Under rated speakers

I havent seen em listed
Thats a good sign theyre underappreciated

Sylvania speakers

Yet to hear the detailed story of kloss involvement in the company

Based right here in my city batavia, ny
 
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I have a couple pair of Realistic Optimus 1's and had a pair of 5b's. I have 7 or 8 pair of speakers in the Minimus 7 family line. All of them have been pretty good in their own right. The 7's make good surround speakers with great WAF.
 
Hitachi HS-1 & HS-2 ; they may have been an answer to the minimus 7's. Built tough as nails; feels like your holding a brick in your hand. May seem strange but some of the early hitachi stuff was pretty good imho.

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I'm sure we all own or have heard speakers that sound better than their popularity or reputation would indicate. I own one such pair of speakers. Polk Audio RT10s. Primarily sold as HT speakers in the late 90s they sound good no matter what combination I them hook them up with. What are your unsung speakers? No Advents or Dynacos please but real sleepers that others might be surprised by.

cubdog
I recently hooked up a system I bought new in 1985. Haven't listened in a long while because of owning larger and more expensive gear. The speakers are ADS L-570's in factory black. Now I know that ADS really aren't considered underated speakers, but I was really impressed with how they sounded having not heard them for sometime. So this is one pair of speakers i'm truly glad I kept. Will D.
 
Seems like the audiophile world thumbs their noses at these... if they took a listen maybe they could get past the name Sylvania.

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I remember back when Sylvania made components in the late 60s and early 70s. Nice looking eqi=equipment and was probably good. I never considered them because I associated them as a console maker. I was only interested in Fisher, HH Scott, HK etc. I would not have wanted that Sylvania name on my shelf. Perhaps one of the best sleepers of all time.
 
Seems like the audiophile world thumbs their noses ate these... if they took a listen maybe they could get past the name Sylvania.

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I would NOT thumb my nose at those.
Looks like a blue cone CTS woofer in there.
Tweeter and mid looks real interesting. They certainly do not look cheap to me.

CTS made really good drivers back in the day. Real quality stuff
Many mfrs used them. Rectilinear is one that comes to mind

I have a 12" CTS woofer with a BIG square magnet.
Real heavy and impressive speaker that has a Sylvania label on the back of it

I would love to know what Sylvania speaker system that woofer came out of.
That big ole CTS is one NICE woofer and I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that the rest of the speaker is as good.

So, I am going to agree that some Sylvania speakers are Underrated!
 
Tweeter and mid looks real interesting

Hard to find the original mids and tweets, I used Long Engineering Tweeters from Slyvania AS 210a speakers also designed by Henry Kloss. I found a compliment set of mids also from Long Engineering all drivers utilize alnico magnets.

Woofer is a CTS.

Sound is quite nice, should be heard... I had them at the last Frankenfest many had the chance to listen to them.
 
Not seeing much appreciation for the Philips brand. I hsve a set of mfb 22 rh532 they are smallish 3 way with a built in biamp system. They did manufacture some smaller as well as larger models. These things sre really something to hear, and look at.
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Many American shoppers look at B&O in the used market and think "style over substance," so the speakers tend to be sleepers in the U.S. market. I still own the Beovox S-60s that were my main speakers for many years, and they still sound very good to me. The Beovox S-45 and S-75 were also very fine speakers.



I agree completely. The EPI 100 is too well known to be a sleeper, but some other models including the M180 can still be picked up inexpensively in the used market. I bought a pair of M180s a few years back for $10 at a garage sale. I re-foamed all four woofers and the speakers sound great.

Dr. Tinear, my soul brother, my dear friend, my fellow AKer in low-budget awesomeness...

Now we no longer only share a fondness for Technics belt drive tables, we also appreciate the M180!

I put an ad in the local freebie website recently, wanting to trade a pair of my growing collection of vintage speakers for an old DAC. Some Audio Dude agreed to trade his old 16-bit, 44.1kHz Denon DAC for my EPIs, so I hauled them down from the attic (heavy!), set them up in my living room, and invited him over to listen and do the trade.

After listening to them for over 20 minutes (toilet paper cardboard roll tube pressed against his ear and each driver), I finally got around to making sure the DAC worked. I casually said something along the lines of "this old DAC was supposed to be pretty good 20 years ago", and then he started getting cold feet. He spent another 15 minutes checking each driver and the tweeter pot, and I got that sinking, time-wasted feeling. "Uh-oh, there is a hairline little nick in this rubber surround", he finally announced.

