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bartagni ES-300, opinions needed.

J

jgarcia

Well-Known Member
i fellow came by the house and had a set of these for sale; $200. what do you think of the sound, their stats what are they, i know that they are 8ohm. would they be too much of a load for a tube amp? opinions neede.

regards, j garcia
 
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I think that price is way out of line for a used pair of Bertagni speakers. They don't have much of a collector following and sell for very little money when they turn up on ebay. I attended hi-fi shows where the BES speakers were demonstrated back when they were in production and I never cared for their sound. Very few pairs were ever sold and for good reason. Don't even consider buying them without first hooking them up to your gear to hear what they sound like as they may or may not appeal to you. Since they use a voice coil to drive the polystyrene panels and have a piezo tweeter (I seem to recall), they should be an easy load for any amplifier to drive.
 
I have a pr of Bertagni SM-270. They were very rough when I bought them, but they operated as designed. I think I payed less than $75 on ebay for mine. I hooked them up and did not care for them. Very muffled sounding. They are currently catching dust in my audio room.:thumbsdn:
 
I have SM 225's and while they're far from my favorite speaker, they do a few things remarkably well.

Room placement is EVERYTHING with these, i also think they perform the best in a near field situation.

Common sense should dictate that by design they won't play loud or produce neighbor rattling bass response. But with the right marriage of source and system they can indeed image well enough to nearly disappear.

They don't sound bad at all for a styrofoam cooler lid with a couple voice coils glued to it.
 
that is too funny 427. price drop 130. they have connections for the top high mid section and connections for the lows, pretty tall. i may get these and have a try.

regards, j garcai
 
I remember selling these back in the 70s. Back then, a planar speaker wasn't quite what the regular joe-consumer was ready for - especially for the taller versions.

I remember their sound as being a bit ringing and sounded quite forward in its mid-range. The taller ones could be driven louder but not by much.

The other problem was that they needed to be returned to the factory for repair. Back then, about 50% of the speakers needed to be returned mainly due to the glue used to hold the voice coil to the polystyrene panels, which would come loose when heated.

Lastly, the pizeo tweeter seemed to not be well-matched to the panels, accounting for the forward midrange.

Mind you, this is almost 30 years ago. I would hope that these problems have been worked out since then. I wonder how BES gets them to market these days?

Cheers,

David
 
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