Vintage speakers- do they hold up?

[Roy_L]

I've owned several vintage speakers over the years- old kefs, spendor (BC1, SP1), polk audio (monitor 5, 7, 10b), klipsch, rogers, JBL (L-65) and others, dating from the 70's to the 90's (I suppose early 90's may be considered as 'vintage').
Some were better than others, but I don't recall any of them sounding as clean as I'm used to from modern speakers. Some were pretty good (like the jbl L-65) and some were very disappointing (like the BC1).

Do you know of any vintage speakers that really hold up, on objective grounds, against well engineered modern speakers?

My (subjective) guess is that drivers (Especially tweeters) came a very long way since the 70's, and kinda stayed in place since the late 90's. But I may be wrong. What say you?

 

[Willem]

They also deteriorate. That said, I own a pair of the original Quad els57s and a pair of modern 2805s. The old ones still impress and the family resemblance is there ( I could happily live with them) but the new 2805s are clearly better. They are my ultimate 'not there' speaker. It is just the music suspended in space.

 

[Cahudson42]

Unfortunately many vintage used foam surrounds which will have disintegrated. So unless you are into refoaming and can get them for peanuts, best stay away. Like all old Advents.. I'd suggest checking for foam as a first sort, then proceed to evaluate if foam is not a problem.

 

[q3cpma]

Depends on what you consider vintage. I guess that the legendary Japanese active super-speakers could maybe do it:

Sony SS-GR1 (1992, ￥1,100,000)
http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-SS-GR1.html
https://audio-heritage.jp/SONY-ESPRIT/speaker/ss-gr1.html

Yamaha GF-1 (1991, ￥7,000,000)
http://www.thevintageknob.org/yamaha-GF-1.html
https://audio-heritage.jp/YAMAHA/speaker/gf-1.html

or the more reasonable NS-1000 family.


Not really vintage, but the o500c which everybody wants to see Neumann revive is also cool:

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Unless a vintage speaker is incredibly well taken care of, I would steer away from them. As mentioned above, the foam surrounds of some woofers deteriorate in about 15 years even under the best of conditions, and consumer speaker manufacturing and development has come quite a long way since the 70s or even 90s.

 

[Chrispy]

Just being old don't make it vintage, but would think that speakers that truly are considered vintage still hold up fairly well.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Just being old don't make it vintage, but would think that speakers that truly are considered vintage still hold up fairly well.

I am using the same speakers I bought in the early 70s and they perform great, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Sure, some JBLs or other higher end vintage speakers might be completely OK, but the average "consumer vintage" speaker is likely to not be doing so well.

 

[Roy_L]

P.s.- a clarification- all speakers were technically cared for very well by a professional I know.

 

[oldandintheway]

And here is another caution: parts. I own some B&W speakers and although they do not have the common foam rot issue, many replacement parts are no longer available. I have seen things like Matrix 805's from the 90's sell for as little as $200 a pair because they need tweeters which you can't get. Tweeters can get physically damaged, over driven, or have the ferrofluid fail. All of which is a modern management disgrace. I toured the HD motorcycle factory once, they had a room full of blueprint drawers and retiree machinists who would make you needed parts for any Harley ever made. Porsche also supports their "classic" products back to the beginning. Speaker companies, even if still in business, seem to think the legal minimum is enough. A $5,000 or $10,000 pair of speakers is not a toaster!

 

[HemiRick]

I'm using these late 60's Pioneers my dad bought in Okinawa in my garage, they still work great.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

P.s.- a clarification- all speakers were technically cared for very well by a professional I know.

Did this 'professional' smoke? Being in an environment where somebody smoked can be horrible not only for speakers but electronics (switches can be rendered almost unusable).

I mention this because the answer to your question is "it depends". Some deterioration is beyond the control of even the most conscious owners; I've had to re-foam some of my speakers a couple times for instance. Some speakers use adhesives which deteriorate over time. Even rubber surrounds can deteriorate. A close inspection (and knowing what to look for) is the only way to tell.

