Just won these on Ebay......
I fancied a pair of small vintage speakers for the garden to use when the weather's nice and we're eating al fresco, so will pump the choons from my system outside into these cuties....
I've never seen a pair so minty mint, given that they're over 40 years old!! :eek:
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1...hqrhoev10f.jpg http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7...qvjkev10db.jpg
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/9...hqfisev1zv.jpg http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/2...hqvimev10c.jpg
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/577...qvisev10ek.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7...njkev10bic.jpg
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/569...zhev10egzb.jpg http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6...hqvhsev10g.jpg
When we have friends round for dinner, and want some music, they'll be used in the lounge (on suitable stands) in the same way :)
I've always liked vintage Celestions, and these Ditton 15XRs, in such amazing condition, will do nicely!
Later, I'll upgrade the crossovers (like I did with the Tannoys) and internal wire and speaker binding posts, and see just how good I can get them to sound. But for the moment I'll just be enjoying them as they are :cool:
Marco.
They don't make 'em like they used to, but use 'em, don't just look at 'em...!
Hi Chris,
Quote:
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 :cool:
Marco.
