Boston Acoustics best model? opinions needed

[Eldam]

Sorry but I doesn't see where it is better made ?!At the opposit the two cabinets like Parsifal Audio is a well known good method. The VR should be more in par with the 400L standalone cab that is a reduced 500L, same units but different XO and certainly sligthy less low end due to the reduced volume.

I agree about the tonality... tweeter filter was the poor part, but the midwoofer excells and the sealed band pass bass too. It should not be too hard to hack the VR tweeter filter as it seems the same unit the Lynnfield formerly introduced. Notice in your loudspeaker the tweeter is in front of the mid unit... very odd ! They liked sibilance at Boston Acoustics maybe !

 

[GordonW]

It's been a long time since I heard the name David Fokos. I was never that familiar with him.

We WERE very familiar, OTOH, with Phil Jones, who did most of the basic engineering for the Lynnfield series speakers. The driver technology (motor design, dome profiles and such) were head-and-shoulders above anything Boston had done prior to that.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[Eldam]

He is a great nice guy, I remember having droped a mail, 2012 IIRC, at his new company he is the CEO and founder. Cause I had bad time (yet) with this high pass section and asked the shematic... he haven't anymore, nore at Boston Acoustics where I emailed too ! He took the time to give one advice or two for the filter to the humble second hand owner I am... A gentleman if you ask me.

Hence I am searching the 500L II filter re design... if someone read this

 

[twiiii]

The VR series are supposed to be Bostons best series of speakers. But I found the T series to be my preferred choice when we sold them. The high frequency uncontrolled resonances of the VR tweeter were very fatiguing to me. Yes B&W and Snell were more expensive at the time of the Vr tweeter, but could be easily sold over the VR series Bostons. Women would voice their complaints very quickly with VR tweeters. I preferred Snell speakers myself. Now if I were using a room EQ to voice speakers I preferred the B&W speakers. B&W is still in business and the other two are not so I guess we know who won the battle. I also preferred ADS speakers and they are gone, too. The best tweeter out there today is the Magico Tweeter, but who can afford them. $85000 approximately for S7 model. Though I will admit for most folks the S5 MK II would be the best choice but priced in $40,000 plus range is only available to a very few.

 

[opnly bafld]

The VR series are supposed to be Bostons best series of speakers. But I found the T series to be my preferred choice when we sold them. The high frequency uncontrolled resonances of the VR tweeter were very fatiguing to me.

Only local audio dealer carried BA so I was able to hear all of them a lot, I had HD8s first and then T1030s.
I had the same reaction when the VR series came out, I thought they were great, just a little too hot with music for me. Acquired of pair of used VR-40s and passed them on to a friend for HT and background music, he kept them for years.

 

[Magfinity]

The Lynnfield speakers had some serious internal components- but the sum was less than the parts, from what we heard. Just had issues with tonality and dynamics, that no amount of room placement adjustment or equipment matching could fix.

For finish- here's a picture of the VR-M90. Compare that to the picture of the Lynnfield above. I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions, as to which one looks better...

View attachment 2731362

Regards,
Gordon.

The vrm90 albeit a great speaker isn't even in the same league build wise with the 500l . That's just wild fantasizing at best, the 500l cabinets were build by Adrian Altier in new York (those guys used to build for advent and dahlquist cabinets)

Far superior over the vrm90's, there was a price difference there. The mkII 500l which was voiced by the same dude that designed the vrm series , David fokos . Those were lot tamer on the upper end (as that's where they had issues) David was in fact so impressed he left the rest of the speakers alone. Phil Jones and Andy pettit didn't get along that well (understatement) when his 2 year contract was over David was hired on


The vrm90 is a paperweight compared to the 100 pound per speaker weighing 500l (4ft tall!). So to pull that look what's nicer?! The 500l is much nicer build than the vrm. That just factual ... Not personal taste is another !

