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Acousti-Craft speakers - any info?

that70sguy

Well-Known Member
I picked up a pair of vintage Acousti-Craft speaker cabinets today for a song. Let's just say they cost me less than my roundtrip ferry ride from Seattle to Kingston. The cabinets are in beautiful shape, solid maple with really gorgeous grain. The only info the seller had besides the logo name was handwritten on the back in felt pen. He told me it said Jensen Duax and DX 120, both crossed out. At the top it says Stephens 80FR. Anyway, I got these back home and hooked them up - they sound really good. Nice detail, not window-rattling bass, but decent. I bought these for the cabinets, but was surprised how good they sounded.

I took the backs off to see the guts and found each has a Stephens 80FR full range speaker, 16 ohms, I believe and a Vanco tweeter. Found some info on the Stephens speaker, but nothing on the Vanco (it's made in Taiwan). Initially, I was thinking that these were mid-60s speakers, but may be older. Anyone have more info on the cabinets and speakers? Here are some pics.
cab_front.jpg

logo.jpg

back.jpg

inside.jpg

80FR.jpg

tweeter.jpg
 
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Hey, that70sguy!!
Nice score!! Those cabs are gorgeous. I would bet that they date to the late 50s or very early sixties. I bet it's like the back of the cab says: they started out likfe with a pair of Jensen coaxes and somewhere along the way acquired the Stephens Trusonics. Which look to be VERY nice drivers by the way. The tweeters look like Radio Shack cheapies that were added to put a little top end on the Stephens'. Originally there wouldn't have been anything in there place: that opening is simply there as a bass port.
Acousticraft, I imagine, was simply a company that built cabinets; and the buyer would install whatever speakers they preferred.

SUPER NICE SCORE!!!
 
Here's a pic of the top

Thanks. I did a little research on Acousti-Craft and, yes, they did indeed just make cabinets which usually housed JBL, Altec and Jensen speakers.

I also read that the Stephens 80FR speaker was highly touted and has Alnico magnets, but a lot of people felt it was too midrangey and compressed. That's why some folks added a tweeter.

I forgot to add the pic that showed the nice grain on the wood. Here it is.

cab_top.jpg
 
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