1976 Consumer Reports speaker test

rallycat

Active Member
Consumer Reports Loudspeaker Test - February 1976

Where were you in 1976? I was 15 and wanted my own stereo. We were not an audiophile family – although my parents liked music – and I didn’t know anything about audio or audio magazines, but we had a subscription to Consumer Reports. I remember reading this issue of Consumer Reports and wanting a pair of their Best Buy EPI 100s. Although I didn’t get the EPIs ($200/pair was way too much for me then; I got some Tech Hifi house brand for less than $100/pair) the article made some impression because I’ve remembered the name all these years.

When I found a pair of Avid speakers this year I didn’t know what they were until I searched this site & AA and found a bunch of info including the factoid that they’d been rated #1 in Consumer Reports. My library has old Consumer Reports on microfilm and I copied it. I thought others might be interested or amused too, but I’m posting a much-abridged version because I’m typing it in – a scan of an average photocopy of a scratched microfilm image would be a frustrating blur. I’m sure some will be frustrated anyway – why didn’t they test any ARs or JBLs, for instance – but it is a worthwhile comparison of 17 mid-priced speakers and you can at least be sure that the reviewers weren’t trying to push any particular brand.

Medium-Priced Loudspeakers

“It’s easy to spend $600 or more on a pair of loudspeakers for a high-fidelity stereo system. But before you start thinking about spending much more than $200 for speakers, consider how much you would really get for the extra money. The best of the speakers tested for this report would give most listeners about as much fidelity as they could want – and for only about $100 to $130 per speaker.”

Accuracy – CU decided that their main criteria for speaker evaluation would be the frequency response measured from 110 to 14000Hz and rated as a percentage – a ruler-flat frequency response got 100%. Bass below 110Hz was excluded because they couldn’t predict how well deep bass would be reproduced outside of their listening room. A panel of listeners did blindfold tests to corroborate the instrument tests.
“Most of the speakers demonstrated impressively high accuracy. The top-rated Avid 102 earned a higher score than any speaker we’ve ever reported on: 91. But the EPI 100, with a score of 90, was virtually indistinguishable from the Avid in accuracy. Indeed, the first 11 speakers in the ratings are within 8 percentage points of each other. CU has found that even trained listeners can’t readily tell which of two speakers is more accurate when the two are 8 points or less apart. That’s not to say those 11models sounded alike; even models with identical accuracy scores sounded different from each other. One significant reason – departures from accuracy occur at different points in the musical spectrum with different speakers.”

Power – measured the power needed for each speaker to produce reasonably loud sound in a 3000 cubic foot listening room with “average” acoustics.

Impedance – lowest measured impedance over the entire acoustic range. The Realistic Optimus 5B dropped from 9 to 6 ohms in the treble range.

Deep bass capability – Bass half-loudness point: the frequency at which the total sound power rolled off to become half as loud in the bass as in the rest of the spectrum’s output at loud listening levels. A point of 40 to 50 Hz was rated Good. Bass harmonic distortion measured at medium to loud listening levels – according to CU “important only to those with a special interest in organ & electronic music, such deep bass response is not crucial for most of the standard classical and pop repertory, because most such recordings don’t contain bass that deep.”

Recommendations – CU said most people would be happy with any of the top 11 speakers; overall quality was a shade higher with the top 3. And there was a half-page “audio for dummies” on auditioning speakers and speaker placement, something definitely needed for me. It’s the more or less the same stuff you see today: make sure the comparison speakers are at equal volume or you’ll think the louder one is better, set the comparison speakers next to each other, don’t place them on the floor in the corners of your room, & make sure you can return them if they sound lousy in your room. Some differences – wall mounting was popular, stands were not mentioned, and neither was speaker wire. I seem to recall typical speaker wire at that time was 18-20 gage.


Ratings – The first thing we all look at, right? Ranked according to accuracy. (pdf table 'cause it most of the columns disappeared)
 
29 Year Hindsight Comments – If you took Consumer Reports as gospel you’d never bother looking at Advents, but they were popular then & are still a popular speaker today. I guess the low accuracy rating doesn’t matter if they sound good.

What else is still considered a good speaker today? I’ve seen many people on AK have good things to say about Avid 102s, EPI 100s, Marantz Imperials (don’t know about the 5s, just some Imperials are well regarded), Dynaco A35s, & KLH 6s.

What about some of the lesser-known speakers listed – I’ve never heard of Fairfax, Audioanalyst, & Micro-Acoustics brands.

So, is this just an interesting period piece or is there any useful info in this article? How about actual impedance and the power required per speaker? Bass half-loudness point?

Tangent note – the Marantz Imperial 5 here is not the same speaker kfa888 was talking about a few days ago, kind of like Ford F-150 trucks from 1965 & 1975. Are there other examples of very different equipment with the same name?



