Measuring Some Vintage Speakers

[bconline]

I thought this group would be interested in how some vintage speakers compare to each other under the same measuring conditions. I have a collection of vintage speakers and simple measuring setup. No Klippel machine for me! I measured the frequency response of each speaker with:

• Laptop PC with Creative soundcard
• REW software
• Dayton UMM-6 microphone, with calibration loaded in REW
• Random Denon amplifier
• 1 meter distance, on the tweeter axis
• 20x24 garage with hard floor and 9.5' ceiling
• Small amount of damping on the floor

All of the measurement suffer from a floor bounce dip at ~80-90hz depending on the height of the woofer and mic. Sorry about that.

Here's the setup.

Here's the collection.

Here's all the graphs together. I'll post each frequency response curve separately.

 

[bconline]

First up is a not-so-vintage Revel Performa3 F206. It's a 3-way with dual 6.5" woofers. Sounds very good to my ears. Smooth response with pretty good bass extension.

 

[bconline]

Next up is a custom 3-way with dual 8" Dayton Audio woofers, which I've named Ellipsa for its shape. The design is in this old thread with over 2000 posts.

 

[bconline]

Getting into vintage territory, we have the JBL L100T 3-way with ported 12" and titanium dome tweeter. My uncle was the orignal owner of this pair from the mid 1980's.

 

[bconline]

Back to a custom speaker with a Focal 6" kevlar woofer and 1" inverted kevlar dome tweeter. Time aligned baffle with removable outer frame.

 

[bconline]

This one is an MLTL that I built using the Mark Audio Alpair 10.2 full range driver. Remarkable bass from a 4.5" driver. However, the driver has a peak at ~8khz. The measurement also suffers from more floor/ceiling bounce problems due to the high mounted "woofer". I use this set daily with DSP to even out the in-room response.

 

[bconline]

This one is a true classic - Yamaha NS1000M studio monitor from the 1970's and '80's. Most known for its 3.5" beryllium dome midrange and matching beryllium dome tweeter. Very crisp and clear, but a bit shy on bass. I thought about extending the cabinet and porting it, but didn't want to cut up this nice pair.

 

[bconline]

Another classic monitor - JBL 4311 WXA. Professional version of the L100. More bass than the NS1000M. Maybe a little too much bass, but drops off below 50hz.

 

[bconline]

Another custom pair named "Sound Mirror" by its builder (not me). Uses Scanspeak or Vifa 8" kevlar woofer and a passive radiator. Nice cabient work.

 

[bconline]

Moving onto stand-mount speakers, the Infinity IL-10 was known to measure very flat, so I keep it for reference.

 

[bconline]

A more modern speaker - Focal Chorus 806V with 6.5" woofer.

 

[bconline]

One of the rare Sony SS-M3's. Supurb cherry wood work. Mint condition from a former Sony marketing executive. The sound could use help on the bottom and top.

 

[bconline]

Monitor Audio S2 with 8" woofer and C-CAM tweeter. Nicely balanced sound in my room.

 

[Curvature]

Could you please do 10 degree and 30 degree horizontal off-axis measurements as well?

 

[bconline]

The last two are Boston Acoustics VR-M50 and VR-M60. The difference is woofer size (5.25"/ 6.5") and cabinet size. Solid build.

 

[restorer-john]

Back to a custom speaker with a Focal 6" kevlar woofer and 1" inverted kevlar dome tweeter. Time aligned baffle with removable outer frame.

View attachment 360220 View attachment 360219 View attachment 360221

That's a really nice looking speaker and build.

With a little bit of crossover tweaking/measuring, it could be a winner. When did you buy/build that- a while ago?

 

[amirm]

Wow, that is incredible amount of work. I promoted it to home page.

 

[zman01]

bconline,

Thanks for doing the measurements and sharing.

 

[MacClintock]

Nice work. Unsurprisingly, the Revel F208 looks the smoothest, but this Ellipsa is not bad at all.

 

[mctron]

Fun post thanks for the effort