Part 2: Vintage Best Speakers That Might Still Be Great Today?

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Is anyone intimately familiar with any of these vintage speakers which have been mentioned as among the best speakers of their day. Describe their sound and would they still be an exceptional speaker today?

 

 Fulton J speaker

 Klh 355 Baron

 Pioneer HPM 200

 Watson Model 10 or model 7

 Daniel Queen Speaker

 Epicure 3.0

 Fusselier speaker

 Mariah speaker

 Fried Studio IV

 Shahinian Obelisk

 Ohm model I

 Clarke speaker (looks like Snell Type A) Dup

 Celestion sl 600

 Yamaha NS 500M

 Goetz Systems speakers

 Infinity Quantum Line Source

 Infinity Kappa 9

 

 All of the above speakers I have heard at least one person say, " those are the best speakers I've ever heard." I've heard some of them. I wish I would have heard them longer and on more than occasion.

 

 

[Teresa]

19 hours ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

 Infinity Kappa 9

 

I have the floor standing Infinity Kappa 7's, two models down from the 9's. I bought them over 30 years ago. Had to replace the surrounds on the woofers a couple of years ago. They retailed back then for $1400 for the pair. I bought them from The Good Guys when they went on clearance brand new for $700 for the pair.

 

I love them and I hope they last until I die as there is no way I could afford new floor standing speakers with 12 inch woofers. Even very expensive speakers now have 6 inch to 8 inch woofers.

 

The EMIT tweeters have frequency response to 45kHz.

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Some older audiophiles I have talked with, whose experience dates back to the early 1960s, are not even sure if they can remember 6 inch or 8 inch woofers. It was usually a minimum of a 10 inch woofer with heavy magnets or a 12 inch. The bookshelf speakers were usually pushing around 40 pounds each or so, and their dispersion of sound was often surprisingly good, even by today's standards. The better examples didn't really sound boxy, but maybe you could sense the box more, with all that deep bass going on inside and I don't think cabinet bracing was in such wide use as it is today. The speakers high end was usually somewhat rolled off by today's standards to compensate for higher levels of cartridge distortion (and cable distortion) and the higher distortion of the tweeters themselves compared to better modern designs. Warmth and bass was generally more generous and "thin" sounding speakers attempting to emphasize detail might have been as rare back then as the goose that laid a golden egg.

 

 I have some vintage Emit tweeters and they have transparency and transient subtlety far superior to most modern tweeters which give them an amazingly effortless sound. A combination of amazing extension and transient speed always seems to have that effect. The Kappa 9 I have wanted to hear, but according to some, really is picky as far as what amplifier is used with it. The Infinity IRS Beta, which came a little later and I have heard, was even pickier in that way, but is still memorable in my mind for its amazing transparency and ability to sonically disappear entirely, even after all these years since I heard it.

[bluesman]

I'm going by memory here - it's been decades since I heard the Frieds and the NS500Ms.

 

Bud Fried was a local phenomenon back in the day.  He was one clever dude who knew and truly loved music - he fell in love with the sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra as a boy, which is what pushed him into his career.  I always thought that all his speakers sounded alike, since he was a devotee of the "transmission line" and used it in almost all of his designs.  The Studio IVs typified his sound, as I recall - they were bright and tight, with a bit of midrange-up glare and bass that was deep and well controlled but lacked punch at the very bottom.  They were good speakers (although not to my liking) and I can't honestly say that any of his speakers was even close to the best I've ever heard, even when driven by the best equipment of the day.

 

The Yamaha NS500M is one stellar speaker.  The M meant that it had a midrange driver in addition to the beryllium tweeter and 12" woofer of the 2-way NS500, and it was one heavy mother (at last 50 pounds, I think).  They were very well balanced from top to bottom - sweet, clear and airy above, deep and solid truly outstanding bass, with excellent midrange richness that brought vocals and acoustic instruments into the room with you.  They imaged very well too - few of us would kick them out of our listening rooms today. They were also very revealing, which meant that the harshness of the day's SS electronics was truly in your face but they sang sweetly driven by great tube stuff.  I got to hear them in my dealer's listening room driven by my own Yamaha B-2 (an early FET power amp) when I bought the amp (another outstanding vintage piece), and it was a match made in heaven.  Yes, a pair of NS500Ms today in great shape would hold their own against some mighty fine current speakers.

 

You forgot one of my favorites (a regular on the audiophile press's lists of all time best, e.g. this TAS list of the 12 most significant loudspeakers of all time) - the Rogers LS3/5A.  These were introduced to the retail buying pubic late in 1974 over here, and they stood everybody who heard the on his (or her) ear.  They were designed and built for BBC remote recording engineers to use as monitors, so they're clean as a whistle and image incredibly well when placed properly.  Everything from voices to oboes to violas to classical guitars to grand pianos to percussion sound like they should, except for the steep rolloff below 55.  Even so, the bass they have is so tight that string bass sounds right (probably aided in large part by the accuracy of the 2nd harmonic, which is an octave above the fundamental and boosts it convincingly).  A good sub is appealing, and I used one for years when driving the Rogers with McIntosh (first a pair of 40s, then a 275).  But modern tube electronics handle bass much better, and I disconnected the sub once I got my Prima Luna power amp.  They're still made (by Stirling, Falcon, Harbeth, and a few other licensees) and are still stellar, sounding much ike my original 15 ohm pair (bought in winter 1974-5 and still on the shelf, even though I haven't listened to them much in years).  Read more about them in HiFi News and in TAS.

