Few & far between

[Rare Bird]

Don't know if anyone notices but owners of modern speakers are far outweighed by owners with older type designs!

I dislike modern speakers period.The comments modern speakers owners make in an attempt to condemn old designs is in reality a laugh a min :lolsign:

[Reid Malenfant]

Actually it makes me laugh that a few speaker manufacturers have recently been shouting from the rooftops about their beryllium drivers 'be' this & 'be' that :eyebrows:

Well definately seeing as Yamaha were using them in the 70s, then there was the thing about rectangular wire voicecoils & how they fill the gap better... Again these were used formerless in the 70s by the same company on the same speakers :)

I rest my case :lol:

[Beobloke]

I have nothing at all against most modern speakers - some of them are very good.

The reason I don't have a pair is simply that I can't damn well afford the ones I REALLY like! :(

[Marco]

Hi Adam,

Happy New Year, mate! :)

Just a quickie... I enjoyed reading your review of the Empire T/T in this month's HFW, and specifically the 'amazing new discovery' you had with the ol' DL-103......... :eyebrows:

I did tell you that it needed a genuinely HIGH MASS arm to realise its full potential (and what a gorgeous tonearm that is)!! ;)

What phono stage did you use with the Empire, btw?

Marco.

P.S Did Keywood-the-103-hater (and David) get a chance to hear it on the Empire?

[Beobloke]

Hi Marco, and a Happy New Year to you too.

Sadly the DL103 revelation was experience in the privacy of my own listening room so neither David nor Noel experienced it. I need to send the arm off to Johnnie at Audio Origami for a bit of fettling but once that's done I shall be taking it along to David's, believe me!

The phono stage I used was my Anatek MC1 and I also tried it through........well, let's just say "another" phono stage for now as you might be rather intrigued by it! Let's just say it was made by a company who also made an integrated amplifier, an example of which i have just bought as well and will be unpacking this evening. More information will follow - keep your eye on the 'Past Masters' forum! ;)

Adam.

[Techno Commander]

The only new speakers that really excite me are the Volt loaded PMCs.

And I cant afford them.:(

[DSJR]

Which Empire?

We had a Troubadour (598?) just around the time we took on Linn in 1977. The Empire lost nothing to the LP12 in terms of musicality (this was before the Ittok messed up the bass), but it was surprising that Empire's own top cartridges couldn't be used as they were FAR too compliant for the arm. I don't think many Empire turntables ever came to the UK, but the engineering was incredibly good as I remember ;)

[DSJR]

Andr'e, I think there are good modern passive speakers out there, but you have to pay over a grand for any without significant compromise. I'm thinking Harbeth & Spendor (OK, they're still holding true to their BBC legacy roots, but both makers have modern designs which are well liked), the latest Tannoy Prestige models (which offer re-designed crossovers over that in the 70's but which cost too much for impoverished brits - even half price is too high!!!!!).

HiFi Dave has spent a good long while with the smaller Naim Ovators and, to give credit where it's due, he tells me that they're nothing like you'd expect from a Naim box, not as overblown as the bigger ones are supposed to be, yet not bass light either and with a tactile and delicate quality to them that I wouldn't attribute to Naim passive speakers..

[MartinT]

I think there are good new speaker designs and good old speakers. Age is no indicator of ability. As for Be tweeters, surely everyone acknowledges that Yamaha created them first? Their use by, particularly, Focal and Usher should be seen as a homage to a great idea.

I can think of some cringingly awful speakers of yore that I would not give houseroom to.

[Reid Malenfant]

As for Be tweeters, surely everyone acknowledges that Yamaha created them first? Their use by, particularly, Focal and Usher should be seen as a homage to a great idea.
Not forgetting Paradigm ;) I bought one of their centre speakers specifically to voice the same as my left & right fronts (Yamaha drivers), the fact that it was new & 1/3 the standard price due to being on sale is besides the point :eyebrows:

Right place, right time :) Ebay yet again...

[markf]

Yes, thankfully I kept my pair of Linn Helix speakers which I actually bought new and modern ,
but are now old and dare I say "classic" but ironically currently being used in a kind
of modern role as I use them for my rear speakers for my AV setup, they have,
as Andre has suggested at the start of the thread, matured well and I have
no intention of swapping them for something modern.

[Marco]

Hi Adam,


Sadly the DL103 revelation was experience in the privacy of my own listening room so neither David nor Noel experienced it. I need to send the arm off to Johnnie at Audio Origami for a bit of fettling but once that's done I shall be taking it along to David's, believe me!


No worries. I think you need to let them hear it, as it will act as valuable experience.

Thing is, you get a similar effect with the DL-103 by fitting a heavy, high-mass, headshell to a Jelco SA-750 (the ideal one is the Ortofon LH-9000, at 16.8g, shown in link below), so there is a ready-made modern solution to optimising the 'ol clunker' ;)

http://www.analogueseduction.net/product/Ortofon_LH-9000_Headshell_ortllh9000

One simply has to remember that the 103 harks from an era where the thinking on partnering ancillaries (and their design and construction) was rather different to what it is now, therefore trying to get one to perform optimally on most modern tonearms, is akin to attempting to fit a round peg into a square hole....


The phono stage I used was my Anatek MC1 and I also tried it through........well, let's just say "another" phono stage for now as you might be rather intrigued by it! Let's just say it was made by a company who also made an integrated amplifier, an example of which i have just bought as well and will be unpacking this evening. More information will follow - keep your eye on the 'Past Masters' forum!


Hehehe... Sondex, perhaps? If so, I'm not surprised by your enthusiasm! :eyebrows:

I look forward to reading your erudite thoughts on the matter in Past Masters :cool:

Marco.

P.S Apologies for the thread drift.

[Rare Bird]

Hehehe... Sondex, perhaps? If so, I'm not surprised by your enthusiasm! :eyebrows:



:eyebrows: indeed.