Just won these on Ebay......

[Rare Bird]

An awareness of what old stuff is capable of is a good lesson in how far (or not) we've moved forward over the last decades, is it not?

Convenience thats how far we've come.

Just ask yourself why so many people buy Vintage gear & why people pay so much..

[Ali Tait]

Exactly.I think we've actually gone backwards in some ways.Some vintage prices are well over the top though IMO.Too much hype.

[Rare Bird]

Too much hype.

Only the select few Garrards, Leaks, Radfords etc..guess who's fault that is.

[Marco]

Hi Chris,

They look to be in really good nick, Marco.
There's a lot to be said for getting music around and about the house. Some folks swear by this new fangled streaming nonsense, I prefer to accumulate gear. An awareness of what old stuff is capable of is a good lesson in how far (or not) we've moved forward over the last decades, is it not?

Yes, according to the chap I bought them from, they look like they've just left the factory

I also favour the accumulating gear option, and would have a different system, with its own individual sonic 'flavour', in every room if I had the space!

Apart from disliking (with a passion) how many modern speakers are voiced, especially budget varieties (horrible shouty, 'toppy' sounding things, designed to sound 'impressive' during a 5 minute listen at Richer Sounds), I wanted something old to better match the decor of our house, and also something that was solid and properly built.

The beautifully pristine cabinets of the Celestions are made from solid wood (not the MDF shite used nowadays in budget designs), have a solid teak veneer, and are so obviously not intensively mass-produced like your average Taiwan-derived bargain specials sold now in high street shops!

I completely agree that, in terms of out-and-out audio performance, we've gone more backwards than forwards with hi-fi in the last 15 years or so. The only saving grace is computer audio, when done well.

Almost any quality vintage gear, when judiciously upgraded with modern components, is better than the majority of sensibly-priced hi-fi kit sold now - that's pretty much a fact. The exceptions to the rule I find are preamps and phono stages, where vintage varieties are in my experience rarely superior to their modern counterparts, as they tend to be somewhat over-complicated internally and rather noisy in comparison. There are exceptions, though.

An unusual one for me too is that I usually prefer classic Jap 1970s transistor tuners to earlier valve-based ones. I like the Troughline, for example, but give me a lovely big 1970s Sansui, Sony or Yamaha any day!

Yes, a lot of vintage gear is vastly overpriced (especially things like valves), but much of that is to do with wealthy collectors willing to pay over the odds for equipment from certain famous brands. The term 'collector' is often the operative word here, because many of them simply collect (read as hoard) vintage gear and keep it to admire as an ornament, with it never going near a system to be used for its original intention.

I understand why people do that, but I can't relate to it. When I buy vintage gear, it's judiciously selected for a specific purpose - and it gets USED in my system, not left to gather dust on a shelf. Like I said earlier, if I had the space, I'd have a different system in every room, and most of it would be made up of various examples of classic kit, used and enjoyed to reproduce music, as it was always intended for

Marco.

[Rare Bird]

Marco
I think i know who you bought them from & if you did you payed a lot you nutter However they are nice, if it's him he has one of the last Mk.1 Ditton 15 with the cabs same as the 'XR' for sale that look equally as nice..There should be plenty '15 about they made around a quater of a million of em..

[Marco]

Lol - it's not difficult to find if you look.....

Ok, to save people's curiosity, here's the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270588380203

I didn't want to pay that for them, but there were 27 bids on the f*ckers and so I had to keep upping my bid to stay in the lead!

Clearly, given the level of interest, they were worth having (mainly of course due to the condition)

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

Also I think the Japanese mania for vintage British gear pushed up prices in the past.

[Rare Bird]

Lol - it's not difficult to find if you look.....

Ok, to save people's curiosity, here's the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270588380203

I didn't want to pay that for them, but there were 27 bids on the fuckers and so I had to keep upping my bid to stay in the lead!

Clearly, given the level of interest, they were worth having (mainly of course due to the condition)

Marco.

I knew anyway already seen them, don't worry i've seen a few pairs go for that much so it's no suprise (there's a right & wrong way to bid on items )..It's all odd tho cos i gave £20 for a pair around 20 years ago! He's a good seller .. i bid on a Crimson Elektrik 500 series a bit ago he was selling..

[Marco]

Lol, I know..... But I *wanted* them, and there's not a lot you can do when someone comes in with a bid and sets a higher upper limit than yours, so you have to increase yours to supersede it.

I wonder why Celestion moved from using the Coles tweeters on the later XRs?

Marco.

[Rare Bird]

Lol, I know..... But I *wanted* them, and there's not a lot you can do when someone comes in with a bid and sets a higher upper limit than yours, so you have to increase yours to better it.

I wonder why Celestion moved from using the Coles tweeters on the later XRs?

Marco.

They didnt use Coles tweeters they were Celestion HF1300 in the original but lacked HF extension ..they made there own tweeters.Celestion HF2000 as used in the '44' is a good tweeter