Sorry, was thinking about ATC, then Harbeth with their deliberately retro design philosophy came to mind.
Will edit.
-
Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Human Speakers 81 dk Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Will edit.dtaylo1066
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2019
- Messages
- 809
- Likes
- 1,138
As a high school junior I bought a pair of EPI 100s, a standard bearer of their time. I had a 25 watt per channel HK integrated amplifier and a BIC turntable, later adding a Teac A4300 reel to reel. Pretty bad ass sound for a HS student. The EPIs sounded great to my ears, but I have no idea how they would measure today, and back then Advent speakers were a star performer, and some loved Bose 901s. A guy in a frat house I knew had some very high end separates, maybe SAE, a Thorens table and Heil AMT 1s. After smoking a joint and listening to Miracles by Jefferson Starship I was mesmerized.
I would not want any of my HS/college components today. The Teac was a stellar unit in its day, and could blow away the hissy cassette decks coming out, even those with early Dolby NR. The Teac was great for college party tapes. I think a mint condition one today can fetch $500 or so on eBay. I think the signal to noise ratio was 55db or so.
I never liked tape hiss. The first time I heard a CD, a recording without hiss, clicks or pops and a black background, I though I had reached a state of nirvana and a tear came to my eye.
I bought a turntable a few years ago just to play the many albums I had in the basement in boxes from the 70s and 80s. They sound far better on my modern equipment than my HS/College set up. But I will never die on the vinyl sword. On a very clean album vinyl can sound pretty darned good, but many records sound compressed or click and pop like mad. I'll take a good digital recording any time.
I would kind of like to A/B compare the EPI 100s against my current DIY SEAS monitors. I am pretty certain it would be a blow out. After the EPIs I purchased some Vandersteen 1Bs. Never really liked them. My SEAS DIY blow them out of the water.
If nostalgia is your thing, go Human, if not I would say your money is far better spent elsewhere.
I would not want any of my HS/college components today. The Teac was a stellar unit in its day, and could blow away the hissy cassette decks coming out, even those with early Dolby NR. The Teac was great for college party tapes. I think a mint condition one today can fetch $500 or so on eBay. I think the signal to noise ratio was 55db or so.
I never liked tape hiss. The first time I heard a CD, a recording without hiss, clicks or pops and a black background, I though I had reached a state of nirvana and a tear came to my eye.
I bought a turntable a few years ago just to play the many albums I had in the basement in boxes from the 70s and 80s. They sound far better on my modern equipment than my HS/College set up. But I will never die on the vinyl sword. On a very clean album vinyl can sound pretty darned good, but many records sound compressed or click and pop like mad. I'll take a good digital recording any time.
I would kind of like to A/B compare the EPI 100s against my current DIY SEAS monitors. I am pretty certain it would be a blow out. After the EPIs I purchased some Vandersteen 1Bs. Never really liked them. My SEAS DIY blow them out of the water.
If nostalgia is your thing, go Human, if not I would say your money is far better spent elsewhere.
It looks like it was designed by Danny.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2019
- Messages
- 73
- Likes
- 114
24 8inch woofers per side should be more than 480cm..
DMill
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2022
- Messages
- 1,175
- Likes
- 1,721
He also compared the Linton to a similar looking speaker that also performed pretty well. I forgot the name though.
Absolutely. In the past 10 years I've owned probably 50 sets of speakers. My absolute favorite have been the Genesis Model 210. These have such a pleasing sound with great bass extension thanks to the 8" woofer and 10" passive radiator along with smooth mids/highs (at least to my ears).
I actually haven't ever measured these speakers because I don't want to see objective faults. I just want to continue living in blissful ignorance.
I'll continue to A/B them against my future speaker finds and maybe someday I'll find something good enough to replace them. My girlfriend actually wanted to replace them with Pioneer HPM-100 I did a full restore on and I put a hard stop to that nonsense lol
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2020
- Messages
- 444
- Likes
- 1,135
KLH model 5.
Before I purchased my KEFs, I seriously considered the Lintons, but I couldn’t deal with monkey coffins no matter how nice they might sound.
Owned Genesis 2‘s with the lime green surrounds and ten inch passive radiators in the late 70’s. Without a high pass filter, they looked like the monkey was declared deceased somewhat presumptuously, and trying desperately to escape.