Look at the vrm50 and 60, they used car speaker bezels to fit the drivers in the baffle (I know this as I am friends with the ba service manager of the time, who showed me pic of the car bezels used) the vrm50 and 60 I have are anything but "beauty's" build wise. Especially not comparable with the 500l if you knew how that speaker was build (documented in the Boston acoustics group as I've worked on them)

Makes the vrm look like budgetary speakers which they were in contrast with the lynnfield 300,400,500l (talking purely build and driver wise)

I do agree that they are harder to get right , those speakers are demanding. We measured amp peaks that's would indicate some ridiculous impedance dips. At 85db you're talking about magnepan sensetivity.

Footnote I use infinity kappas in my main system. So not trying to make it sound as if the 500l is best thing since sliced bread. But. I have worked in them, it exceeds easily any other Boston acoustics speaker build and called quality. Build wise...the drivers were all custom to the speakers too.

Dual spider woofers paper fiber coned, the mid range was a full aluminum driver, the amd tweeters came from the lynnfield series. The vr40,30,20 were the budget version based of that lynnfield series. The folders I point out lot towards their "flagship 500l design " features. That later on trickled down most Bostons. Such as bypass caps , amd tweeters what have you not.

 

[Magfinity]

The VR series wasn't toted as their best at all, it was a budgetary speaker. The VR 40 flagship was a 1500 set price speaker MSRP. The VR12 was the first 3way mtm center speaker on the market at the time. Boston was swaying more towards home theater series than stereo.

Their best speakers are still the A series speakers they did back in the day. Those had a super wide baffle, had to be placed in close proximity to the wall. Had paper coned mids and low end. And a seas tweeter...

The vrm series I personally like best especially the ugly duckling the vrm50 impressed me the most (size vs performance) ratio.

In the end it also depends heavily on what you play through them, where, acoustics,set up and personal flavors do mix opinions on them.

In all honesty, you can score Bostons for reasonable prices these days. I yet have to find a Boston speaker I didn't like for what I paid for them.

 

[Magfinity]

Edit: somehow it posted twice ..

 

[Eldam]

Very interesting.

Would you mind to share the filter of the 500L II shematic in order I try to fix my 400L, please ?

I confirm the good skill in the 400L : very thick walls, at least 1" thick and more towards the front.

All the interior is stuffed with thick bittumen pad coumpund with a layer of cork on it. Gently applied on the cabinets walls with a thick adhesive double tape and not glue for better damping (you know: mass srpring mass effect )... Alas, falling here and there after years. the top of the cabinet is stuffed with thick foam too in order to tame some resonances due to the heigth of the cabinet.

My black hash veener is also thicker than most loudspeakers more budget friendly with half faux wood, i.e. very thin venner layer on paper often seen to save monney.

Thus first Lynnfield serie was not made cheap, clearly here to boost the brand level. Alas again we saw what happens at Stereophile...

 

[Magfinity]

Very interesting.

Would you mind to share the filter of the 500L II shematic in order I try to fix my 400L, please ?

I'll have to take them apart again so I might do that this weekend. I don't think it will really help with the 400l tho not sure. Also be aware the internal woofer(s) require refoaming

If you ever decided to let them go please do not hesitate to shoot me a message !

 

[Magfinity]

Very interesting.

Would you mind to share the filter of the 500L II shematic in order I try to fix my 400L, please ?

I confirm the good skill in the 400L : very thick walls, at least 1" thick and more towards the front.

All the interior is stuffed with thick bittumen pad coumpund with a layer of cork on it. Gently applied on the cabinets walls with a thick adhesive double tape and not glue for better damping (you know: mass srpring mass effect )... Alas, falling here and there after years. the top of the cabinet is stuffed with thick foam too in order to tame some resonances due to the heigth of the cabinet.

My black hash veener is also thicker than most loudspeakers more budget friendly with half faux wood, i.e. very thin venner layer on paper often seen to save monney.