"So you don't want to trade now?", I asked, getting annoyed and impatient.

"Well, that surround has a crack and blah-blah-blah". I had to ask him to leave because he just kept going on and on.

The gist of my cautionary tale to us audio guys (besides DO NOT BECOME THIS GUY!) is that I oiled up the vinyl veneer, and put them in my main system, since they were in the living room.

WOW! They give my Linn Saras a serious run for their money. And they are WAY more accurate and uncoloured than the Linns, but with a similar pleasant non-fatiguing sound. I had only ever really listened to them in the attic system with an old 45 watt receiver, but in my main system they really sing, with nice controlled bass.

I'm glad Mr. Audio Guy decided to renege on our trade!
 
I put an ad in the local freebie website recently, .....
Some Audio Dude agreed to trade .....

After listening to them for over 20 minutes (toilet paper cardboard roll tube pressed against his ear and each driver),
..... and then he started getting cold feet.
He spent another 15 minutes checking each driver and the tweeter pot,
and I got that sinking, time-wasted feeling. "Uh-oh, there is a hairline little nick in this rubber surround", he finally announced.

"So you don't want to trade now?", I asked, getting annoyed and impatient.
I had to ask him to leave because he just kept going on and on.

The gist of my cautionary tale to us audio guys (besides DO NOT BECOME THIS GUY!)
!

What a familiar story!
Met that guy(s) a few times already

That's why I meet people at the Safeway parking lot.
Or sell stuff on consignment

No more time wasting Audio Dudes for me!
 
I would also have to throw a vote for the KLH 900B bookshelf speakers. I spent a lot of time in the audition room at Best Buy and those little bookshelves outshined all speaker in the selection. X_25s description was right on the money. I have three pair,but one pair is for parts. When I bought my first pair they were to cost $39 each, but when I was rung up it came up as $39 for the pair. I ran the first pair out to the car and went back and bought the second pair right away. They are out of rotation now in favor of my DCMs.
 
I also agree on the KLH 900B, very decent cheap 3-way speakers. Still have one of three pairs I've bought. More bass than one would think, with good mids and highs. Bought a pair of them in the early 90s at a giant surplus sale for $20 each. The next year I bought two more pairs, which I later sold or gave to friends. Good sound, and you're not all torn up if they get dinged a little. Yamaha had an almost identical model, the NS-649. Even the specs were the same. The newer Yamaha NS-6490 has a different tweeter, and I think is better looking, but is otherwise the same. Except for the higher price.
 
Not sure if these are considered under-rated, but I don't see them mentioned much.. Polk RT400. For a single 6.5 woofer, they put out some awesome, tight, bass. And the silk dome tweeter is really nice.

Was using them for music/front surround sound til they got banished by the wife for being too big! Now I can't wait to get them hooked back up to my vintage gear. :)
 
Graphyx 8's and the 6's aren't far behind. I don't have a whole lot of speaker wisdom but I'm not alone when thinking they are underdogs. The 8s sound great down low and dig deep but they can be very bright but that's the dome highs for ya. The 6's have a cone high and seem a lot softer on peaks. I'm not sure of the 6's xover but as pictured the 8s are beasty!
 

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In my case - not so much underrated, but rather less known. I actually like to discover lesser known, yet good speakers. And was lucky to find a few - Starting from Synergistics S-62A - still my favorite speakers, also have in my collection Jensen System 500 - another great speaker pair. Also - pair of Becker speakers- very rare and very unknown in a realm of home stereo, but rather high end name in vintage Car audio - they were put in higher end german cars back in a day. Some a bit more modern (and already mentioned by somebody ) - Anything Mirage - I have SM 2.5 and 360 - both are fantastic speakers, as well as anything by Athena - in my experience they made some fine bookshelf speakers.
I think one set I can actually call underrated - Advent Heritage - I think they are very good speakers, not that easy to find either, well made and sound very good, even rated very well most other places, but here are in a same category as Bostons or Polks of the same vintage. Having had both - Polks and Bostons of that era - I still prefer Heritages, so IMO they should be in a same category.
I dont think Klipsch are underrated, they are just either liked or not. I have KG 4 and KG 4.5 and like both very much, yet both pairs are used in Home theater systems - for me I like them better for that, less so for just music.
 
ADS L-10s. Evidently they were part of a sub/satellite system, but do pretty well on their own. Small footprint, 7" woofer...typical accurate ADS sound with the "illusion" of deeper bass than they actually deliver.
 
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