Castle Acoustics Ltd

[Rare Bird]

Well the Conway II's were pretty old:



But point taken, they weren't from the first ever range that re-used Wharfedale drivers....Same poor tweeters though.

Pass

[Rare Bird]

Heres my 'Conway Mk.I' & Richmond Mk.I' the 'Howard' are stashed away !

[Marco]

Yup - I've always liked the old Castles. They got so much right about the design! Very revealing and musical sounding shpeekaz

Marco.

[Macca]

I notice that they have ported cabs - wouldn't that be quite unusual at that time?

[Gromit]

I rarely get on my high horse/get emotional where speakers are concerned but every time I think of the old Castle speaker firm, I shed a small tear for what was a maker of some wonderful sounding speakers which looked utterly beautiful too. Good old fashioned craftsmanship, built in the UK.

My dad once had a pair of orginal Kendals, and they were a fabulous speaker - not particularly robust (you couldn't drive them very hard) but a big-hearted, intensely musical speaker. I loved 'em.

[Eagle owl]

I still have a pair of Castle Avon's which I bought new in about 1996/1997. They are rarely used these days.

Geoff.

[Haselsh1]

A fabulous cabinet making firm that once again has ended up in bloody China. I get the impression that they will get their wish and dominate the World eventually unless we all wake up very soon.

My hi-fi philosophy is also for high efficiency loudspeakers with low powered valve amplification. That and paper drive units that uncover so much. My best ever loudspeaker...? Audio Note AZ-2.

[Mr Kipling]

Apart from the port being re-positioned in the MK II Richmonds, are there any other differences? Alvin Gold did a group review of small speakers in Hi-Fi Answers and described them as a bit of a curate's egg. Good on female vocals but not so good on dynamics. They came somewhere in the middle of the group. At the end of the review AG was glad to get back to his Mission 770 as he felt the smaller speakers were compromised on account of their size. My Richmonds need new surrounds.

I knew nothing about their collapse until I read about their new range in Hi-Fi world one year. At one point they used to Distribute Jecklin Float headphones and a preamp made by a company called JDL, I think. It was unusual in being a high feedback design with a fast power supply.

Some of the prices are a bit. . . I have seen £275 being asked for MK II Richmonds.

[wiicrackpot]

A fabulous cabinet making firm that once again has ended up in bloody China. I get the impression that they will get their wish and dominate the World eventually unless we all wake up very soon.

My hi-fi philosophy is also for high efficiency loudspeakers with low powered valve amplification. That and paper drive units that uncover so much. My best ever loudspeaker...? Audio Note AZ-2.

2nd yours and Gromit's sentiment regarding the demise of Castle.

While i don't share the Wam's love of Audionote UK stuff (AN/Kondo Japan different matter),
much of it vastly overpriced riding on the wave of it's inherited birthright name, but i share your love of the lowly AZ range of speakers,
had AZ3's six months between losing my Harbs and acquiring the Tannoy MG's, from mid to treble was top notch, can't explain it but above all it's other virtues,
i was captivated by it's musicality and emotional conveying qualities, but ultimately i couldn't control the boomy bass in my room and pulling it further into the living room was not an option, different from the AZ2 in the use of the ANe tweeters but share the hemp bass units i think,
whatever it was there was something special about them, didn't have money to investigate amp matches, so hard decision but eventually got rid.

[synsei]

I am ashamed to admit that I have never listened to a single model from the Castle range from any era. One of my saving graces as a snotty teenager was that I appreciated good craftsmanship. A work colleague of my fathers owned a huge pair of Castle speakers (I haven't a clue which model) which I encountered when Dad took me with him to visit one Saturday afternoon in the early '70's. I recall the cabinets to be things of beauty. From memory I think the veneer may have been Walnut and the finish exuded quality. One day I need to pop this particular Cherry.

Talking of paper cone speakers as we are, during my first stint in the hifi universe one speaker which I detested due to its aesthetics was the venerable AR18. They were sold everywhere (even Dixons sold 'em at one point) and I hated them with a passion. That is, until I heard a beat up pair from the 1970's at a friends bedsit back in 1998. He bought them from a junk shop in Kettering for a fiver. They were very scruffy, covered in scratches, various coloured paint splashes and with several corners rounded off. The drive units were in pristine condition however. Hooked up to my friends quite modest Akai stack system they sounded wonderful. I recall them being full of life and sounding particularly good when playing live recordings of his band.