Vintage speakers- do they hold up?

[Neddy]

My take is that materials science has progressed dramatically since the 70s, esp in woofer design/materials, and Restorer-John is correct "I think the trickle-down effect of huge R&D done 30 and 40 years ago, means you can get cheaper speakers that perform much better than cheap speakers of 30 years ago. That's all. "

I'm still running a pair of lovingly cared for JBL Studio Masters (L200s) I bought in 1974, which I changed to 3-way per JBL Pro's advice, making them close to L300s at the time.

But the major weakness was the pretty poor 15" bass drivers. That was solved nicely by dropping in the new 15" drivers from the JBL 4367/M2 family (ironically, they gave them the same Pro number as the - much maligned - originals, and just dropped right in place.

Now, they are pretty much stunning (if you like JBL horns/HF drivers) and with minimal EQ run flat from 20hz -20khz.
Are they M2 or 4367 eqivalents? Heck no - but come darn close, and will run circles around any vintage L300s in good shape today.
The best of the pro engineering/ mfg quality of the 70s will last a very long time, but driver/baffle design has progressed a long ways since then.

So, for what, $670 + $125 + $650 ea, I do have very pretty "MCM" cabinetry and speakers that I'd only trade up for today's equivalent JBL or Revel models (at 10x the cost).

Curiously, I'm in the midst of setting up a shoot off between some pristine 70's JBL L25 Primas vs. JBL 305s vs. Kali IN-8s.
The Kali's - as good as they are - are a step down from the mod'd Studio Masters, and the 305s are a (surprisingly large) step down from those...but not expecting much from 40+ yr old 2 ways, in spite of their leading edge composite/plastic cabinet material of the day.

PS. Never cared much for the L100s, but sure wish I'd bought 4355s instead of L200s

 

[Ericglo]

One of the biggest differences between now and vintage speakers is consistency in manufacturing. IIRC Toole said that even JBLs measured widely when he first started there. Another manufacturer when asked why he didn't use a well known high end tweeter replied "because the variability in units was to great". I have heard that tolerances have been tightened up greatly.

 

[sergeauckland]

One of the biggest differences between now and vintage speakers is consistency in manufacturing. IIRC Toole said that even JBLs measured widely when he first started there. Another manufacturer when asked why he didn't use a well known high end tweeter replied "because the variability in units was to great". I have heard that tolerances have been tightened up greatly.

I think consistency was one distinguishing feature of both BBC licenced 'speakers which had to meet very tight specs and other traditional British manufacturers like KEF and B&W as well as smaller manufactures like Spendor. Close pair matching and tight quality control were paramount.

Other manufacturers that weren't in the BBC tradition may have had more relaxed specs, or indeed the means of ensuring tight control. Certainly the 0.25dB pair matching claimed for my 1983 801s suggests it was possible, albeit at a price.
S

 

[restorer-john]

The other consideration with vintage speakers is physical condition and obviously, style.

Many have spent decades in loungerooms, getting bumped by the vacuum cleaner and (horror of horrors) had pot plants, vases and ornaments, water rings and spiders on them. Faded grilles and cat bites/clawing etc. They don't fit the audiophile's desire for shiny and new anymore.

But there are examples that are like new, both physically and functionally and many of the upper range speakers more than hold their own with modern speakers. I have 16 pairs of speakers in my listening room at the moment, with two pairs hooked up. They are all in essentially as-new condition as I hate damage of any kind to speaker cabinets.

The oldest would be these Sony APM-121ES:

I picked these up 20 years ago for $70. Now, those Sonys are made in Germany, not the UK as described in the review. The APM driver itself is of Japanese origin, but there is no doubt in my mind the titanium tweeter and cabinetry, crossover was designed and made by MBL-Quart back then in 1990. I even have a little pair of MBL-Quarts with a virtually identical titanium tweeter. Same board, foil, glue lines and interior construction. They are a lovely little fun speaker and match their rock solid WS-200 Japanese made stands (recently retrieved from my storage) perfectly. They even have a recessed captive nut to bolt the speaker to the stand. And they were quite inexpensive at the time if you ask me.

And the newest would be a pair of the little Dali Zensor 1s:

So about 30 years between them with most being mid 90s to early 2000s speakers.

My current main flavor of the month speakers (Jamo 507a) were retrieved from storage after 16 years in their original cartons. Not only are they aesthetically perfect, they are 100% functionally perfect and I'd forgotten how much I liked them. They also have phenomenal WAF with beautifully curved side panels and a dark glass top.

 

[thewas]

I have heard that tolerances have been tightened up greatly.

That can't be generalised either, some serious companies could produce very low tolerances already many decades ago, here are current(!) measurements of 10 examples of a vintage (early 1980s) not expensive Grundig loudspeaker model:

Source: http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-30-13717-649.html#32637

 

[Doodski]

Sony APM-121ES

I sold those when they where a current model and they sounded pretty good. These babies where my fav's though. They just look cool.

 

[Ericglo]

That can't be generalised either, some serious companies could produce very low tolerances already many decades ago, here are current(!) measurements of 10 examples of a vintage (early 1980s) not expensive Grundig loudspeaker model:

Source: http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-30-13717-649.html#32637

Yes it can't be generalized. A manufacturer could go to the trouble of matching speakers and drivers. That can be time and labor intensive.

I was looking more at the components especially drivers.

 

[thewas]

A manufacturer could go to the trouble of matching speakers and drivers.

In this case a quality mass manufacturer like above Grundig produced low tolerances as all loudspeakers had the same crossovers and nothing matched.

 

[Coach_Kaarlo]

Hello Mnyb,

I am very happy to hear so!

