Best speakers Sansui ever made?

I can come close. I had two pairs of SP-X9, which all together have nearly the same driver complement as the SP-X11000. Hooked them up to a B-2101 power amp (200 WPC, so a bit shy of a BA-5000) and let it rip on afternoon when no one else was home. I even stacked the speakers on their sides two high to replicate the layout of the SP-X11000 cabinets when assembled. In short: awfully damn loud, but even driven by an amp of the high calibre of the B-2101, I wasn't all that impressed with the sound.

The SP-X9 are the embodiment of kabuki speakers. 18" woofers, a 6.5" midrange, two 2x6" horn tweeters and theee 1.25" cone "super tweeters" (so claimed in Sansui's marketing anyway) in a ported box barely a foot deep, clad in cheesy "walnut" vinyl and oversized carved wood grilles. I'll confess I bought them entirely because they looked so over the top and were cheap enough to take a gamble on. In the end not a bad purchase, but not one I'd probably make again.

This setup would've looked right at home on stage behind Pete, Roger and Keith no doubt. I ended up lending (probably permanently) one pair of the X9's to my brother who isn't quite as discerning about such things, and sold another pair to a buddy who told me he wanted a setup so loud he could "break $hi+ across the street". He had a commercial/stage amp of some sort (Crown maybe) he used with them and could reach nausearingly painful levels of sound. Not really my thing, but he loved it. He'll probably be deaf before he turns 40 tbough.
 
reach nausearingly painful levels of sound. Not really my thing, but he loved it. He'll probably be deaf before he turns 40 tbough.

It's clear this was a design goal for the SP series of speakers - I wasn't prepared for the way mine pulled it off when I pushed them yesterday. The whole thing makes a lot more sense now, to be honest.

I'm going to keep my ear to the ground, and pick up some more Sansui speakers, they're really fun,
 
Loud, huh? Yes, this thread has turned ‘fun’.

Not dissing Sansui speakers (I still have my SP-3500’s that were bought new and SP-2000’s) but maybe SP really stands for sound pressure.

Cheers,
John
 
Yeah, and now there's a set of SP-X11000 for sale somewhat locally. It's amazing how this hobby tends to be self enabling, no matter how "rare" something is before I start to look for it.
 
^ Heh. Just what I did with 4 SP-X9s. Great minds think alike. And Maxhifix, no kidding about how things just seem appear in the right place/right time. Just picked up a second pair of SP-3700 last week about 30 minutes from home. Didn't need them, but wasn't going to pass at the price being asked.
 
^ Heh. Just what I did with 4 SP-X9s. Great minds think alike. And Maxhifix, no kidding about how things just seem appear in the right place/right time. Just picked up a second pair of SP-3700 last week about 30 minutes from home. Didn't need them, but wasn't going to pass at the price being asked.

The SP-X11000 near me are priced at top dollar, so I'm not quite as tempted, especially since they're mostly a novelty.
 
Yeah, I remember I almost bit on a pair of SP-X11000 many years ago but the shipping would've been more than the asking price, which was astonishingly cheap at the time. Also, this was after the SP-X9 episode I posted above so I already knew what to expect. That made the deal a non-starter as they just didn't impress me enough to buy the solely for the novelty factor.

Nowadays, anyone selling a pair thinks the things are gold plated like that G-22000 in the other thread that just popped up, with a price to match. Nah, I'm just not buying them forn that kind of coin.
 
Yeah, I remember I almost bit on a pair of SP-X11000 many years ago but the shipping would've been more than the asking price, which was astonishingly cheap at the time. Also, this was after the SP-X9 episode I posted above so I already knew what to expect. That made the deal a non-starter as they just didn't impress me enough to buy the solely for the novelty factor.

Nowadays, anyone selling a pair thinks the things are gold plated like that G-22000 in the other thread that just popped up, with a price to match. Nah, I'm just not buying them forn that kind of coin.

Yesterday after listening to an album on my SP-3005s, cranked way up, my ears were ringing for an hour... I'm a bit gun shy about buying something even louder! The brochure on hifiengine for the SP-X11000 kinda has me sold though, they just look so cool there! If I find some local for substantially under $500, and I'm into it at the moment I may bite.
 
Indeed, and if you can find them reasonably they may be worth a shot. But, I think your SP-3005's are superior speakers in all respects but physical size and maybe total sound output level.

BTW, I have to complement your work rebuilding those 3005's. Those are a rare model, and I'm please to see you saved them. Would have been a shame for them to get parted or junked due to the cabinet damage.
 
Indeed, and if you can find them reasonably they may be worth a shot. But, I think your SP-3005's are superior speakers in all respects but physical size and maybe total sound output level.

BTW, I have to complement your work rebuilding those 3005's. Those are a rare model, and I'm please to see you saved them. Would have been a shame for them to get parted or junked due to the cabinet damage.

Thank you! Those cabinets are 100% new, but I made them to the same measurements internally as the old ones. The only change I made was to mirror image the speakers, so there's a left and right one now.
 

Hmmm, I listened to this on headphones, and I can't quite tell what to think. For one thing, they sound enormous, you sure get the visceral impact of a symphony. The violins sound less natural than other speakers, but I get a sense that the scale is huge. It's kind of hard to judge the sound via YouTube like that. This guy has a cool living room, nice brick wall back there.
 
Kind of futile to get a true idea of how that sounds after being recorded on a consumer camera (possibly mono with one mic) and then encoded and compressed in normal youtube fashion). But, you can figure with four 18" woofers, four 6.5" mids and 4 horn tweeters, it's going to be fairly intense.

As I said with my quad SP-X9 experiment upthread, it was very loud; and while not awful, was not what I'd consider really good sound for home listening. To prove a point, and for entertainment value, it certainly delivers. Put on the DVD of The Who live at Leeds, and have a listen and you might get something approaching the sound of being there in person. But who really does that kind of listening on a regular basis in their living room?

If you have the room, the budget, and the amplifier power to indulge such frivolity, have at it. Can't deny I have some outrageous gear that far exceeds my needs, and I still occasionally add something that is entirely unnecessary to my collection. That said, I've cut back on that sort of stuff as beyond a certain point, it's just buying and displaying gear solely for the bragging rights. Yeah, I like bragging too, who doesn't?

About the only things left I really want in Sansui gear would be a BA-5000, maybe a B-2301 and a BA-202 and 303 tube amp setup (the latter being so rare I may never have the chance). I have well covered virtually all other Sansui components of note, except for the Eight receiver, the alpha series amps, and the SP-L800 speakers. I have an abundance of receivers and speakers as it stands now, so can't possibly justify any more on either cost or space to keep them.

My future will be full of recaps and restorations to keep what I have now usable, and really I need to divest myself of a lot of extra gear simply for pragmatic reasons. One of these days, there will be a motherlode of Sansui cut loose from the confines of my living room and basement and people are going to think I owned a distributorship when it happens.
 
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Agree with you about the tube amps! I don't really have a lot of Sansui, but I do repair them for others quite frequently. My collection is limited to the SP-3005, a 5000A, a P-L95R auto reverse turntable, and other components from the intelligent compo system it came with.

I've worked on plenty of the better stuff though, for others.
 
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