MC-1000: Best Speaker in the World?

[pavuol]

And think how much child's where made while this speakers was playing??
More respect!

..while listeners having that "Realistics" feeling

 

[tomtoo]

..while listeners having that "Realistics" feeling

Not shure if i get banned, but hey this is a fu**ing realistic fu**ing speaker. Tha best in the world!

 

[Thomas_A]

Just after these speakers were available, there is a significative rate of birth increase in the USA concerning the so-called Millenials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom
View attachment 48836

Millennials, also known as Generation Y (or simply Gen Y), are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with 1981 to 1996 a widely accepted definition. Millennials are somatises referred to as "echo boomers" due to a major surge in birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s, and because millennials are often the children of the baby boomers. The characteristics of millennials vary by region and by individual, and the group experiences a variety of social and economic conditions, but they are generally marked by their coming of age in the Information Age, and are comfortable in their usage of digital technologies and social media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

That was an ugly response, 16 dB window!

 

[anmpr1]

If you look at magazines from the '50s 'n '60s, or remember from then, a lot of the hi-fi experience was quite removed from today's thinking. Acoustic suspension (small box) loudspeakers were typically not placed directed toward a critical listening 'sweet spot', but hidden away, on top of bookshelves close to ceilings, underneath end tables or used as tables. Perhaps installed within combination console cabinets along with a TV, some firing off to the the side. Larger speakers with wide dispersion devices such as exponential horns/lenses, or boxes with multiple drivers could be counted on for filling in a larger space with diffused sound. I don't recall pinpoint 3-D imaging as a major concern for the masses until the '70s. Maybe it never was a concern for most buyers.

This speaker, from the late '70s, was probably a dorm-room or apartment special. By that time, RS was not considered 'audiophile', but rather a place you could go to get a resistor, some fuses, a tape splicer, etc. Dry cell batteries and later a CB radios. Their hi-fi line was often sold as packaged sets--something just to fill a room with sound, any sound, and if you didn't have much money you could buy on time. PCs came later and changed their marketing. They had some interesting boxes, however being proprietary that market went south after a few years (with the introduction of IBM clones from mail order outfits... Zeos, Gateway, etc). Last I heard it was a place for cell phones. I don't think I've been in a RS in twenty or thirty years. Now just a memory.

Here's a Web link you can go to check out the old catalogs.

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

 

[tomtoo]

I think the history of RS is very interesting. I'am german so we didnt had. But i think this must have been the golden shop for diy people.

 

[anmpr1]

I think the history of RS is very interesting. I'am german so we didnt had. But i think this must have been the golden shop for diy people.

Back then, if something broke you could likely troubleshoot and fix it. 'Parts' were once a large part of their business. In fact, I think the last time i actually purchased something at RS was a mini-fuse you found in Quad electronics. I needed some for my 33/405. In the US they were an odd-ball size, but RS had some.

No. I had a Tandy Coco (color computer) which was essentially a toy--I bought that at one of their stores. Also had a business-level Tandy 2000, but at that time Tandy had stand-alone computer stores, apart from their RS business. It ran a custom version of MS-DOS. Text only, but could perform word processing, spreadsheet, database. Very modern and fast. Monochrome monitor. Dot matrix printer. Very expensive and ultimately a dead-end purchase. But that's almost any PC from those days. I think I sold it at a yard sale for twenty dollars! Might have been ten.

 

[Timbo2]

They have Nova and Optimus above them and then of course, the mighty Mach ones!

Several of my friends and I worked at Radio Shack during high school and college. We referred to the might Mach One as the "Mach Boom". We all thought that it had overemphasized bass.

 

[Timbo2]

I don’t get your humour. At times I thought you were being serious but your measurements show you aren’t.

Are you a native English speaker? Among my English as a second language friends most tell me they often struggle to recognize English sarcasm. My Japanese friends struggle the most with this.

 

[mhardy6647]

ummm...



FWIW, with very very few exceptions, I've found the R/S "monkey coffin" loudspeakers I've encountered to be the polar opposite of transparent sounding... I'd call them opaque. EDIT: Very much of the boom and sizzle school of hifi loudspeaker design They sold themselves from those metal shelves in the stores in malls across America North America the world!

FWIW.

But, yeah, they sold zillions of their speakers -- I think mostly when they had their regular buy one, get one sales. The R/S loudspeakers weren't nearly as bad at half their list price (IMO).

Oh, speaking of which... a pair of Minimus 7s would be really a keen test article! Especially bone stock.
It'd be even keener (or niftier, if you prefer) to compare them to the loudspeakers that they were ripped off from I mean to which they paid homage -- you know, Visonik Davids, the ads 200, or even 300. That sort of thing.

source: http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/ page 43

Sorry, I kinda drifted off topic. Kinda.

 

[AudioTodd]

MC series was basically the cheapest Tandy Corporation made. They have Nova and Optimus above them and then of course, the mighty Mach ones!

Have a look at the "crossover". It will likely be a single electro and maybe an inline resistor to tame the tweeter. Nothing for the woofer, they probably ran it full range with a "natural" rolloff.

Whatever you may like to say about Realistic speakers, they did sell more Minimus 7 speakers than any other speaker in the history of HiFi. They came with a virtually unconditional 5 year warranty and at their peak, there were 9500 stores worldwide.

