Vintage speakers- do they hold up?

[thewas]

True, the problem is that in the 80s the audio hobby wasn't mainstream anymore (replaced by video, computers, home cinema etc.) so it wasn't interesting anymore for large tech giants with large R&D teams and taken over by more "high-end snakeoil" companies, also wife acceptance factor of wide baffle designs is usually unfortunately rather limited.
But its nice to see some of these giants like Yamaha and Technics combing recently back to classic high end audio, although with a hefty price tag which is needed to get a high image in the degenerated audiophool scene and press...

 

[restorer-john]

True, the problem is that in the 80s the audio hobby wasn't mainstream anymore (replaced by video, computers, home cinema etc.) so it wasn't interesting anymore for large tech giants with large R&D teams and taken over by more "high-end snakeoil" companies, also wife acceptance factor of wide baffle designs is usually unfortunately rather limited.

The "problem" in the 80s was not really as you suggest. Home cinema didn't really take off until the 90s and even in 1991, we only had Dolby Pro-Logic, CRTs or rear projection. Computers were primitive in the 80s and there was no internet. The most you had was BBSs and acoustic modems by the late 80s (I was selling them).

Then, due to hyper inflation/massive credit expansion in Japan, the crash came in 1991. R&D budgets were slashed and domestic Japanese consumption of what was luxury HiFi, stopped dead. Even after a decade, the effects were stark. IMO, the Japanese high fidelity industry has never recovered and likely never will.

There was plenty of interest in HiFi, and it was considerably more educated and knowledgeable interest. It's just that the offerings suffered due to enormous cost-cutting.

 

[Mnyb]

Off topic: has not also the Japanese hifi market gone south ... enormsly expensive battery powered SET amps and strange Horn speakers etc .
Imho the so called "mid-fi" has always been the real hifi .

Even more off-topic. Thanks for the perspektive on Japanese Hifi , living in Europe and forming my Hifi interest in the late 80's and early 90's you where obvius victim to the snobbism that "real hifi" are made in UK ,USA or germany or anywhere in Europe .
In reality the Japanese stuff was better all the time , maybe except their speakers that did not really fit our acoustic or taste all the time .
Looking to the past I can see that some european hifi really looks like someone bending sheet-metal in a garden shed (original sugden-A21 anyone ? ) and the beutifull creations of old japanese hifi .

I once had a big luxman integrated and it had very good fit and finish wood trim partial Class-A

 

[Roy_L]

Stereophile has measurements going back more than 20 years.

Pretty easy to look there and figure out if you think any old models measure well.

You assume I know how to read them...

 

[restorer-john]

But let's say we have vintage speakers in perfect condition. Surrounds, crossovers and all like new. Isn't the biggest problem the design of the speaker? Isn't, for instance, narrow baffle better then wide? Didn't we start caring more on driver directivity? And more stuff like that... Don't we know more now then 40 years ago?

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.

We had beryllium. We had carbon fibre, polyolefin, alumina, titanium etc. We had edge wound rectangular profile OFC voice coils. We had rare earths. We had laser vibration analysis. We had lots more anechoic chambers in HiFi manufacturers labs. We had considerably more consumers prepared to pay absolute top dollar for genuinely good stuff, not just heavily hyped also-ran gear.

 

[restorer-john]

In reality the Japanese stuff was better all the time , maybe except their speakers that did not really fit our acoustic or taste all the time .
Looking to the past I can see that some european hifi really looks like someone bending sheet-metal in a garden shed (original sugden-A21 anyone ? ) and the beutifull creations of old japanese hifi .

I once had a big luxman integrated and it had very good fit and finish wood trim partial Class-A

So true. Vintage Sugden was/is a joke. Not just in fit and finish, but performance too.

It was the British HiFi press, aided and abetted by the good-ole boys' US magazines and of course region specific publications like Australian HiFi here. It became a truly worthless rag of a magazine. I always felt the German magazines gave credit where credit was due to the Japanese, but apparently they were also unduly harsh on things not made on the continent. I guess I only read the test results as I couldn't really read German all that well..

