Vintage vs modern speakers - what's your take?

personally I do prefer vintage speaker, they sound very natural to me.
modern speaker tend to sound clinical to me

Vintage speakers need not be 'old' - there are speaker makers today that follow the same solid tradition and design philosophy. They were able to maintain the same sound albeit with many incremental improvements through the years.

Harbeth and Spendor are two such 'vintage' brands that came to mind. I hope Spendor will follow the same tradition with the new ownership.

I owned two pairs of 'modern' Harbeth, and I really love how they sounds. The vintage boxy looking cabinet still requires a lot of old style highly skilled carpentry work. It is integral to the Harbeth sound, much like a carefully crafted musical instrument.

Harbeth is the type of sound that one falls in love with on first hearing. You know instinctively that it will sounds just as beautiful 20 years from now and the solid wood cabinet will age just as beautifully.

I find it a relief that in the midst of the audiophile craze of unending upgrades and mindless consumerism, the timeless essence is still preserved and poising to reassert itself again.

for me the best sound and natural come from vintage speakers, i own Mordaunt short MS20i bookshelf using bwire..less than 1 years, its 20 years old speaker, about RM400-600 now day and its sound very beautiful, warm, good mid..easy to drive with any low amp,..love everyday to hear the sound...try buy and test with new speaker, and still cant beat my MS20i, pure, natural, mid,very clear and crisp sounds, its what vintage speaker all about...just my 10 cent experience, cheers to listening...but some says vintage speakers its not good enough bass.?..what bass ?

You want great and "possibly" natural sound, the loudspeaker cone must be paper based cone...PERIOD!
Many great sounding and very enjoyable vintage speakers were paper cone..go listen to them with a wide range of music, even FM radio..then come and tell me its no good.

what PERIOD! ur ears, not my dude...

kancan wrote:what PERIOD! ur ears, not my dude...

The QUESTION was "what's your take?" so I give my take.. you agree or not is up to you. I really don't care, dude!

appreciate your TAKE!..thank 4 share your opinion..its ok dude, dont take to deep..we are listener., but the advantage is im the musician,...so depend on what your take:

cmboy wrote:

kancan wrote:what PERIOD! ur ears, not my dude...

The QUESTION was "what's your take?" so I give my take.. you agree or not is up to you. I really don't care, dude!

hahaha ! Good one !

mugenfoo wrote:

cmboy wrote:

kancan wrote:what PERIOD! ur ears, not my dude...

The QUESTION was "what's your take?" so I give my take.. you agree or not is up to you. I really don't care, dude!

hahaha ! Good one !

Wow, the Amish sure take their listening seriously. But which ordnung allows electricity? Do they generate their own?

Best vintage speaker I've heard this year... Yamaha NS-1000M. Big big sound with ooodles of detail and excellent imaging. I like this one.

Best Vintage speaker i still prefer the Sansui SP-3500 (built early 1975) with sensitivity of 100dB/W (at 1m distance) can be view as below:-
http://www.classicsansui.net/images/Literature/Speakers/SP3500%202.jpg

Aiya no need so stress on own stand or own preference.. JBL LE14C , Tannoy Gold , HPD, Jensen Sigma , Nirvico
, Isophon Stereollete.. all sound very sweet to me. they might lack the pinpoint imagine or super clear sound reproduction, but I just like how they sound, with full emotion, no need sit in "maharaja seat" to enjoy the sweet sound spot, the vintage speaker just sound so nice even listen to the mono recording or radio broadcast..

Yep, vintage Harbeths and Spendors are tops. In fact their current range are follows the same design philosophy. Many still keep them and some hunting for them still. They may not sound exciting as today's speakers initially but encourage you for longer term listening due to their uncanny neutrality and BBC heritage as studio monitoring speakers. Solid no nonsense construction means they'll last forever too. Will work well with modern electronics.
And yes the Yam NS1000s too. I had a chance to hear these in a recording studio in the States. Well sought after.

How come no one mentioned B&W speakers? To my ears who has listened to many 'live' world class musicians in famous concert halls in the world these are some of the most realistic & accurate speakers available.

Vintage Altec Lansing is one of most famous in that vintage era, 60's-80's, and the price WOW ..

I personally enjoy the sound from my aging celestion sl700. They are old and rebuilt, but the sound, late at night with the lights low and the tubes from my antique sound lab integrated amp lit up, is just sheer magic to my ears. It isn't all hi-fi, after playing with these toys we like and enjoy so much, i realize that hi fi accuracy is one thing, but musicality, the toe-tapping 'rightness' is another. And i am soo glad that (for now) i have a very simple system that i can listen to, live with, and it puts a smile on my face AFTER i have finished listening for the night. Of course, all that may change tomorrow if i get the 'upgrade-itis' bug again!!! I am curious to listen to Harbeth tho. Any one knows if they can rock a little? My tunes are more towards classic rock, pearl jam, nirvana, that sort of thing. I don't listen to music loud, and my 30 watter drives the celestion sl700 just fine. Just curious.
thanks for the blog, i think it's great.

bal.

if you do prefer rock, try listen to old JBL, 4315, L200 ..etc
haha.. its party time

Vintage Altec Lansing is one of most famous in that vintage era, 60's-80's, and the price WOW ..