Tom
 
I don't know which model audio analysts- but my brother has a pair that he still cranks the crap out of. For the little bit I listened to them- quite good.
 
Hmmm.... I actually Loved my Altec Model Three's! Glad I didn't see that before i bought them!
 
Rallycat,

Do a search on AK for the optimus 5B's. You might be surprised. I am pleased to see them mixed in and placed well with this bunch of speaks. Good bargain to be had there if you come across some. Sleepers !

I picked mine up in the 70's new and still have them. Will never part with either. Had them this long....they're like family .
 
Rallycat,

BTW, Very intersesting topic to put forth . Interesting, different, informative.

I like It.

Thanks.
 
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Consumer Reports and my personal bias.. :thumbsdn:

Did you notice something missing from their reviews? Like listening enjoyment?

I remember reading many of their audio reviews in the 70s. According to them, no sense buying that more expensive receiver, as the cheapest one with enough power to drive your speakers will be just fine as they all had flat response and low distortion, and that is all that matters. If you think your (insert brand name here) sounds better, you're just fooling yourself as the measurements prove that you can't possibly be hearing any difference. Made me feel good about buying that Yorx or GE all-in-wonder.

And since there is no musical content below 50Hz or above 14KHz, no sense wasting money on those full range speakers eh?

By the way, my distrust of their stereo ratings was formed by PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, not from those useless 'underground' mags like Stereophile or TAS, or those more mainstream rags like Audio.

Although those lying mags did lead me to discover a whole new audio world.
 
Thanks, Tom, for your effort in posting this. I was a little older than you (20 in 1976), but I remember looking at these ratings as well, and actually bought EPI 180s about then. Interesting trip down memory lane, no matter what one thinks of Consumer Reports - and like Reyneman, I don't think much of it. In fact, I realized a few years ago that it was silly to read it for things I didn't know much about, since whenever I read CR articles about stuff I did know about, I thought that much of what they had to say was ridiculous. Still fun to see that info again.
 
I too have had an inherent distrust of Consumer Reports ratings on loudspeakers. Whenever a product that has SUBJECTIVE measurements involved in "rating" it, Consumer Reports' style and method of testing is of absolutely no value.

As anyone familiar with some of my recent postings knows, I am a great fan of the Dahlquist DQ-10, and have been for decades. Despite however much praise I have for the DQ-10, the speaker needs a sub-woofer (even Dahlquist knew this).

Nevertheless, in the late 70's, while I was employed by ESS (and still wouldn't replace my DQ-10's with an ESS speaker, even though I could have had anything in the ESS line for free), Consumer Reports rated the ESS AMT-1b well above the DQ-10 in its loudspeaker ratings, and even rated the bass response of the DQ-10 as "above average."

NO ONE in the industry at the time would have selected the ESS AMT-1b over the Dahlquist DQ-10, nor would any have considered the DQ-10's bass response "above average."

Rating a speaker via its "accuracy," as CR has always done, never takes into account the musicality of a loudspeaker. All the proof needed here is: if anyone ever uses an equalizer (with a built-in frequency analizer, noise generator and calibrated microphone) to reproduce a "flat" response (which is what CR regards as desirable), the resultant "flat" response, after all the adjustments, results in a speaker that sounds downright HORRIBLE.

So, if it measures well, but sounds awful, what's the point?
 
The effort to post this by Rallycat I think should be applauded. As with all literature, one must read it with intelligence and take what is usefull, and discard what is not, based on your own personal experience and knowledge.

Everything contains something that you did not know before. It all adds to the knowledge-base.

For me, just to see "something" mentioning the ole Opti 5B's and acknowledging that they did exist was cool. There is so little information available on speakers it seems. My own ears will still guide me in comparing them to other speakers that I collect, and the review will not change how I enjoy them.

I'm sure rallycat did not not present this as a a definitive review portraying only those speakers as being worthy of listening to. CR was and is geared to the average folks out there, and for most people they are probably correct in saying not to go spend meg $ on some proclaimed wonder speaker or whatever product is being reviewed. If I was going to buy a stove, I'm sure the cheapest sucker I can find will cook my Kraft dinner just as well as a 5,000 $ one will. CR may be useful for researching stoves though if they present reliability and warranty information for stoves in the same price range.

The other opinions bashing CR are informative also. Just need to be sure that the "tone" of the post is not bashing the originator of the thread for attempting to do something different in presenting original material to the forum.
 
Tom, thanks for the post. Interesting read. It is always fun to read things written 30 yrs ago.

