Teac S-919 3-Way Mystery Speakers

AtMost12

New Member
It's been awhile since I've posted here for help/opinions on AudioKarma. But I am at a loss for information, and thought I'd try here as a last resort.
My AMAZING wife came across a pair of Teac 3-Way Floor speakers a few days ago at goodwill. Having a limited knowledge dealing with my hobby, she sent me a few pics via text, and I had her pick them up Immediately. All that being said, my research into this particular pair of speakers has brought up ZERO information. No pictures, no specs, no reviews, it's model number is non-existent as far as the internet is concerned.
The drivers seem to be of very good quality, more so than what Teac offers today. It consists of some sort of tweeter horn with a sound diffuser in front, an....unusual mid-range driver, and a 13 inch woofer( 11 inches if you don't count the frame). If anyone can shed some light onto what I have, it would be a definite help! Thanks!20180611_011241.jpg 20180613_015434.jpg 20180613_015508.jpg 20180611_011311.jpg 20180613_014659_HDR.jpg 20180611_011257.jpg 20180611_011332.jpg 20180613_014713.jpg 20180613_015111.jpg 20180613_015136.jpg 20180611_011241.jpg 20180613_015434.jpg
 
Most likely from a BPC rack system. Some were better than others. Some had some good bits within them. Most fit the BPC definition perfectly.

Given the likelihood that the woofers take a bit of an odd size foam, you will likely spend their value re-foaming the woofers.

I agree the mids are kind of interesting.

Temper your expectations with the idea that Teac was never a "speaker" company, and the speakers you have were created with one of their main design goals being price point competition with the other competing brands at that point in time.

They will be no better or worse than dozens of other similar offerings from the likes of Fisher, Technics, Sony, Kenwood, Pioneer, Marantz, etc.. In the late 80's/early 90's just about every major name in audio got in on the BPC(black plastic crap) rack system game.
 
Bowtie hit it right on the head. These speakers were designed more for price and appearance than anything else. In fact, those tweeters are probably cones behind the lenses.

That being said, more than one AK member has found some of these rack system speakers to have decent, if not amazing sound. Regarding the woofers, they may actually be a standard size, since the frame trim looks wider than on standard woofers. They probably will take a replacement surround for a 12" woofer. If you find that they are worth fixing up, I'd bet that the cabinets are made of 1/2" particle board, and could do with some internal bracing.
 
The cabinets are 1/2" or more particle board, and I do concur that there is definitly a lack of proper bracing within. However, having removed the broken diffuser, I was correct in the fact that they are tweeter horns, and not cones. Magnet size on all drivers are significantly larger than ones found on BPC speakers. I won't dismiss that these are rack speakers, but it begs the question what kind of system these were paired with. Did Teac ever make a quality system? I took a few more pictures.
 

Attachments

  • 20180613_123804.jpg
    20180613_123804.jpg
    39 KB · Views: 62
  • 20180613_123814.jpg
    20180613_123814.jpg
    46.7 KB · Views: 60
  • 20180613_124012.jpg
    20180613_124012.jpg
    26.9 KB · Views: 62
  • 20180613_124004.jpg
    20180613_124004.jpg
    17.6 KB · Views: 58
  • 20180613_124023.jpg
    20180613_124023.jpg
    31 KB · Views: 56
I'm always happy to be proven wrong, especially when the result is better.

TEAC was never a big player in the rack system market; in fact, when rack systems were in their heyday (late 80s, early 90s) I don't recall seeing any by TEAC. When I think racks from that era, the names that come to mind are Kenwood, Fisher and Technics (of course there were other brands as well, but those three seemed to have the widest distribution). In the 1980s and earlier, TEAC was primarily known for tape decks, and their reputation was first rate. However, later in that decade they started making inexpensive receivers, and lowered the quality of their cassette decks as well. In successive decades they redeemed themselves somewhat with the high end minisystems they're known for today. I suspect these speakers date from that time in between.
 
I did even further researching into the dark depths of the internet, and found that the Onkyo MX-5 speakers share the same mid-range. Of course I found this by compairing images. I now wonder if Teac and Only had a brief partnership to construct this aberration.
 

Attachments

  • 3a4a004ba89a0ca6b718cee72e09bb21.jpg
    3a4a004ba89a0ca6b718cee72e09bb21.jpg
    28.8 KB · Views: 40
Teac, Tascam and Esoteric were all in the same for most of their history. I am certain this particular speaker is worth restoring, what a cool find! And yes, Onkyo lent their considerable speaker making/design capabilities to other companies. This looks like one, RCA Dimension speakers are another.
 
It might end up being too costly to restore. One of the acoustic lens was broken into pieces when my wife found it, along with one missing grill and some deep scrapes on top of one of the speakers. And since there is no info nor replacement parts on eBay, I'm faced with the fact that I may have to sell them as is to someone who can somehow find a way to restore them. I'm thinking about taking the unbroken acoustic lens to a 3D printing shop to see if they can duplicate it. As for the grill, I'm SOL on that. I could part them out on eBay, but as far as I know, I'm the only owner of such a model.
 
No attempt at hijack, but I'm just sticking these pics here because it is so odd to come across large Teac speakers. I recently stumbled upon a pair of Teac LS-350's, obviously from an earlier era than the OP's. These are large and heavy "bookshelf" type, 8-ohm three-ways - - acoustic suspension, I suppose - - with a very rugged build quality including 7/8" (...maybe 1" ?) thick plywood side panels. Not much info about these.

Teac LS-350 v1.jpg Teac LS-350 v2.jpg Teac LS-350 v3.jpg
 
For the OP: Ask Rick Cobb about surrounds, once you get accurate measurements of the cone and basket diameter, innie or outie type, slanted or flat cone edge, and roll diameter if there is any roll left.
The mighty AR9 has 11/13" woofers and there are surrounds for those, so there may be something that fits.

That tweeter horn looks like a piezo which is a very low cost driver that doesn't require a cap in series (yet more savings).
 
Thanks for the info, but I probably wont be restoreing these after all. I dropped by a professional 3D printing shop, and the cost of having a near copy of the acoustic lens made makes it too costly. So I'll probably list it on Craigslist as a fixer and sell them to the best offer.
I also came to that conclusion about the tweeter horn, but I'm not entirely sure. Magnet size is definitly too large BUT that doesn't disprove it either.
 
I'd probably take the lens off the other tweeter and call it a day. It's probably more for appearance than sound anyway. Fixing the woofers is relatively inexpensive.

But I'm kind of unclear about what you said about the tweeter horns. Do they actually have magnets? If so, they're not piezos.
 
Correct, they have magnets. So I'm assuming they are horns. You know, I did take them off and unfortunately there is exposed unpainted wood.
 
OK, that's called a "bullet tweeter". It's a pretty common type, made by many manufacturers, although that one looks pretty generic. They're typically not used behind a lens (maybe with JBLs) so I don't think you'll lose anything by running the speakers without them (the lenses, that is, not the tweeters).
 
Ha, I wish I had the other grill, then it wouldn't be a problem. Its looking like I'll end of selling them or parting them out. The mid-ranges I might be able to sell successful. Apparently the Onkyo MX-5 and MX-7 floor speakers used the same mid-ranges.
 
They were not bad at all for their day, Teac was for the most part a good company, their tape machine were quite good.
Drop me a line and I would be glad to help you get these going again. They are as rare as a 3 legged chicken!
DC
 
Back
Top Bottom