Hey Kancan, if u come Ipoh, contact me 016 558 1515, I can bring you to visit my fren who is fever of Altec Lansing, he got A7, A5 and
605 .... all horn horn honk..

nobody mention coral? (sigh)

My take is ESL57. BTW, does anyone know where to audition vintage Tannoy (15" monitor gold or older) or original Tannoy (like GRF, Canterbury etc..) ?

bal,

Harbeth is absolutely beautiful for soft listening. I do quite a lot of late night listening while I do yoga. I set the volume so low that the wall clock is a nuisance, but yet the sound still comes through with whole spectrum fullness and incredible amount of details.

I find the bass response of my C7ES3 very firm, responsive and satisfying. I am not sure about your taste. But you can also bring along your CD's and even your amplifier and drop by Tropical Audio for an audition.

The current generation of Harbeths are very easy to drive. I heard that the earlier Harbeths are slightly more demanding. Your 30W amplifier should be plenty sufficient.

old-type speakers? nobody write on a speaker model that is still in production since the first model was manufactured in 1946? hey...it's the Klipschorn & i only need 3 watts 2A3 SET. Listen to it and you don't want to hear anything else.

buzz wrote:old-type speakers? nobody write on a speaker model that is still in production since the first model was manufactured in 1946? hey...it's the Klipschorn & i only need 3 watts 2A3 SET. Listen to it and you don't want to hear anything else.

Huh? don't want to listen to anything else? Why ? coz those klipsch horns would permanently damage your hearing hence cannot listen to anything else already issit?

by azri Yesterday at 6:34 pm

nobody mention coral? (sigh)



azri
Frequent Contributor


Number of posts: 273
Age: 33
Location: australia
Registration date: 2009-01-21

listen to Coral Flat 8 and it sound bit thin to me..mayb other model better, I dunno.

My take is ESL57. BTW, does anyone know where to audition vintage Tannoy (15" monitor gold or older) or original Tannoy (like GRF, Canterbury etc..) ?

Again, if you come to Ipoh, give me a call, my friend got the HPD Tannoy and Tannoy Gold 15 inchers as well..they sound good with Heathkit W5M but I still preffered the Altec Lansing A5 with Eico HF12 with my JumPan2 preamp

wabun wrote:

Vintage Altec Lansing is one of most famous in that vintage era, 60's-80's, and the price WOW ..

Hey Kancan, if u come Ipoh, contact me 016 558 1515, I can bring you to visit my fren who is fever of Altec Lansing, he got A7, A5 and
605 .... all horn horn honk..

Maybe some other time wabun, Ipoh is my home town, i keep your hp no,..sooner or later i catch up with you, Altec Lansing Vintage Speaker is one of my list..anyway thank bro...

wabun wrote:Hey Kancan, if u come Ipoh, contact me 016 558 1515, I can bring you to visit my fren who is fever of Altec Lansing, he got A7, A5 and
605 .... all horn horn honk..

Wow, wow, wow! It's amazing that your friend is really in high fever for BIG speakers, especially Altec Lansing's A5 and A7. Best part is, he keeps both such of big speakers. So jealous for him :-)

I'm now using an old, but sound beautiful speaker, JBL L100.

I wish I could visit you and your friend when I come to Ipoh. I am from KL.

Cheers

welcome...welcome... I just "secure" pair of JBL LE14c
it is a coaxial LE14A + LE20
fall in love in them when listen at fren place..

Dear wabun,

Many thanks. Please do visit me as well if you are in KL/PJ.

See ya.

haiyah wabun, u paste everything lorr

Vintage speakers definitely have their appeal. My personal fetish is with single driver wide / full bandwidth types. I am been trying to replace my single driver Mitsubishi Diatone 610MB (could have been produced in the 80's but the design harks back many more years) for the last 5 years without success.



Regards,
Joe Ling

Alnico drivers has advantage in fullrange..

try

http://www.thevintageknob.org/

this one look cool!
http://www.thevintageknob.org/YAMAHA/GF1/GF1.html

cheers,
wps

The Hartsfield..





The JBL Paragon

Hi end manufacturers may capitalised on the situation, by using vintage amp circuitry that provided good sound though may have reliability problems, which is not a problem selling to people who can afford them. So repackaged them under their badge and sell u at rm100k per piece, mind u, u need 2 pieces as a stereo mono blocs!!!! Really good sound, repairs and maintenances are expensive, who cares when u can afford the bill.

