H. H. Scott S-15 Speakers...opinions, knowledge?

[Pierce Jeans]

Hi All! Looking for help on a thrift store sighting, a pair of H. H. Scott speakers, model S-15. They appear to be of early 60's vintage, beautiful, heavy cabinets (reminds me of KLH-17 in look and feel). Could not (easily) remove the grilles so I don't know the driver configuration, surround type, etc.

I've been to the amazing H. H. Scott vintage website (http://www.hhscott.com/Default.htm) but even they don't have much about Scott speakers.

Thanks for any help in advance!

Reason why you could not remove the grilles... they were not made to be removed... ever. I had a set. Bought them NEW in 1972 before going to college. Loved them. Paired them with a Harman Kardon 630 receiver... 30 wrms / channel... and a BSR turntable. Great little outfit. Can't remember what I paid for them... but I would assume given the new garbage speakers on the market, they would be rising in value. Twenty a pair is a bargain if they are not blown.

 

[ironzo]

I scored a pair of Scott S-15s last fall. Someone put them out next to a dumpster at the apt complex where my mother lives. Other than a stain on one of the grills where something was spilled and ran down the front, and some dings and scratches that were mostly taken care of by some "Olde English" furniture polish, they are in pretty good shape. I've always thought of Scott as a low end brand, mostly out of ignorance, I guess, and I really wasn't expecting much from them. I figured if they worked I could put them on Craigslist or FB marketplace, and maybe make a few bucks off of them. I was surprised when I hooked them up! They sound much better than I expected! I was also surprised at the prices people are asking for them on eBay! $100 and up! So, for now, they are still connected to my stereo, and are being enjoyed!

 

[Pierce Jeans]

I scored a pair of Scott S-15s last fall. Someone put them out next to a dumpster at the apt complex where my mother lives. Other than a stain on one of the grills where something was spilled and ran down the front, and some dings and scratches that were mostly taken care of by some "Olde English" furniture polish, they are in pretty good shape. I've always thought of Scott as a low end brand, mostly out of ignorance, I guess, and I really wasn't expecting much from them. I figured if they worked I could put them on Craigslist or FB marketplace, and maybe make a few bucks off of them. I was surprised when I hooked them up! They sound much better than I expected! I was also surprised at the prices people are asking for them on eBay! $100 and up! So, for now, they are still connected to my stereo, and are being enjoyed! BY THE WAY... the speaker covers were NOT meant to ever be removed. I think they were permanently glued on. At least the ones I had behaved very poorly when I tried to see inside.

View attachment 2191281

Hi... my first set of speakers on a real stereo component system... not just a swingout record player. I bought... in 1972... a set of these with a Harman Kardon 630 stereo receiver 30 wrms / channel, and a BSR 510X turntable. Magnificent system. Was actually fairly inexpensive back then... I think I paid 300 bucks for the system. Hi Fidelity House in Allentown, PA, sold me the system. I was 18. The salesman manager was a Dick Penburg. Can you believe I remember all that? I am 66 years old now. They sounded great. I traded them later for a pair of Braun L500A speakers... different, not better per se. Braun is the General Electric of Germany. And they were wonderful.

 

[bikingbuddha]

My friend picked up a pair of these H.H Scott S-15 almost in mint condition. It wasn't cheap, I think he paid somewhere around 200$ for it last January. Yesterday he lend them to me for a while to listen and see....! i immediately hooked them up to my Sansui 310 vintage receiver. It sounds wonderful, so smooth much similar to the sound of my Philips AD1255/M7 full-range speaker. Jazz sounds really good with it, if you want to relax to the music, it sounds distant and non-fatiguing. I've been running it non-stop since morning and at the moment listening to "Dian Krall live in Paris" Album, sounds really good. Excellent vintage stuff...!

Also for future reference that anyone comes looking for it, here goes about its connection terminals.

"O" stands for negative and "H" stands for positive in these speakers. Took me a while to figure out. I believe "H" means "HOT".

 

[AudioFileZ]

Here's a story for you. Being a kid in '73 I was not able to afford AR or the like. I was already a budding audio person though and had started assembling my own components. I had a off-brand but decent Japanese receiver (can't remember name), a Garrard record player w Pickering cartridge (first one was a too low tracking Empire), and Wollensak reel to reel. I needed to replace some crappy small Realistic single 6.5" speakers whose cabinets looked far better than they sounded. I was already reading Stereo Review cover to cover and saw Illinois Audio's ad and I requested more information which brought me a sheet front and back of their current offerings emphasizing their specials. The Scott S-15 speakers were being offered for $45 per speaker and because I was seriously underfunded I decided not to wait until I got the $90 plus freight (about $9 a speaker in those days if you could believe it). I ordered one and it was a game-changer for me. I set out to earn and scrimp until I could get that second speaker. I used US Postal money orders in those days and I sent off by mail for my 2nd speaker. I waited about a week and would call my dad every day at his work to see if they came in. Soon he came home one day with a pair. What? I only ordered, and paid for one speaker to complete my previously received lone speaker. I told my dad and he said he'd call the company. I thought he was going to have it picked up but instead he talked to them and sent them a check to cover it. I remember soon he had a "thank you" letter from the owner of Illinois Audio basically thanking him for his wonderful honesty. This is how I came to own 3 of these speakers instead of two. At the time I couldn't find any reviews from either Audio, High-Fidelity, or Stereo Review magazines but did find, oddly enough, a review by Consumer Reports magazine. It was a very postive review and my personal experience only underscored that. They were fantastic reproducers of wide-range natural sound. I still have all three!

