's some of my favorites from that period:
Quad ESL 57 and ESL 63
B&W DM6 and 801
IMF TLS 50 and RSPM Mk IV
Dahlquist DQ 10
Spendor BC1
Dynaco A25
Magneplanar Tympani 1D
Value based but great nevertheless (some of us college-based back then):
Original wood Large Advent
Dynaco A35
The Energy 22 and Reference Connoiseur are still competitive with modern designs. They are claimed to be the best selling Canadian speaker design ever...and Canada has had a fair number of quality speaker companies, given the relatively small population...Energy, Mirage, PSB, Totem, Paradigm being the big ones.
I would think that any of the older Klipsch designs would have to make the list, and I'm sure JBL and Altec could be included also.
Chris
nt
"What did the Romans ever do for us?"
across that period of time as well as before/after. It is a matter of what you want to define as 'great'. Frankly, the UREI studio monitors, JBL systems, Altec systems, and many assorted boutique speakers can all qualify, IMHO.
Much like tasting wine, there will be as many opinions as there are people who comment.
Cheers,
David
Tannoy DualCincentrics ie Monitor Gold, HPD and K series.
Tannoys older cabs can be a bit dicey but the drivers are top notch.
Monitors
BBC monitors various LS3/5a's
JR 149's
Fulton FMI-80 bookshelf and then the Fulton J systemNE bookshelf type boxes
Advent original
some say AR 3 and 3a (esp for bass)
these can compete pretty well for bass, although treble falls offyou argue about the JBL, Bozak, Klipsch, etc. genre
Planars
KLH 9's
Magneplanar Tympanis
Infinity Servo StaticsVandersteen 1 and 2 in it's various forms (still current)
B & W ? used often for monitoring of classical recordings
Interesting pic of a pr of stacked large monitors.
Edits: 11/12/10
Dahlquist DQ-10's, ADS, Cizek, Spendor BC-1's, for a start.
Quad still made the original ESL till I think about 1982 and I consider that the best speaker ever made.
"Lock up when you're done and don't touch the piano."
-Greg House
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