Diyers build their own 'vintaged' supposedly 'hi end' sounding amps that cost a small fortune, still affordable by today's standard. But the lack of r & d, may hindered some performances. Still sounds better than runnming off the shelf budget systems, in my opinion only. But if one is diyed challenged, then it's a entirely different ball park la.

Not agree on that. there is Onkagu circuit in internet.
and there are lots of experienced DIY who tried to build as well.
Yet never heard any DIY Ongkagu can rival the ori one..
same goes to Marantz 7 preamplifier.. vintage legend is not
by name, they really got the quality in it..if you want DIY
a quality amp.. goes for the authentic idea, come out with your own design...

Specialist hifi Mfgs have the advantage such that when they bulk components in super duper bulk, they have the luxury and priviledge to build products with matched components.


What more, even more specialised Mfgs can even ask component suppliers to provide custom batch components (even though they may be standard model parts) with higher specs.
Example: Naim.

Even more extreme, would be Mfgs getting proprietary components for the specific purposes.
Example: Krell (supplier: Motorola)


So unless u wanna go Pasar Road and SAPU 1000 pieces of a particular BJT or FET, SAPU 2,000 pieces of XXXuF capacitors and then slowly find a matched pair... good luck !

i am in semiconductor field lah. many of the so call proprietary component.. it just a laser mark change for industrial grade component. unless you engage with some automotive component which required very stringent test condition. but I believe vintage
Marantz 7 did not use the super accurate component but they sing very well.. hifi =/= science
technology doesnt guranteed good sound.

wabun wrote:i am in semiconductor field lah. many of the so call proprietary component.. it just a laser mark change for industrial grade component.

Nicht nicht ... ich dun think so.

If you've worked with equipment from Rohde & Schwarz, Intersil, & certain Mil-spec components, you won't have made that stereotyping comment above (and put foot-in-mouth).

Hi Wabun,


My posting, I said lack of r & d capped the performance of the diyed amp.

Have a good day.

Mr Mugenfoo.. Intersil , International Rectifier, Delphi, Semtech, Wolfson ..etc was my ex-customer. and I have been testing under water optical transceiver for FInisar which require the most stringent
test condition that I have ever seen lah. for consumer type of electronics..( FET..etc) you dun expect a military type in Malaysia
Nothing can be assembled / test outside US for military grade component. just sharing.

wabun wrote:Mr Mugenfoo.. Intersil , International Rectifier, Delphi, Semtech, Wolfson ..etc was my ex-customer. and I have been testing under water optical transceiver for FInisar which require the most stringent
test condition that I have ever seen lah. for consumer type of electronics..( FET..etc) you dun expect a military type in Malaysia
Nothing can be assembled / test outside US for military grade component. just sharing.

OK lah, so this only proves that for anyone who wants to DIY anything in MALAYSIA, and sourcing the components locally ... the specs will be restricted to what is available COTS.

But for very specialised MFGs in Europe, USA they would have access to custom-spec and Military grade and BTO components. Did you know that Mission Cyrus (before Cyrus was spun off as a seperate company), their shoebox amps were built with Military grade components?

aiya honestly even thru books tell me the more accurate component used, the more accurate the frequency response is. however, after listen to those old old amp ( Healthkit W5-M , Eico HF-22 , Altec Lansing 1590E) I start to differ. when I repair those vintage stuff, the very bad reading of resistor, capacitor really scare me. but they really doesn't matter coz the amp really play tuneful music. we are not missle designer, not rocket science lah, just enjoy Hifi. if the sound is seductive, who care using jalan pasar component or pasar malam component ?

Tuneful/seductive sound doesn't quite equate to accurate sound reproduction.

Sure. if u like everything to sound super smooth, super sweet (or any single particular type of "colouration") ... But the problem is that such equipment, generally speaking, would be really good in playing a certain type of music only. But when the music material changes .. koyak.


A damn good equipment or system should play Classical / Jazz / Blues / Vocals / Pop / Rock / Techno / Industrial / Trash / Grunge / Tanz-Metal, etc etc to a certain degree of quality. (ok, maybe not Techno ).

Our hifi no need military specs lah! We no need to operate freezing point temparature or 150 degress celcius. Military equipment yes, not our hifi. (Who in the mood of listening to hifi, when miisle or bullets whizing along) Back those days when study electronic, it is acceptable design to tolerate 10 to 20 percent devition. Nowadys the components are getting better, more linear and less distortion. Life span not so, that is why better to change equipment regularly. They dont make componets like those days, look at my advatar, my radio, most of the componets are original and it still play well.