There was nothing to touch the high end Japanese gear. Not in fit, finish, quality, performance and in real terms, value. To say anything else is just showing ignorance. It's such a pity we only got to see such a small range of what they produced for their own domestic (huge) market.

 

[Mnyb]

I very much like to hear a pair of Yamaha NS-1000 Again .
When i was a kid dad worked as sound engineer and late video engineeer at SR (Sveriges Radio) the pulic radio in Sweden and they where everywhere in the studios .
In the old days you could actually visit dad at work , todays kids could not even get into my workplace due to "safety"

 

[bluefuzz]

A couple of years ago I rebuilt my old 70's JBL L-100s with decent bracing, internal damping, mirrored driver layout and a new crossover from Troels Gravesen. They sound as good as any 'modern' speaker I've heard.

Sadly they're a bit big for my small living room so I don't use them much, but with a bit of help from Dirac they compare quite favourably with my LX-minis ...

 

[Harmonie]

I've owned Martin Logans that were nearly 20 years apart.

The difference could mostly be heard in the woofer bin.

I think electrostatic evolution has been pretty.....static.

And what about Magnepan?

Have Maggies really changed much over the last 20 years?

As for an oldie-but-a-goodie:

Vandersteen 2Ce

They were never truly high end to begin with, and they still sound fairly decent every time I've heard a pair in the last few years.

I still own 28 year old ML and they still look and sound magical in my taste.
Speakers will be the final component I will choose to change and thus will not be based on measurements alone for sure (be ASR right or not).

PS Smoke is known bad for the the mylar film.

 

[Mnyb]

Wonder how the old kef reference series stand the test of time ? a "turret" on the top with tweter and midrange and some kind of low bass cavity with internal drivers they where 4-ways i think ?

 

[dualazmak]

I very much like to hear a pair of Yamaha NS-1000 Again .
When i was a kid dad worked as sound engineer and late video engineeer at SR (Sveriges Radio) the pulic radio in Sweden and they where everywhere in the studios .
In the old days you could actually visit dad at work , todays kids could not even get into my workplace due to "safety"

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/

and,

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.

 

[Mnyb]

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.

Omg , this is an entirely new level with this arrangment you address the small niggles like the in room tonal balance I've heard that some consider them brigth , you can "retrofit" todays knowledge about acustics and target curves to these drivers extremly cool.

 

[watchnerd]

Isn't, for instance, narrow baffle better then wide?

Actually, no.

For many things, wide is better.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

[QUOTE="Harmonie, post: 504891, member: 16438"
PS Smoke is known bad for the the mylar film.[/QUOTE]

That makes sense. On electronic circuits with high impedances, smoking residue can mess up operating voltages on circuit boards and I'm sure it doesn't do wonders for a lightweight film.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

For many things, wide is better.

Narrow baffles are the current fad, and presumably better for WAF. The new version of the JBL L100 is getting a good reception, and seems to be the current definition of 'cool', so we might be going back to wide.

 

[sergeauckland]

Wonder how the old kef reference series stand the test of time ? a "turret" on the top with tweter and midrange and some kind of low bass cavity with internal drivers they where 4-ways i think ?

If you mean the KEF107, KEF 105.2 and 104.2, I think the answer is 'very well indeed'. The 107s and 104.2s suffered from foam rot but if refoamed, the 'speakers are still very good indeed. The 105.2s didn't have foam surrounds so should still be working well.

Apart from foam rot, I think there are only two mechanisms that may reduce the performance of old loudspeakers. Firstly, if the tweeters had ferrofluid in them, that may by now have gone stiff, so the tweeter could benefit from dismantling, the ferrofluid cleaned out and replaced. Secondly, in the passive crossovers, some 'speakers commonly used non-polar electrolytics, which are in effects, two normally polarised electrolytics back-to-back. This is fine, except that electrolytics like to see a polarising voltage across them, and obviously in a crossover they don't get that, so may have changed their value (generally increased in value) and increased their ESR, so the crossover will no longer be optimum. Replacing those like for like and the ferrofluid is a fairly simple task for any reasonably handy DIYer. Inductors in crossovers never fail or change value unless the 'speakers are grossly abused, ditto with any resistors.