My gosh, what’s wrong with such a crossover? My old AAL 15” woofer-equipped speakers had such a “design” and they ROCKED UNTIL YOUR EARS BLED!!! PLUS the main contributor of another forum swears by some old PA speakers and referred to the brilliance and extensive work of the engineers who designed just such a crossover for them. Something about “no components to suck the energy out of the signal” or something like that...

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Makes you wanna play Babwa singing "Memories", doesn't it?

 

[Juhazi]

Cone tweeters aren't that bad actually, soft paper cone flexes and makes response and dispersion rather good, better than modern 3" hard cones!
Distortion peaks at 2-4kHz must come mainly because it looks like all drivers share same box air volume! I was surprised that response and distortion were that good. Horizontal directivity is ruined because mid and tweeter are side by side.

 

[Xulonn]

I don’t get your humour. At times I thought you were being serious but your measurements show you aren’t.

Ah yes! Satire and sarcasm. I enjoyed the review, and like good satire, it starts off in a serious style, but quickly leads to wonder, "Hey - is this serious or satire?" and quickly devolves into Monty Pythonesque pure silliness.

Satire is usually thought of as a written form, and sarcasm is normally a verbal function that occurs spontaneously during conversations. It appears to me that online discussions, being a type of conversation, often include what could be called sarcasm rather than satire. Snarky comments made in a spontaneous manner similar to verbal conversations, but without visual cues and sarcastic intonation, sarcasm can be difficult to detect, especially across cultural boundaries.

Here at ASR, we have participants who are not only from many different cultures around the world, but many are not native English speakers, making sarcasm (or snark, as I often call it) difficult to detect. Amir's review of this vintage loudspeaker is probably more satire than sarcasm, but our spontaneous comments are sarcasm (snark).

LINK - "The Science of Sarcasm"

...scientists are finding that the ability to detect sarcasm really is useful. For the past 20 years, researchers from linguists to psychologists to neurologists have been studying our ability to perceive snarky remarks and gaining new insights into how the mind works. Studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving, for instance. Children understand and use sarcasm by the time they get to kindergarten. An inability to understand sarcasm may be an early warning sign of brain disease.

Sarcasm detection is an essential skill if one is going to function in a modern society dripping with irony. “Our culture in particular is permeated with sarcasm,” says Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California at San Francisco. “People who don’t understand sarcasm are immediately noticed. They’re not getting it. They’re not socially adept.”

Sarcasm so saturates 21st-century America that according to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase “yeah, right” was used, it was uttered sarcastically. Entire phrases have almost lost their literal meanings because they are so frequently said with a sneer. “Big deal,” for example. When’s the last time someone said that to you and meant it sincerely? “My heart bleeds for you” almost always equals “Tell it to someone who cares,” and “Aren’t you special” means you aren’t.

 

[mhardy6647]

Little clip where you can see the drivers.

Wonder if the highs get better without grill?

define better... seems to me there'd just be more of 'em. Maybe better with respect to my 61-ish year old hearing, in a quantitative sense.

A little more respect for the elder pls!

You just have to replace the drivers, add a dsp x-over, add 3 amps, some cabinet enhancements(port). Voila! You have nearly a Hedd type 20. Ok, i said nearly.

"spoken" like a Heritage Klipsch owner!
(one of which, yes, I will confess, I was... for a full decade)

dampedcornyhornies by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Cone tweeters aren't that bad actually, soft paper cone flexes and makes response and dispersion rather good, better than modern 3" hard cones!
Distortion peaks at 2-4kHz must come mainly because it looks like all drivers share same box air volume! I was surprised that response and distortion were that good. Horizontal directivity is ruined because mid and tweeter are side by side.

Henry Kloss took advantage of this (and the use of hard-er, hemispherical dust caps to improve HF dispersion) in many of his loudspeakers across his career -- up to and including, at least, the CSW Model Six.

The well known, and widely used, Peeless AlNiCo 2" paper cone tweeters (there were several if not many variants) are (perhaps) the canonical example of a "good" cone tweeter.

(borrowed image from teh interwebz)

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Honestly, Amir is more often then not being facetious and belittling, it doesn't come across as sarcasm or satire. Not that the manufactures of poorly manufactured gear really deserve to NOT be treated like that. Also, I think a more straight forward review with a matter of fact attitude would have made more sense. It would make more sense in every review. Some of the "sarcasm and satire" I see in older reviews seems to be in poor taste if you ask me.

The sensationalist "Le gasp! THD and linearity measures terribly! But of course it would! Just look at the stupid shit the manufacture says on their website! Haha aren't I clever!" sort of clickbait stuff Amir likes to pepper in his reviews is getting REAL old.

So you'll have to excuse me when some genuine sarcasm/satire does make it into a "review" and I didn't notice it.

 

[Ron Texas]

Great review.

 

[GeorgeWalk]

Hey! Radio Shack the 80's called! They want their store back!

 

[oldsysop]

I don't doubt today's speakers are far better than anything from the 60s and 70s.

Many of today's speakers are plastic garbage.
This MC-1000 measured by Amir is not representative of the quality of the 70s

 

[Thomas_A]

If someone happen to have a vintage Audio Pro A4-14 or 2-25 (1978-1980) it would be interesting to see spins of those. (A friend of mine just found and bought a refurbished pair of A4-14 for $520.) My first speaker was an Audio Pro 2-25 but I gave them away long time ago.

 

[bigx5murf]

I'm actually curious to know how the RS linaneum tweeter models measure.