Actually i would consider hifi low class circuit design, imagine 20Hz to 20Khz or the most 50khz. It should response linearly at that bandwidth. How about video bandwidth from 0hz(dc) to Megahertz range. Not forgetting teecomunication up to gigahertz....

Ooops off topic! Sorry back to topic...Speaker that you own for along time sounds nice to you even when you compare to others and it might not to your liking coz the old speaker grows on you. You are used to that kind of sound. The Speaker design evolves as the music evolves. Last time speaker concertrate on faithful reproduction especially the vocal band. That time it was mono and stereo was at its infancy. Those who favours vintage speaker loves slow vocal music because vintage speaker and valve amplifiction is good at it. When era of rock and roll comes, the speaker changes more bass and a need for higher frequency reproduction. It is no surprise woofer of 10" to 15" a norm. IF you were to listen and study, those speaker do not concern on soundstaging or the ambience of recording. The midband or the vocal band, singer mouth width size is no importance. All Big Sound! toe tapping it will be...Nowadys speaker design also changes, house shrank and so do speaker. Woofer size of 8" very big already, very boomy. Our way of listening also changes, true reproduction is a must and cannot be denied. Good soundstaging, abilility to reproduce minuete nuance and ability to reproduce ambience in the recording sets grades the speaker nowadys. A lot of people overlook is checking the aperture of the singer mouth width. Singer mouth width should be like a normal human size, propotionate like somebody is speaking in front of you. That explain why mid or mid bass of 5 1/4" till 6 1/4" is a norm for our living room. Any smaller the mouth aperture will be smaller and any bigger will make the singer mouth bigger like LAT cartoon( even can swallow you up). Pls bear in mind, this applies to our normal size living room we are staying. IF you stay big mansion you are exempted, you can set up your sytem like life like concert sound. Then 12" or 15" mid will be the best!

For my take, i have none i appreciate all by its own virtues....

mugenfoo wrote:Tuneful/seductive sound doesn't quite equate to accurate sound reproduction.

Sure. if u like everything to sound super smooth, super sweet (or any single particular type of "colouration") ... But the problem is that such equipment, generally speaking, would be really good in playing a certain type of music only. But when the music material changes .. koyak.


A damn good equipment or system should play Classical / Jazz / Blues / Vocals / Pop / Rock / Techno / Industrial / Trash / Grunge / Tanz-Metal, etc etc to a certain degree of quality. (ok, maybe not Techno ).

Hi Mugenfoo,

Do you know (or have heard) of any single system that can handle all the genre that you stated above? If so, please enlighten us by stating the brand(s) and model(s) of the electronics, speakers, etc.

Regards.

123_rocketman wrote:
Hi Mugenfoo,

Do you know (or have heard) of any single system that can handle all the genre that you stated above? If so, please enlighten us by stating the brand(s) and model(s) of the electronics, speakers, etc.

Regards.

Wouldn't you like to know

I would say a good speaker is can sing well even thru play in single channel ( mono ) mood. Old speaker can.. especially those Alnico V type..

A damn good
equipment or system should play Classical / Jazz / Blues / Vocals / Pop
/ Rock / Techno / Industrial / Trash / Grunge / Tanz-Metal, etc etc to
a certain degree of quality. (ok, maybe not Techno ).


"Do
you know (or have heard) of any single system that can handle all the
genre that you stated above? If so, please enlighten us by stating the
brand(s) and model(s) of the electronics, speakers, etc."

I would think that a setup that could replay most of the great classical pieces eg. Carl Off"s Carmina Burana, Bizet's Carmen Suites (classical pieces must be able to hear the timpani, mind u), replay piano solo pieces, and at the same time play songs from Gorillaz & Blues, for eg. (should be able to hear the kick drums, bro!), then there is a fairly good chance the same setup could replay Jason Miles' "To grover with love"(Jazz piece, and must be able to hear the kick drums too), the Dream of an Opera(must be able to hear the full glory of the Chinese drums). Then replaying the following should not be a problem: Celion Dion, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Wham, Shania twain, Chrish De Burgh, Gloria Estefan, Babyface, Johhny hates jazz, Toto, Johnny Logan, Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, Simon Garfunkel, etc., Then comes the auriophiles such as Rebecca Pidgeon, Cai Qin, Susan Wong, Jacintha, with clarity of the vocals, etc.,

Mustn't have any traces of boom, any traces of the amp struggling to keep up with the music, any sign of congestion, any sign of lack of dynamics........that's what I will call a 'allrounder'.....and lastly the visitors/listeners don't attempt to run out of the room/ or excuse themselves to go to the loo or suddenly remembered they have another appointment somewhere else and have to leave in a hurry!!!

for once ... agree with you 100% on the above.

BTW, I'm sure there are a couple of homes in the Klang Valley that hail such all-rounder systems. As for commercial shops (ie hifi shops), I can only think of one so far.