Thus first Lynnfield serie was not made cheap, clearly here to boost the brand level. Alas again we saw what happens at Stereophile...

The stereophile review is to me absolutely meaningless, whomever hands their ears to theirs I can't take to serious.

They toted the infinity rs1b not once by probably 3 times as "one of the best of that era" measurements and actual ownership on my end. I couldn't stomach the speakers at all neither from a technical, build nor audible sense..and sold them not long after acquisition.

Does that mean I am deaf? No, it means that my situation isn't the same as theirs and vice versa.
There are to many variables to just agree with a "so so" review of a renowned audiophile magazine.

Are they upper end heavy ? Yes they are, however when we measured them (I say we as I have access in my circle to audio engineers) it showed a near perfect linear response up to 16khz (way beyond my hearing range)

Not many speakers do that in my room
Magnepans included, matter in fact we saw a common denomination of rolled off highs at around 14khz to be the least fatique inducing.

Again just sharing our finding thus far, I changed out the cable bridges on the 500l , put out riggers on them and really placed them free in my treated room.

The performed formidably (nearly 35hz on the low end without buckling ) they were tri amped , bi amped and just single driven it was all good. Aslong as your amps are beefy enough to provide.

Just to be clear again , not best sound I've had or have even (magnepan Tympani I would take that throne at a huge price) . But most definitely totally different from any Boston I've had . And I have had many.

I even had the idea to replace the dome with the kortec (basically the textile dome variant of the amd) to see if it will roll off a little on the upper end.

The 500l specs 32hz-38khz so revealing is really the nature of them hands down. My friend has the rosewood mk II which rolled off significantly vs the mkI I have .

So I will for sure go deeper into this , this weekend

 

[Eldam]

Many thanks for that, I would appreciate it.

We shared I and a second owner of the 400L here, some nice pictures of our filter. Very few things changed in the values of some resistors and bypass caps on them while our serial numbers just have twenty number gap only. Some remarks and I appologize if sligthy off topic or polluting the thread in that Boston Acoustics general discussion :

Front baffle width are the same between the 400L and the 500Ls, drivers the same, so the medium low pass values and the high pass tweeter parts values should not change... at least between the 400L and the first 500L. I haven't measured the coils but I refurbished the lythics that drifted a lot and it is nigth and day.But the tweeter caps as they are MKTs and has unusual arrengement with 14.1 uF first node and 6.8 uF second node (fourth order filter).

For the bass, the filter has 100 uF + 0.1 Real Cap RTX as bypass + 2 x 1R5 in serie to the return path (ground). I do no think here they sorted out the lythics to get the exact value where it sounds the best, and it is very sensible. I finished with 104.7 uF (tigther) or 104.6 uF (thicker) by measuring the new fresh caps and add Solen mkp that have a lot of choice in the capacitance values to reach that two numbers that sounded best. I surmise the 500L cabinet being bigger, 104.7 or bigger is the choice (the more the capacitance the tigther (damping) the bass.

But anyway that's a low pass so it affects not the deepness of the bass but the Q and blend with the medium high pass. Here I dunno for the 500L medium as the cabinet load seems bigger than the 400L as well, so different capacitors high pass values and attenuation.

Sorry fellows for the off topic... my speaker are a little like a vintage car for me. I like this american classic and its 2001 Space Odyssey look with the Black Hash veneering... sorta of 3D Pierre Soulages piece of art ! I agree monney can get more serious sounding today but beauty is also in the eyes of the owner. ... and the prices have crazy raised too for most brands.

