Ancient Speaker review

Found this online - this is a review of my “historical artifact” speakers, that I have been listening to a lot just recently, dated 1968 from “Audio Record Review” :slight_smile:

Hopefully readable as an upload.

Anyone else got anything similar? (speakers or reviews)?

Not the latest High-end, for sure, but they still sound damn fine, and the only change I have made is to replace the crossover with the same design but with modern components (adjusting for different ESR etc.).

1 Like

Going from Manchester to Leeds on the M62 used to go past the factory in Batley - Remember it had a neon sign. At that point they were making these super slim steel cabinet boxes with perforated steel grilles. Looked quite distinctive, no idea how they sounded though :slight_smile:

Ahhh good old road trip nostalgia.

1 Like

Found this too, from 1990 when they repaired a couple of the drive units on my previous pair, this was when they were still a speaker company and you could phone the workshop and chat to an engineer…
…that older pair were tired and battered, my current pair are in remarkably good condition and had been stored, unused, for 40 years in an enthusiast’s back room in Wrexham :slight_smile:

Amazing lifespan!
What materials make up the speaker cones? Have they ever been repaired or replaced?
Chas

Nope, and that is why I like them so much:

They are 3 way all paper cone, "concertinad paper surrounds, and (I am assuming) traditional glues etc.
They were well stored before I got them, in someone’s back room and unused since the mid 70s.

The only degraded parts were crossover capacitors (I assumed, they did benefit from a replacement crossover), some sellotape inside holding wiring in place, and some foam on the baffle board behind the grill cloth that had dried and turned to dust, once that was carefully hoovered out they are fine :slight_smile:

Other speakers made then and soon afterwards (and ever since, it seems) were using stuff like foam surrounds, ferrofluid etc. all of which degrades after like 20 years.

I had a different pair since the 1980s of the same model, that had had a much harder life, I had a couple of those drivers repaired, but that was down to an amp that went bad and fritzed some voice coils, and they still worked fine too.

AS I’ve said elsewhere, I have a more modern set of Monitor Audio speakers, with active crossovers and bi-amping etc. etc.
…but I have been listening to this pair a lot more the last couple of weeks, and they make a sweet sound and are very enjoyable to listen to :slight_smile:

(50 year old) speakers rule, at least untilI can afford to spend multi-ks on something new, which is, frankly looking less and less likely :wink:

I’m very glad I have them!