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Thanks for the input Bluesman. Would you happen to know if there was much difference between the midrange performance of the NS 500M and the NS 1000? Also was their much difference in midrange performance between the LS3/5A and the Kef Reference 101? Thanks.

[bluesman]

52 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

Thanks for the input Bluesman. Would you happen to know if there was much difference between the midrange performance of the NS 500M and the NS 1000? Also was their much difference in midrange performance between the LS3/5A and the Kef Reference 101? Thanks.

Remember that Yamaha made the NS1000 before the NS1000M.  They were similar, but I think the M had a different bass driver and a slightly smaller cabinet outside with about the same interior volume.  Both were solid, heavy, efficient, and smoothly in-your-face with beryllium mid and high drivers.  They sucked up watts like water into a sponge and just got louder with no perceptible change in SQ until ears started to bleed - but they also did very well with modest amps.  I remember them to sound a lot like the best JBL monitors of the day, but "nicer".  I liked the 500Ms more than the 1000Ms. I thought they were a bit tighter down low and sweeter up high.  But it was the midrange that made the difference - they were a bit more realistic on my reference vocals (Joni Mitchell, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Linda Ronstadt.  Remember that my standard was those LS3/5as.

 

The KEF 101 came out a few years after I got my LS3/5as, so I remember them well.  They had the same drivers (B110, T27) and crossover as the LS3/5a in a bigger box (about 1 1/4" higher and 1" deeper), but the general SQ & character were very similar.  I don't remember if the crossover frequency was the same.  The most notable sonic difference was that the KEFs would get a bit louder before coil knock reminded you to turn them down - KEF claimed they'd hit 100 dB peaks, while Rogers stated 95 for theirs.  But I wouldn't push them past 87-88 (per my Radio Shack SPL meter) after getting carried away once, shortly after I got them, with a big band track and hearing the faint early knock of a voice coil on my door.  I was standing next to the amp, so I immediately dropped the volume & never came close again.  For a musician, this was a limitation because I like to practice with backing tracks at close to live levels.  Fortunately, I scored a pair of Infinity Reference Standard IIs not long afterward & was able to have my cake and eat it too.

 

The midrange character was very similar between them, although I found the Rogers to give a slightly better illusion of real instruments and voices that I attribute to the midrange.  They also presented a big band very very well, which is how I was lulled into complacency - the Umbrella D2D recording of Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass ("Big Band Jazz") sounds eerily real when pushed through them by a great tube amp.  I was close to live performance volume when reality bit (fortunately without damage - the same record stills sounds great through them 40+ years later).

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Great! Thanks for all the great info. I have never heard LS3/5A speakers, but am familiar with Reference 101's. Their little red light which temporarily shuts down the speakers when driven too hard, comes on a little too frequently for me and my upper medium size living room. They make popping sounds before that happens, which serves as a warning, which too much bass energy triggers. It is surprising to me that a speaker that dates so far back can sound as clean as they do. They sound held back in the upper midrange compared to Era Design speakers, designed by Michael Kelly of Aerial Acoustics. The Era speakers are great but sound a little more hi fi-ish in the midrange. The Era speakers tweeter is ever so slightly rolled off, but so sweet sounding.

 

 I have some NS 500M midrange drivers. I plan on implementing them somewhere; someday in a 3 way. They were a lot cheaper to obtain than the berrylium mids of the NS 1000 speakers. The NS 500M it is said used titanium for its midrange. A person selling them on ebay years ago, who owned both models, claims the 500M was the preferred speaker slightly, because of better bass, and that the midrange between the two was very close, with the 1000 the close winner, but I didn't know if that was just a sales pitch or if he was being truthful.

 

 One of the other speakers I listed called Goetz speakers, were made down in Georgia by a talented guy who was a fanatic about crossover design. Using a Seas cone midrange circa mid 1980s, ( the midrange was the star among stars) his speakers sounded similar to an electrostatic for speed. One model called the GMS 1, looked similar to the old KLH SCXA, another speaker I could have listed. Another model was wider with slightly slanted sides, really beautiful. The Goetz made some other speaker models of the early to late1980s sound slow and mechanical, like Vandersteen and Snells. Although I once heard the original Vandersteen 2C with Beard tube electronics from the U.K. and the synergy and sound was so beautiful that I no longer thought of the 2C as a class C speaker as Stereophile had it rated. The salesman also played me the Snells. I commented that the Snells sounded faster, and he asked me, " which speaker gets you into the music more?" Without having to think too much I said " "the Vandersteen."

[bluesman]

35 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

They make popping sounds before that happens, which serves as a warning, which too much bass energy triggers.

That’s the sound of a B110’s voice coil hitting its stop at full excursion.  Even one serious thwack can damage the VC itself or knock it out of alignment.  You don’t want to let it happen again - if the red light goes on after the coil bottoms, the protective mechanism is a bit late to the party.  

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Its still ok, thank goodness. Some people disconnect the red light protection circuit to allegedly improve the sound. Glad I still had mine unhampered with. The 101 for my purposes makes a nice little smallish bedroom speaker. I dont know of any cone or dome speaker from the 1960's or before that sound as clean( or close to it) as good modern drivers do. But I can name some 1970s and 1980s speakers that sound pretty clean even by today's standards, including many I've listed. Maybe clarity is where the biggest gains have been made.Back in the 1980s and 1990s, here in the U.S., walking into a audio salon, the 2 most likely speakers you would hear playing would be the Celestion sl600, or Vandersteen 2C, (often Acoustat & Magnepan too). I wonder about a lot of things including just how good I remember the sound of those long ago heard speakers.