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While cleaning up the third floor of my house, which has a huge room that accumulated all the stuff we never had another place for, my wife wanted music. And one of the things that managed to find itself there were my TC-50s. They were actually meant to be used for my bike trainer, but never were.
I used my iPhone7 with Tidal Hifi, my Dragonfly Black DAC, and an unknown class-D amp board held together with tape. I turned it on, hit play on the iPhone, and Chryssie Hynde and the Pretenders just started singing. I was dumbfounded on how good it sounded. They had much more bass than I remember, one of the reasons I eventually replaced them.
The drivers seem to be in good shape. I remember looking for replacements years ago, or maybe just reading about someone else looking, and they aren't available. (I seem to have a knack for owning irreplaceable equipment, Grace F9E stylus for another). As I recall too, these things are very inefficient, something like 81db. Even my big Proac clones need less power than these. Tube amps just can't drive them, another reason I stopped using them. I remember placing the TC-50s on top of the Proac clones and plugging them into my main system, leaving the volume where it was and it was barely audible. I had to turn it way up to get even soft listening levels.
Follow Ups:
what happened to Spica?
fanta, see the link in my comment.
"The piano ain't got no wrong notes." Thelonious Monk
but I suspect they still hold great admiration from those who have heard them. John Bau found a way to build very musical speakers with inexpensive components.
As the attached link to the coincidental article states, Parasound didn't necessarily "clone" the Spica design, they bought the rights to produce them.
"The piano ain't got no wrong notes." Thelonious Monk
It always surprised me that more people haven't attempted to clone these. I'm not counting Parasound doing the TC60 years ago. A friend who has owned SoundLab electrostatics for years once told me the Spica's( including the Angelus) were the only box speakers that sounded boxless to him. That was years ago though and a lot of today's box speakers pass that test easily.
I'll have to set them up properly so I can hear that imaging again. I just had them on the floor, barely separated from each other. It was only to keep music on while we were cleaning up.I also plugged my Frugal Horn single driver speakers into the same system when we moved to the basement to clean up down there, and the Spicas were much better.
Edits: 02/19/17
I think the Spica's represent somewhat of a timeless design.....much like the Quad 57 and many classic components from the past. May look dated by current standards, but make listening more involving than many modern offerings.
Nt
Yes, they make them but they are expensive. I found it hard to justify the price although I'm considering it again.
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