Must say, regardless of one’s opinion of Human Speakers, the website is kind of fun for some of us who are youth challenged. ; )
This company makes GR Research look modern. The website has a stunning lack of measurements and based on Amir's review, must be measuring with some major smoothing. Agree the website has a distinct retro flair to it.
Unless this model is defective, clearly it did not come close to a +/- 2 dB over its stated bandwidth. As @amirm's illness has bought some time, will be very interested to see if the designer comes forward before Amir's completes the review.
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2020
- Messages
- 444
- Likes
- 1,135
Ouch! Not that I disagree…just that GR research is kind of circling down the drain of the audio cesspool around here.
If I were the designer of the 81dk the last place I’d want to show my face was at ASR.
The website holds interest because of my history with the Genesis 2’s. EPI was well respected in the day. What can I say? I’m a sentimental old guy who used to drool over this stuff. Fond memories, even if I was completely clueless at the time. ; )
This is not incorrect, but I think we should give more credit to how skilled some loudspeaker designers were before the advent of windowed PC based FFT measurements. Some of these guys were doing amazing things to create good sound, including manipulating directivity in extremely progressive ways, using little more than their intuition.
Burhoe and others like Steve Eberbach of DCM had a completely unique understanding of loudspeakers and an intuition which has since become extinct. Are our speakers today better? Absolutely. Did these guys make the wrong assumptions about what their speakers were doing and design with the wrong priorities? Certainly, but they deserve a lot of credit for pushing the art forward.
I mean just imagine trying to sit down and design a tweeter based only on what existed at the time (maybe the a/d/s tweeter was the best out there) and doubt you'd come up with something as good as the inverted dome.
AuricGoldfinger
Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2023
- Messages
- 68
- Likes
- 116
This speaker is so overwhelmingly horrid that it makes junk like the Minimus 7 look good in contrast. At least the 7s can be fixed.
And I wouldn’t let Danny of GR Research touch my speakers. Ever.
And I wouldn’t let Danny of GR Research touch my speakers. Ever.
yes, would have to be pretty brave to post but could simply contact Amir.
Know what you mean but just about every time I get sentimental, I get reminded of how much better my equipment is now. Had a younger guest over for holidays and he expressed interest in my (barely used) AT120 turntable. It took me a day and I offered it to him a pretty good deal on it. Call me pragmatically sentimental but the only album I thought I might need to transcribe is available on Apple Music.
Hey now, I think the Minimus 7 are perfectly adequate for surround duty in a living room home theater or as test speakers for old amps which may or may not obliterate connected speakers.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2019
- Messages
- 1,426
- Likes
- 2,143
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2019
- Messages
- 1,426
- Likes
- 2,143
I sold a fuktonne of KLH 5s back in the day. Just about everybody who came in wanting AR-3As left with a pair of those KLHs -- not because they were better, but because the company made more $$$ on KLH because AR products had to be deeply discounted in order to close the sale and our boss instructed us to "sell away" from any product for which there was intense price competition. The 5's predecessor, the 4, was also an impressive speaker in its day -- my first wife's maternal uncle had a pair literally on a bookshelf, driven by a top-notch Sony amp and preamp. I blame Uncle Murray for my audio addiction -- his wedding present to us was a Sony R-R deck with built-in magnetic cartridge phono preamp, stereo amp, and detachable speakers with an AR turntable and Shure M44. I eventually replaced the two 4" full-range drivers in each Sony speaker with beefier Jensens I nabbed through the good offices of their rep and gave it to the impoverished drummer in my band. I kept the turntable and -- after replacing the cartridge (with a Shure V15 Type II), the (clock!) motor, and belt (at least four times!) -- I used it well into the 1990s.
phoenixdogfan
Major Contributor
"Well, I don't think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error."
It looks like my 70s Large Advent speaker. I wonder how it would test out today? But it was better than the speaker it replaced --original Bose 901. LOLI agree, it's 1970's tacky fugly too!
joke
"Twenty four 8" woofers and forty eight 1" tweeters are mounted in each cabinet (some are not visible from the front)."
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
Yep, it does look like those after I googled "70s Large Advent Speaker":
Similar threads
- Poll