Edit : have edited some typo and inputs (sorry for that, english being not my native language)

 

[GordonW]

The vrm90 albeit a great speaker isn't even in the same league build wise with the 500l . That's just wild fantasizing at best, the 500l cabinets were build by Adrian Altier in new York (those guys used to build for advent and dahlquist cabinets)

Far superior over the vrm90's, there was a price difference there. The mkII 500l which was voiced by the same dude that designed the vrm series , David fokos . Those were lot tamer on the upper end (as that's where they had issues) David was in fact so impressed he left the rest of the speakers alone. Phil Jones and Andy pettit didn't get along that well (understatement) when his 2 year contract was over David was hired on


The vrm90 is a paperweight compared to the 100 pound per speaker weighing 500l (4ft tall!). So to pull that look what's nicer?! The 500l is much nicer build than the vrm. That just factual ... Not personal taste is another !

Look at the vrm50 and 60, they used car speaker bezels to fit the drivers in the baffle (I know this as I am friends with the ba service manager of the time, who showed me pic of the car bezels used) the vrm50 and 60 I have are anything but "beauty's" build wise. Especially not comparable with the 500l if you knew how that speaker was build (documented in the Boston acoustics group as I've worked on them)

Makes the vrm look like budgetary speakers which they were in contrast with the lynnfield 300,400,500l (talking purely build and driver wise)



I do agree that they are harder to get right , those speakers are demanding. We measured amp peaks that's would indicate some ridiculous impedance dips. At 85db you're talking about magnepan sensetivity.

Footnote I use infinity kappas in my main system. So not trying to make it sound as if the 500l is best thing since sliced bread. But. I have worked in them, it exceeds easily any other Boston acoustics speaker build and called quality. Build wise...the drivers were all custom to the speakers too.

Dual spider woofers paper fiber coned, the mid range was a full aluminum driver, the amd tweeters came from the lynnfield series. The vr40,30,20 were the budget version based of that lynnfield series. The folders I point out lot towards their "flagship 500l design " features. That later on trickled down most Bostons. Such as bypass caps , amd tweeters what have you not.

Say what you want about "build quality". I am saying that the SOUND never lived up to the sum of the parts- that despite what electronics we used them with- Sonc Frontiers, Aragon, PS Audio, NAD, Counterpoint, VAC, Rogue, and others- and despite what amount of care was taken with setup- that the VR-M90 SOUNDED BETTER in every situation we used them in. And, the look was also a lot more palatable to most people. That's why the VR-M series sold like hotcakes, while the Lynnfields sat and collected dust on store shelves. That's the reality of the situation.

The fact that everyone who has Lynnfields, almost to a one, is talking about mods to the speakers- is telling that something WAS NOT RIGHT about them in the first place. OTOH, the VR-M series came out of the box pretty much dialed in...

I remember a statement that the owner of our store made... Pete Marshall, brother of David Marshall (of ADS and later Aerial Acoustics), owner of Audio Atlanta. He said, in so many words, that the Lynnfield speakers, as they were released, was what basically destroyed Boston's attempt at going upmarket. And he said, that if the the Lynnfields sounded even as good as the VR-M series- that Boston would probably have gained enough credibility, to move upward in the market. His take, from what I remember of it, was that the Lynnfields were a great technology demonstration- but not a product that should have been released to the public, without further tuning and refinement.

His opinion, in short, was that the failure of the Lynnfields was what cemented the opinion in most people's minds, that Boston was only a "mid fi" company- an image that they were stuck with, from then on. Which was colossally unfortunate- as there were MANY SUPER TALENTED people at Boston, who could probably have done a lot better, if they had gotten another chance.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[Eldam]

... or maybe there were some problems in the serie production at the plant : some also noted problems in the cabling between the two bass driver and the bass cabinets, some wires jumped from the connectors as not soldered or were inversed, and tweeter filter seems definitly odd to me (values not in the rigth order during production assembly = QC ?). Sometimes you can have a good designer but a stone somewhere in the process.

 

[GordonW]

... or maybe there were some problems in the serie production at the plant : some also noted problems in the cabling between the two bass driver and the bass cabinets, some wires jumped from the connectors as not soldered or were inversed, and tweeter filter seems definitly odd to me (values not in the rigth order during production assembly = QC ?). Sometimes you can have a good designer but a stone somewhere in the process.