 

[bikingbuddha]

Here's a story for you. Being a kid in '73 I was not able to afford AR or the like. I was already a budding audio person though and had started assembling my own components. I had a off-brand but decent Japanese receiver (can't remember name), a Garrard record player w Pickering cartridge (first one was a too low tracking Empire), and Wollensak reel to reel. I needed to replace some crappy small Realistic single 6.5" speakers whose cabinets looked far better than they sounded. I was already reading Stereo Review cover to cover and saw Illinois Audio's ad and I requested more information which brought me a sheet front and back of their current offerings emphasizing their specials. The Scott S-15 speakers were being offered for $45 per speaker and because I was seriously underfunded I decided not to wait until I got the $90 plus freight (about $9 a speaker in those days if you could believe it). I ordered one and it was a game-changer for me. I set out to earn and scrimp until I could get that second speaker. I used US Postal money orders in those days and I sent off by mail for my 2nd speaker. I waited about a week and would call my dad every day at his work to see if they came in. Soon he came home one day with a pair. What? I only ordered, and paid for one speaker to complete my previously received lone speaker. I told my dad and he said he'd call the company. I thought he was going to have it picked up but instead he talked to them and sent them a check to cover it. I remember soon he had a "thank you" letter from the owner of Illinois Audio basically thanking him for his wonderful honesty. This is how I came to own 3 of these speakers instead of two. At the time I couldn't find any reviews from either Audio, High-Fidelity, or Stereo Review magazines but did find, oddly enough, a review by Consumer Reports magazine. It was a very postive review and my personal experience only underscored that. They were fantastic reproducers of wide-range natural sound. I still have all three!

Amazing story, thank you for sharing it on my thread. really appreciate it.

 

[clucking]

... in '73 ...The Scott S-15 speakers were being offered for $45 per speaker ...

For context, that's about $300 per speaker in 2023 dollars. My underfunded-kid-obsessively-reading-stereoreview story involved floor-model KEF C-75s that the nice guy at Jerrys Audio Video let me have for $400 for the pair in 1993 when I was 16.

I picked up this thread last night because yesterday at Goodwill I found a pair of S-10s for $12/each in what looked to be great shape. Didn't have time to check them out or hook them up last night (kids, work) but will have the house to myself for a couple hours this afternoon to give them a whirl. Also at GW was a JVC R-S5 receiver, from probably late '70s, 25 watts, very clean '70s silver-face looking receiver - hoping it will be a good compliment to the HHScotts.

 

[SamC13]

I have the upper end of this line from 1968 or 1969, the Scott S-100’s. They were also called the Q-100’s. I’ll take a picture of the brochure for the series and post it. They look like end tables and are omnidirectional. They sound fantastic, easily worth 4x what I paid and very very cool looking. With mine I recapped them, I believe I used a Jantzen silver Z cap and PPT Theta film bypass. I run them off the Hafler Dh-200. If you search their name on here you should find my recap / refurb thread on them. I assume they are pretty similar to the s100.

 

[SamC13]

Here are pics from the original brochure

 

[SamC13]

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/hh-scott-s-100-refurb-thread.964529/

 

[audiojones]

Good info in that brochure. I had the S20 and really liked the way they sounded, nice to know it was really a 10B under all that decorator stuff. If I see a pair I’ll pick them up, very nice all-around speaker.

 

[SamC13]

Good info in that brochure. I had the S20 and really liked the way they sounded, nice to know it was really a 10B under all that decorator stuff. If I see a pair I’ll pick them up, very nice all-around speaker.

I agree, I was listening to my Q-100’s last night and musing on how much I enjoyed them.

 

[Swaler61]

Hey,

Thanks for posting pics of the brochures! Just picked up a set of S-15s at a thrift store yesterday, and have been listening before doing any reconditioning.

Original CTS components in these, which appear date coded to 1972. Decent shape, nothing blown, and to me they sound pretty good, but not great. I have some late 80's Infinity bookshelf units that I'm a-b testing with them, and the Infinity's have more articulate mids. Both the Infinity's and the Scott's probably need recapping, too.

