MCS Honeycomb Speakers

[EVBoy]

MCS 8332 speakers. YS specials, any opinions on them?
They sound great with a somewhat unusual sound. I think they are basically rebadged Technics.

 

[goanlisten]

They look nearly identical to the Technics "Thruster" speaker series. I have seen pictures but have never owned or listened to that series. Technics SB-5 is one of those models I remember.
I hope someone else with more knowledge can help you with more information.
Good luck to you

 

[jlovda]

If they were rebadged to J.C. Penny, Technics must not have seen much future in them.

 

[J1mbo]

Tandy did some too, the moving mass must be quite high relative to a simple paper cone.

 

[jlovda]

Tandy did some too, the moving mass must be quite high relative to a simple paper cone.

I took one of these woofers apart back in the 70's. They use very thin aluminum and they are mostly air between the two outer sheets.

 

[Nat]

They were rebadged Technics, but not, I think, because Technics didn't see a future for them. JC Pennys was a major power in the retail trade and for a while they made a serious move into the audio realm. Most (but I don't think all) of their equipment was made by Technics (I had some big speakers that were almost certainly made by whoever made the Pioneers with the yellow dome tweeters and midranges).
I was surprised when I had a pair of the Technics honeycomb speakers, to find that the flat honeycomb is connected to the voice coil by a rather conventional looking cone, but I think that the cone is smaller, straighter and stiffer than a full cone, and the combo of cone and honeycomb is lighter and more pistonic than a conventional cone. I couldn't really decide exactly why the speakers sounded different from conventional speakers in the short time I dealt with them.

 

[BrocLuno]

This was actually from a time when the MCS team at J C Penney was trying to sell "time aligned" speakers. They did a series or variations on time aligning including stepping the drivers back from bottom to top, etc. MCS may be a house brand, but their electronics team was actually spec'ing some interesting pieces when they could.

Hope these are working well? They maybe could use new capacitors before you do final testing ...

OBTW - I have had MCS stuff made by NEC, Technics, and Itoh Radio. I'm sure there were other suppliers

 

[Technics61]

They look nearly identical to the Technics "Thruster" speaker series. I have seen pictures but have never owned or listened to that series. Technics SB-5 is one of those models I remember.
I hope someone else with more knowledge can help you with more information.
Good luck to you

Thrusters were never marketed by Technics,only by Panasonic its parent company and these speakers are light years better than Thrusters.

 

[Sandstrom]

Thrusters were never marketed by Technics,only by Panasonic its parent company and these speakers are light years better than Thrusters.

Nothing are better than Thrusters

 

[goanlisten]

Thrusters were never marketed by Technics,only by Panasonic its parent company and these speakers are light years better than Thrusters.

Thank you for the correction, Thrusters were indeed marketed by panasonic.
By the way Matsushita Corpn. Is the parent company of "Technics"," Panasonic", "National" and perhaps others I may not even be aware of.

 

[swechsler]

Technics made many speakers (with their own label) with the honeycomb disc drivers. The SB-X500 or SB-X505 seem to be the most similar to these (although not an exact match - the ports are on opposite sides and the drivers are slightly different. Possibly Technics changed them so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious that they were the same speaker). The Vintage Knob has a few other models pictured as well.

Regarding Matsushita brands, they own Quasar as well (they purchased the brand from Motorola).