Those are all problems, that smack of an unwise rush to market. Exactly what Pete Marshall was going on about. Take the time to get it right, before releasing it- you only get one chance to make a good first impression, when you're entering a new market segment.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[Magfinity]

Say what you want about "build quality". I am saying that the SOUND never lived up to the sum of the parts- that despite what electronics we used them with- Sonc Frontiers, Aragon, PS Audio, NAD, Counterpoint, VAC, Rogue, and others- and despite what amount of care was taken with setup- that the VR-M90 SOUNDED BETTER in every situation we used them in. And, the look was also a lot more palatable to most people. That's why the VR-M series sold like hotcakes, while the Lynnfields sat and collected dust on store shelves. That's the reality of the situation.

The fact that everyone who has Lynnfields, almost to a one, is talking about mods to the speakers- is telling that something WAS NOT RIGHT about them in the first place. OTOH, the VR-M series came out of the box pretty much dialed in...

I remember a statement that the owner of our store made... Pete Marshall, brother of David Marshall (of ADS and later Aerial Acoustics), owner of Audio Atlanta. He said, in so many words, that the Lynnfield speakers, as they were released, was what basically destroyed Boston's attempt at going upmarket. And he said, that if the the Lynnfields sounded even as good as the VR-M series- that Boston would probably have gained enough credibility, to move upward in the market. His take, from what I remember of it, was that the Lynnfields were a great technology demonstration- but not a product that should have been released to the public, without further tuning and refinement.

His opinion, in short, was that the failure of the Lynnfields was what cemented the opinion in most people's minds, that Boston was only a "mid fi" company- an image that they were stuck with, from then on. Which was colossally unfortunate- as there were MANY SUPER TALENTED people at Boston, who could probably have done a lot better, if they had gotten another chance.

Regards,
Gordon.

Uhh yah about that it was a overpriced speaker that's why they at there collect dust simple math .

They didn't live up to their price point, the vrm again have them myself I agree great speaker. The rest already said what I said , you talk from he said she said perspective.

I actually own them including your praised vrm. In the end no ba made the cut as a main speaker for me. At the time 4500 MSRP for the black veneer and 5k for the rosewood 500l was way to high.

You get into the pool with to many bigger names. Also you posted a pic of the vrm90 above and said "look at the lynnfield then this"

So you did engage "the build quality" card which i gladly played with you as such.

Anyways all said and done , no ba I listen too these days. So it's not that serious for me ...

 

[GordonW]

Build quality /= looks.

There's a lot of genuinely good quality stuff out there, that's positively homely looking.

And, there's a lot of good looking junk out there, too.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[Magfinity]

... or maybe there were some problems in the serie production at the plant : some also noted problems in the cabling between the two bass driver and the bass cabinets, some wires jumped from the connectors as not soldered or were inversed, and tweeter filter seems definitly odd to me (values not in the rigth order during production assembly = QC ?). Sometimes you can have a good designer but a stone somewhere in the process.

All you have to do to get them "right" is slope the. Upper end down at around 16khz it eliminated the edginess those tweeters can produce. Without losing to much of the fine details. Gordon acts as if they were super flawed , they were merely voiced hot on the upper end which easily could be remedied. If people just did some experimenting with the crossover (in my case just use a eq)

It's what I hate the most, debating with the so called "I was a salesman, with half assed experience and information on the matter. We had them in a showroom I know what they are" no tf you don't. It's like these guys that judge a entire brands because they heard a speaker at best buy play "shitty"

Own them , then tell me you spend days experiencing and experimenting with them to get them right as I did. The 500l in my room measured flat as a ruler almost from nearly 30hz till 16khz non of my other speakers do that. They all slope down hard at around 13-14khz clearly the 500l posseses tons of upper end. All I had to do is notch down 16khz couple db and they became significant better on the ears.