BUT -- The thing I'm noticing so far though is the mid/tweet section of the crossover, which is pictured above. I drew out the schematic and it looks pretty bizarre to me. The woofer just has a series inductor, nothing weird there. But the "High Frequency Level" switch circuitry is intertwined with the mid and tweeter circuitry. It'd be interesting to throw it into a simulator and see what is really going on.

Not a lot of these S-15s still around, but anyone happen to have had a look at this one? Maybe part of the "controlled impedance" thing in the brochure?

Scott

 

[Uncle Fester]

I'm still using a pair of s-11's in my living room, fed by an HK 430 and a Sony CD player.

They sound great, I really don't know where all the backhanded compliments come from about them. ("They sound good but not great", things like that).

I found them at a local Savers two years ago, and there is almost NEVER anything that good being offered there anymore.

 

[Swaler61]

They sound great, I really don't know where all the backhanded compliments come from about them. ("They sound good but not great", things like that).
I found them at a local Savers two years ago, and there is almost NEVER anything that good being offered there anymore.

Fester,

Please don't take offense, no backhanding intended, constructive criticism only! I'm still evaluating these guys, just got them yesterday. I like them, but compared to other stuff I have, they are not yet up there. BTW -- I am reconditioning an HK 330c that has been in the family for a long while.

These and my other recent find have both come from Savers, but yeah, you have to be checking often to get that stuff!

Scottie

 

[Uncle Fester]

Scottie, no offense taken! I was referring to some comments I'd seen on other forums in the recent past, not from any members here.

Oh, and good luck with the HK 330c, I have one in my upstairs room and it is absolutely great sounding, and very reliable, too.

I just realised that quote I used was verbatim to your post, but I didn't mean to attribute it to you.

 

[Swaler61]

Fester,

The 330c isn't bad overall, just a few things to dig into, scratchy pots, a tune up, not doing a full cap replacement as yet. Gonna check out the LED replacement dial lights.

Gave a light scuff sanding to the S-15 cabs and overcoated with stain to blend scratches in. Can't sand too much on thin veneer. Paste wax after that and done, pretty easy reconditioning. Nice to find these walnut veneered cabs without sections of veneer missing!

Scott

 

[Uncle Fester]

They made nice cabs back then, they look good in your living spaces.

I used some of that Howard's Restore a Finish, and they look pretty good.

 

[Swaler61]

Hey,

Getting pretty nerdy here, I threw the bizarre-to-me S-15 crossover circuit into XSIM (cool quick crossover sim program BTW).

Looks like this:


Items to note for the above:

• As shown, this circuit has the tweeter switch in the middle or "N" position.
• R3 is shown open, it is only used with the "D" switch position
• I don't have response data or files for these drivers, so none of the simulations can be taken as absolute

After some simulations and listening, note that I have the midrange with reversed polarity, it was NOT like this originally. Simulations showed some notching happening so I did some listening connected both ways and I like it as shown above. Your ears may vary, eh?

Here's the response curves for the above:


Overall, really liking these speakers, have been playing a lot of combo jazz through them, and really liking the even tone. Haven't tried hard rock or metal as yet.

I still need to replace the old caps, new ones are on order and not getting here until next week.

Scottie

 

[Swaler61]

Ok, been working on and listening to these old Scott S-15s from 1972.

I replaced the caps in the above crossover circuit one speaker at a time in order to do some A-B listening tests, and I really couldn't hear much difference. They sound pretty good either way. These caps were the original black with red ends that most folks don't seem to like. I don't have a VOM that can measure higher than 5uf, so don't know how bad the 10uF's were. The 5's were a little low, around 4uF. I have no good way to measure ESR or other cap specs.

So between the new caps and updated binding posts, the crossovers have made it into the 21st century.

Have also experimented further with the midrange connected both ways, and I am back to connecting it normally, it has a more punchy midrange that way and I really am not hearing much of a notch if any, as XSim showed. I put some test tones through, also, and it seems pretty even in the transition between mid and tweet.

So overall, I like these guys. Very even, clean, and sweet sounding speakers at up to medium listening levels. The drivers in these are completely stock, and when putting too much power into them, esp. with hard rock or metal, the alnico woofers overloaded easily as you might expect for drivers designed this long ago. Even so, I like these and am going to keep them as alternates or for rear speakers. To me they have a real nice sparkle to them for combo jazz listening.

Mine will stay stock, but to me they could be good candidates for updating the drivers and you'd have some nice looking medium sized speakers that could breathe a little more fire if you so desired.

We need to remember that tastes have changed over time. These were designed back when they were probably aiming for a very even response, and they do have that. Someone with more modern tastes at higher SPLs will likely be wanting more bass response and will probably want to look elsewhere or go ahead and change out the drivers. Or if you really want some Scott's, wait until some S-11B's show up at Savers, and you better get there before me!

Scottie