 

[Ericglo]

Depends on what you consider vintage. I guess that the legendary Japanese active super-speakers could maybe do it:


Yamaha GF-1 (1991, ￥7,000,000)
http://www.thevintageknob.org/yamaha-GF-1.html
https://audio-heritage.jp/YAMAHA/speaker/gf-1.html

or the more reasonable NS-1000 family.

Floyd Toole said that the designer went for flat sound power. In later models, Yamaha supposedly followed Floyd's principles. Troels redesigned the crossover recently.

I would love to hear the new Yamaha NS5000s.

 

[Roy_L]

Did this 'professional' smoke? Being in an environment where somebody smoked can be horrible not only for speakers but electronics (switches can be rendered almost unusable).

I mention this because the answer to your question is "it depends". Some deterioration is beyond the control of even the most conscious owners; I've had to re-foam some of my speakers a couple times for instance. Some speakers use adhesives which deteriorate over time. Even rubber surrounds can deteriorate. A close inspection (and knowing what to look for) is the only way to tell.

The professional is a technician in his 60's that serviced some of these products for hifi stores, back then when they were originally imported (some before I was born...). Nowadays he operates a store which sells old renovated hifi gear. Some of these speakers were bought from him, others I just gave him for inspection.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The professional is a technician in his 60's that serviced some of these products for hifi stores, back then when they were originally imported (some before I was born...). Nowadays he operates a store which sells old renovated hifi gear. Some of these speakers were bought from him, others I just gave him for inspection.

I would still inspect them yourself and just as importantly, play a lot of music through them before buying.

 

[Digital Mastering System]

My large Advents have had their foam woofer surrounds replaced three times over the years. Not expensive - $35 per woofer. I recently went through and replaced the crossover caps with good polypropylene versions and the Advents continue to sound pretty, pretty good. Surrounds are still available as are NOS tweeters on ebay.

 

[thewas]

Floyd Toole said that the designer went for flat sound power. In later models, Yamaha supposedly followed Floyd's principles. Troels redesigned the crossover recently.

That comment of Toole was though about the older NS-1000(M) and NS-10, where he also said that with a tiny bit of EQ you can correct the first ones easily to great neutrality and thus sound.
I can confirm that, on my classic stereo setup my Japanese 1979 competitors of the NS-1000 with just a bit of EQ replaced my modern Kali IN-8 and even a friend of mine who owns a pair of Neumann KH-420 loves them.
But as written from others these are rather exceptions having both great acoustic engineering and quality driver and crossover components that don't deteriorate significantly. The only larger acoustic difference I notice compared to good modern loudspeakers is that their drivers have lower SPL limits compared to modern "Klippel-optimized" similar sized driver designs.

 

[Inner Space]

Did this 'professional' smoke? Being in an environment where somebody smoked can be horrible not only for speakers but electronics (switches can be rendered almost unusable).

Do you have evidence or data for this? Or is it just lay intuition? Or unthinking prejudice? I ask because I worked in studios for 20 years, back when nearly everyone smoked, and we never had any material damage to speakers, electronics or switches.

 

[Inner Space]

I would love to hear the new Yamaha NS5000s.

I use them in my main system and they're wonderful. Possibly the perfect speaker for me. I was a longstanding NS-1000 fan, and the 5000 builds on the virtues and avoids the snags.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Do you have evidence or data for this? Or is it just lay intuition? Or unthinking prejudice? I ask because I worked in studios for 20 years, back when nearly everyone smoked, and we never had any material damage to speakers, electronics or switches.

Uh, decades of working in audio, in studios, restoring, maintaining? You're lucky that you haven't had to deal with cigarette smoke crud on the insides of electronics or on the surface of speaker cones. Its real.

 

[Ericglo]

I use them in my main system and they're wonderful. Possibly the perfect speaker for me. I was a longstanding NS-1000 fan, and the 5000 builds on the virtues and avoids the snags.

Did you buy them sight unseen? Unfortunately they aren't available in the US (or at least they weren't)