His vrm fetish doesn't negate the fact that Lynnfield are incredible speakers to own , rare and for sure can be easily voiced without to many problems. The stereophile review shows exactly where you should focus on to get them right too ! Although in my case (room) the above did help a lot to tame them a bit.

 

[katana1100]

“Their best speakers are still the A series speakers they did back in the day. Those had a super wide baffle, had to be placed in close proximity to the wall. Had paper coned mids and low end. And a seas tweeter...”

I read a review of the a400 in stereo review and it claimed that for the a400, it was the first BA speaker to get an in-house made tweeter.
We’re they wrong in saying that?

 

[GordonW]

All you have to do to get them "right" is slope the. Upper end down at around 16khz it eliminated the edginess those tweeters can produce. Without losing to much of the fine details. Gordon acts as if they were super flawed , they were merely voiced hot on the upper end which easily could be remedied. If people just did some experimenting with the crossover (in my case just use a eq)

It's what I hate the most, debating with the so called "I was a salesman, with half assed experience and information on the matter. We had them in a showroom I know what they are" no tf you don't. It's like these guys that judge a entire brands because they heard a speaker at best buy play "shitty"

Own them , then tell me you spend days experiencing and experimenting with them to get them right as I did. The 500l in my room measured flat as a ruler almost from nearly 30hz till 16khz non of my other speakers do that. They all slope down hard at around 13-14khz clearly the 500l posseses tons of upper end. All I had to do is notch down 16khz couple db and they became significant better on the ears.

His vrm fetish doesn't negate the fact that Lynnfield are incredible speakers to own , rare and for sure can be easily voiced without to many problems. The stereophile review shows exactly where you should focus on to get them right too ! Although in my case (room) the above did help a lot to tame them a bit.

You know, I've had about enough of your assumptions.

I have continuously been in the home and pro audio industry for the last 38 years. I have not only have listened to pretty much every speaker in the Boston line- I have also repaired and evaluated almost every model too, at some time or another. I have had many of them apart on the bench- including Lynnfield models. We had a truly high-end audio store back in the later part of the heyday of such stores (1990s and early 2000s), at which my JOB was to repair them when they weren't working- and to insure that they sounded exactly as they should, when they left our service bench. And there's the point- I didn't listen to them as a hobby, or as a way to while away the time at home- it was my JOB to listen to them, carefully and critically. And I took- and take- my job pretty seriously.

We stocked pretty much every Boston model- I knew the voicing on each line, and how it differed from the others. I also compared them to other great speaker brands- Tannoy, Vandersteen, Martin Logan, Wilson (IMHO, the Bostons of the early 2000s would just spank many of the WIlsons, BTW), and so on. I knew many of the people in the service department at Boston, as I regularly ordered service parts. Talked to Phil Jones several times over the years. Hell, talked to Andy Petitt (Kotsatos, one of the founders, along with Frank Reed), as well at times.

That said- the Lynnfield line was the only one I thought was "half baked" compared to the others. It was a frustrating anomaly. And- from talking to people at Boston, we could tell that they also were somewhat frustrated. We WANTED them to be so much better than they were. They could have been, if not for a few glaring flaws that made them unpalatable to most customers. The marketing record speaks for itself.

And, the sad part is- the failure of the Lynnfields in the market, is one of the things that, later, I think, at least indirectly led to the demise of Boston Acoustics. If they could have had a successful "halo product" in their line- they probably could have carved out a bigger place in the marketplace- and wouldn't have been such an easy target to be gobbled up and later shut down by D&M Holdings/Sound United, in the 2010s. They would likely have had the capital to keep Snell running as well... or, they may have not even have felt the need to buy Snell in the first place That's what's tragic about this whole affair. I really miss having their speakers. They were one of the most versatile, dependable,l high-value speaker lines of all time- right up until the D&M buyout. But now they are gone...

Regards,
Gordon.