Alternatively, taking some very good 'speakers like those KEFs and replacing the passive crossovers with active DSP-based crossovers is a perfectly doable DIY project. I did exactly that with my B&W 801s.

I see no reason why vintage loudspeakers from the 1980s and even earlier can't be as pleasing as anything made today. More so in many cases, as in those days manufacturers tried for a flat frequency response and low coloration, whereas today many try to stand out on demos and have frequency responses that look like a cross-section of the Alps (or Rockies, or Andes or Himalayas)..you choose!

S.

 

[Mnyb]

If you mean the KEF107, KEF 105.2 and 104.2, I think the answer is 'very well indeed'. The 107s and 104.2s suffered from foam rot but if refoamed, the 'speakers are still very good indeed. The 105.2s didn't have foam surrounds so should still be working well.

Apart from foam rot, I think there are only two mechanisms that may reduce the performance of old loudspeakers. Firstly, if the tweeters had ferrofluid in them, that may by now have gone stiff, so the tweeter could benefit from dismantling, the ferrofluid cleaned out and replaced. Secondly, in the passive crossovers, some 'speakers commonly used non-polar electrolytics, which are in effects, two normally polarised electrolytics back-to-back. This is fine, except that electrolytics like to see a polarising voltage across them, and obviously in a crossover they don't get that, so may have changed their value (generally increased in value) and increased their ESR, so the crossover will no longer be optimum. Replacing those like for like and the ferrofluid is a fairly simple task for any reasonably handy DIYer. Inductors in crossovers never fail or change value unless the 'speakers are grossly abused, ditto with any resistors.

Alternatively, taking some very good 'speakers like those KEFs and replacing the passive crossovers with active DSP-based crossovers is a perfectly doable DIY project. I did exactly that with my B&W 801s.

I see no reason why vintage loudspeakers from the 1980s and even earlier can't be as pleasing as anything made today. More so in many cases, as in those days manufacturers tried for a flat frequency response and low coloration, whereas today many try to stand out on demos and have frequency responses that look like a cross-section of the Alps (or Rockies, or Andes or Himalayas)..you choose!

S.

Yea those are the ones , aren’t it even some connecting rod between the low bass drivers in the larger ones.
I’ve only auditioned a pair once , when I could not afford them , I was impressed back then.

 

[sergeauckland]

Yea those are the ones , aren’t it even some connecting rod between the low bass drivers in the larger ones.
I’ve only auditioned a pair once , when I could not afford them , I was impressed back then.

Yes the 104.2 and 107s had coupled-cavity bass systems where the two bass drivers work together but in two separate enclosures linked by a quite thick rod that was claimed to 'cancel' the force between the two bass drivers.
In the case of the 104.2, that then had twin mid-range drivers and a single tweeter between the mids. The 107 and 105.2 had a separate 'head' that contained a single mid-range and the tweeter. The 105.2 came out earlier than the 104.2, the 107 came later than both. The 104.2 had an optional KUBE (KEF Universal Bass Equaliser), the 107 had it as standard, which equalised and extended the low end and in the case of the 107 also had some effect in the mid-range, which is why it was included as standard.

The 104.2 and 107 used a technique KEF called 'Conjugate Load Matching', which made the loudspeaker's impedance almost a purely resistive 4 ohms.

S.

 

[oldandintheway]

I have been tempted to restore a set of the KEF reference monitors, they are available for a few hundred dollars now. The issue is that the internal coupled woofers had foam surrounds which have almost all failed by now. After market replacements are available, but you have to disassemble the cabinets to do it. There is a youtube video someplace... I also wonder how close these replacement foam surrounds are to original specification?

 

[Doodski]

Yea those are the ones , aren’t it even some connecting rod between the low bass drivers in the larger ones.
I’ve only auditioned a pair once , when I could not afford them , I was impressed back then.

I retailed the KEF 104.2, 105 and 107 and all where excellent speakers and where built to last. They should still sound good even by today's standards.