I still enthusiastically enjoy the Hi-Fi sound of my wonderful NS-1000 driven by ACCUPHASE E-460 together with L & R sub-woofers YAMAHA YST-SW1000 and L & R super tweeters FOSTEX T925A.

I recently fully renovated NS-1000 taking all the LC-network and attenuators into outer box with brand new coils and capacitors, and right now, I am intensively building multichannel multi-amplifier system with my NS-1000 drivers, i.e. 30 cm woofers, Beryllium dome squawkers, Beryllium dome tweeters, and YST-SW1000 plus T925A.

(For the differences between NS-1000 ad NS-1000M, please refer to my post here.)

If you would have interests, please visit my thread entitled "Multi-Channel, Multi-Amplifier Audio System Using Software Crossover and Multichannel-DAC" where I am definitely sticking to NS-1000 and its drivers;
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...oftware-crossover-and-multichannel-dac.12489/
View attachment 81341
and,
View attachment 81342

Igor Kirkwood's post #185 in my thread would be also interesting for you.

NS-1000 and NS-1000M, as well as NS-1000X and NS-2000, are still really wonderful and amazing speakers, especially I am always much impressed by the extremely low-distortion Beryllium squawkers and Beryllium tweeters each of them is one of the best speaker drivers ever manufactured, I believe.

Nice setup!

I have been lucky enough to find a good pair of NS-2000's. When tested against modern speakers (listening and measuring) the old Yamaha speakers perform very very well - IMHO much better than some speakers 5 times their cost. The voicing is definately good, and the construction / materials are, from a mechanical engineering perspective, very good. Beryllium has incredible stiffness to weight, as does carbon fibre. These speakers are 35 years old and still perform (measure and sound) great. I am sure many people have the bias towards newer being better, I tried to listen and measure to decide what was better - hard to beat these!

My only concerns are the age of the caps and crossover, so I am looking forward to reading about what you have been doing with yours.

My thinking was to go entirely DSP / digital crossover BUT before I do that I am going to re-wire and resolder the internal driver connections and replace the rear terminals with Speakon connectors - those tiny original terminal posts can barely manage 14AWG.......

 

[dualazmak]

Nice setup!

I have been lucky enough to find a good pair of NS-2000's. When tested against modern speakers (listening and measuring) the old Yamaha speakers perform very very well - IMHO much better than some speakers 5 times their cost. The voicing is definately good, and the construction / materials are, from a mechanical engineering perspective, very good. Beryllium has incredible stiffness to weight, as does carbon fibre. These speakers are 35 years old and still perform (measure and sound) great. I am sure many people have the bias towards newer being better, I tried to listen and measure to decide what was better - hard to beat these!

My only concerns are the age of the caps and crossover, so I am looking forward to reading about what you have been doing with yours.

My thinking was to go entirely DSP / digital crossover BUT before I do that I am going to re-wire and resolder the internal driver connections and replace the rear terminals with Speakon connectors - those tiny original terminal posts can barely manage 14AWG.......

Hello Coach Kaarlo,

I fully agree with you that NS-1000, NS-1000M, NS-1000X and NS-2000 are still very very nice speakers!

Yes, I highly recommend you to change all the capacitors and coils, and fully overhaul the attenuators, and put them in a outer network box;
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ssover-and-multichannel-dac.12489/post-369475
and
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ssover-and-multichannel-dac.12489/post-371694

The improvement of sound quality was really amazing.
If needed, I will inform you the details of the capacitors and air-core coils I used in my renovation.

If you will be still using your NS-2000's attenuators, I highly recommend you to fully overhaul them (I have done) with reference to;
http://audio-summit.co.jp/2019/04/04/ns-1000mのメンテナンス後編（アッテネーター洗浄）/
Since this procedure needs very careful and skillful disassemble-cleaning-reassemble steps, you may better to ask some professional repair shop to do the attenuator overhaul. (I myself did it successfully, though.)

Regarding the details of the attenuators (and their possible complete elimination by using software crossover on PC), my post #248 in my thread would be of interests for you.

Your plan of "replacing the rear terminals with Speakon connectors" should be a wonderful idea. In my case, I replaced with rather heavy-duty biding posts;

Good luck for your renovation on NS-2000; I believe you definitely will hear much improved sound quality after your renovation.

 

[dualazmak]

Hello again Coach_Kaarlo,

Although I assume it is well known in Hi-Fi audio scene, my post here is intending as a reminder for myself and all of us.
In speaker level signal handling, such as LC-network, attenuators, SP selectors and protection capacitors, we should carefully avoid any magnetic susceptible metals in the circuits even with connection terminal blocks, binding posts, etc.

 

[dougi]

I, rather stupidly, just ruined my Proac Tablette IIIs I had from new and were relegated to the study. Using a portable music player through a Krell KAV-300i the player has really bad turn on behaviour and it turned the woofers inside out and damaged the voice coil of one. to compound things the Seas CA11RCY drivers the Proac ones were based on sold out that very weekend on the Falcon Acoustics site. I guess I could get them rebuilt but not sure it is worth it really.

 

[restorer-john]

I, rather stupidly, just ruined my Proac Tablette IIIs I had from new and were relegated to the study. Using a portable music player through a Krell KAV-300i the player has really bad turn on behaviour and it turned the woofers inside out and damaged the voice coil of one. to compound things the Seas CA11RCY drivers the Proac ones were based on sold out that very weekend on the Falcon Acoustics site. I guess I could get them rebuilt but not sure it is worth it really.

Put a search into eBay for the woogers and a pair will turn up sooner or later.

 

[deano454]

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!

Ferrofluid typically goes hard