I too have never accepted CR as gospel as I found their testing was not subjective. However, if something our store sold that had a good CR report, we pushed it as many customers loved CR. Mind you if CR trashed an otherwise great product, like the Dynaco A35, we hid it. If a person came in with CR, or any other review, in fact, and asked for speaker X that was highly rated, we would have them sit and do an A/B test. Rarely did the reviews always match real time listening. IMHO, speakers are the one component that has to be bought by serious listening, not reviews. We had a pair of Bose 901s just to prove the hype was just that, hype. Always worked.

As has been said many times before, "opinions are like a**holes, everyone has them.

I wonder how the audio world would have evolved had forums like AK been around then? What would VintageStereo have collected then? Edison cylinders?

Regards,
Joe
 
RichPA said:
In fact, I realized a few years ago that it was silly to read it for things I didn't know much about, since whenever I read CR articles about stuff I did know about, I thought that much of what they had to say was ridiculous.

It made my index fingers ache to read all that typing; great job.

I subscribed to CR once, made the same discovery RichPA did about their articles on things I knew about, and also decided that it made it pointless to seek CR's guidance on things I didn't know about. CR would need to round up a knowledgable panel for each article, and that probably isn't practical.

Bob
 
Do not get me wrong- I really appreciate the effort expended in putting up the article and enjoyed the trip to the past.

Just wanted to make sure that those who believe what they read don't get too upset over their choice of vintage speaks :)
 
Every! Single! Time! my family or I had relied on Consumer Reports for stereo gear (Garrard DD75 or Avid speakers, anyone?), appliances(GE CTC-178 chassis), car advice(AMC Matador??), or anything, we got burnt badly. Quite often, we've bought things we really liked and checked their ratings afterwards and sure enough, what we liked was either at the bottom of their ratings or Not Recommended! The ONLY thing I go by from them is their reliability data, because it's supplied by readers, not CU testers.
Tom
 
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One nice thing about the CR report: with the Model 100 rated the best-value speaker, Epicure/EPI sold many, many pairs, thus filling their bank accounts. This also means that there are many, many pairs of EPI speakers on the used market for those of us who like their sound.

Though the magazine that giveth also taketh away: if I recall correctly there was a quality-control problem (like, tweeters not hooked up) with some EPI speakers, and CR blasted 'em for it.
 
OvenMaster said:
Every! Single! Time! my family or I had relied on Consumer Reports for stereo gear (Garrard DD75 or Avid speakers, anyone?), appliances(GE CTC-178 chassis), car advice(AMC Matador??), or anything, we got burnt badly. Quite often, we've bought things we really liked and checked their ratings afterwards and sure enough, what we liked was either at the bottom of their ratings or Not Recommended! The ONLY thing I go by from them is their reliability data, because it's supplied by readers, not CU testers.
Tom

I will agree on that one. I own a 9 YO Jenn-Air stove and would not trade it for anything. CR has always rated them at the bottom. I like how it cooks. I like how it cleans and I like how it looks. Never had a problem with it.
 
Cartoon in Road & Track, maybe forty years ago: a line of cars is being driven off a cliff, one by one. A spectator remarks to a companion "I see Consumer Reports is doing road tests again." :)
 
I didn't type it all at once - I'm not a masochist.

I do take Consumer Reports (& other) tests & reviews with a grain of salt these days, but a high rating WILL create sales. When I worked in a bike shop & CU had a bike test we had people demanding the particular Giant model that was the best buy or top-rated.

I think the rating by accuracy was typical of the mid-70's - I get the idea that people thought they could test everything, plot a graph, & declare a winner without actually having to listen. Wasn't this about when the receiver power wars started?

I noticed a reference to CU testing the AR-4x a few years earlier - I'll have to go back to the main library & see how far back the archives go. There may be another installment...

Tom
 
The one thing I liked about CR's tests,is that a lot of times it made me,and others aware of products and brands we didnt know anything about.I was 14 when that speaker test came out,and I went out of my way to hear the EPI's and Avids for that very reason.Ive noticed I see a lot of Realistic components at thrifts,and I think its because thats where most people bought their stereos from at that time,if not from appliance stores.CR gave exposure to brands that otherwise wouldnt have even gotten notice from middle america.
Jimmy
 
Bought our TV based on CS reports, Been pretty happy of course now it is so out of date. I can't even find a replacement. Seams no one makes a 34" CRT TV any more!

Although it did make a whine that Sears ran right out and fixed right away never to return.

And our Jenn air was used when we bought the house 18 years ago so I have no idea how old it is but the damn thing keeps on working. I had to replace the grill burner with a newer model after I burned it up (never place a reflector above a Jenn aire grill LOL)

Pulled the thing out in the drive way once and steam cleaned it still running the same two burners and over element as when it came with the house.

I don't figure I'll ever need to replace it.
 
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