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Need help finding info on these Goodman's speakers

Roguesquatch

Roguesquatch

New Member
Hello all, I recently acquired a pair of Goodman's of England Model B-5 Professional series speakers and I can find no info on them. Before I got them I had never heard of them either. I traded some cast off parts for them and I was told his girlfriend tore the grill cloth off in an attempt to get a better look at the drivers. Ugh...
Anyway, what little info I have found seems to indicate that they are intended to be paired with tube amplification, they may have been custom built and they may be highly sought after. As I am a solid state guy I will more than likely end up selling them,image2.jpeg but any info or a point in the right direction would be much appreciated!
 

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Hey man,

Ive got a pair in the shop waiting on repairs. Youre right, not much info out there. They perform absolutely wonderful. Big, warm bass, lush and precise mids. Cant remember anything about the highs, its been a while. When they come up for sale, they aint cheap. I didnt have any issues with them on solid state, they didn't explode or anything. Theyre not for concert level ac/dc parties or techno. But they do early jazz, vocals and bluegrass right up there with the best.

Biggles
 
drbiggles said:
Hey man,

Ive got a pair in the shop waiting on repairs. Youre right, not much info out there. They perform absolutely wonderful. Big, warm bass, lush and precise mids. Cant remember anything about the highs, its been a while. When they come up for sale, they aint cheap. I didnt have any issues with them on solid state, they didn't explode or anything. Theyre not for concert level ac/dc parties or techno. But they do early jazz, vocals and bluegrass right up there with the best.

Biggles
Click to expand...
Thank you for the input, that seems to be right in line with what I have read.
BTW, I love your quote, it's perfect!
 
CopperWizard said:
Hey fellow Eugenian! Would love to hear those. Ill keep my eye on craigslist now!
Click to expand...
Hey man! We actually met over a year ago at the St Vinnie's warehouse and you were kind enough to introduce yourself and offer some valuable info about speakers. At that time you gave me your name on AK but it took me this long to get my act together and become part of the AK community for real! I would love to have you over and we could listen to them together. Embarrassingly I have not even hooked them up yet...
 
As a Goodman's fanboy, I congratulate you on your score.

I believe those contain the Goodman Axiom 201 driver, or something very similar. I can't find my Goodmans catalog.

Many of those Goodmans speakers are glued together, so gaining access requires cutting the backs off, and then mounting a cleat on the inside and screw the back to that.

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with using those speakers with solid state. They sound beautiful, and because of the efficiency you don't need much to drive them so the amplifier operates in a more linear region.

If you want to keep them, I can make some suggestions for improving the sound.
 
Retrovert said:
As a Goodman's fanboy, I congratulate you on your score.

I believe those contain the Goodman Axiom 201 driver, or something very similar. I can't find my Goodmans catalog.

Many of those Goodmans speakers are glued together, so gaining access requires cutting the backs off, and then mounting a cleat on the inside and screw the back to that.

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with using those speakers with solid state. They sound beautiful, and because of the efficiency you don't need much to drive them so the amplifier operates in a more linear region.

If you want to keep them, I can make some suggestions for improving the sound.
Click to expand...
Very cool! Thanks for the input!
 
Oh, those will sound nice for sure. I agree with Retrovert the Axiom 201 is likely. Those enclosures are a little small to get the best out of an Axiom 201, but you should know the Goodmans drivers from that era are real gems, this is a great find!

If you want to check what the drivers are, see if you can borrow an engine inspection endoscope from a mechanic, you could stick it into the port and have a look at the back of the speaker driver without taking anything apart.
 
As far as enclosure size, but Jordan at Goodmans created the ARU (Acoustic Resistance Unit) which is an aperiodic port, to solve that. The port is basically covered with filter scrim which adjusts the acoustic impedance of the port. This could be added. I'm not sure what that thing in the corner is; looks like some port but it could also be a driver? Tweeter maybe?

If I were keeping those, I'd do an experiment with removing the port and switching to infinite baffle ala Bozak as the cabinets should be large enough. At a minimum I'd line the cabinet with cotton batting to reduce the reflections.
 
Biggles[/QUOTE]
drbiggles said:
Hey man,
Theyre not for concert level ac/dc parties or techno.
Biggles
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, when I was a teenager I used to play AC/DC at concert levels on extremely similar old Goodmans speakers, and they sounded more like actually being at the AC/DC concert than anything I've had before or since (not that I listen to AC/DC anymore!) Part of this is down to AC/DC having such a loud and shrill concert sound, full out assault on your ears. They never relied much on heavy bass.

They are super sensitive, and provided you're careful not to blow them or apply EQ, they go incredibly loud. You could literally hear them down the street, if I had my window open.
 
Ahhh, memories of my misspent youth where I used to play AC/DC, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Dio, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, and other metal and punk on a pair of full-range Goodmans but in a Karlson driven by an EICO ST-40. So the bass was all there, and gloriously so. Plus some klavier played by Alfred Brendel...

Goodmans speakers will reproduce whatever you give them. The cabinet, however, has a large impact on the sound.

"The track hits ya eardrum like a slug to ya chest...", California Love by Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur (1995)
 
I had mine in 6 cubic foot infinite baffle cabinets I convinced my dad to rent a table saw to help me build, and powered them with ever changing home made tube amps.

I sold them a few years ago, can't keep everything!
 
maxhifi said:
I had mine in 6 cubic foot infinite baffle cabinets I convinced my dad to rent a table saw to help me build, and powered them with ever changing home made tube amps.
Click to expand...

That cabinet was certainly large enough to ensure the backwave doesn't follow you home.

One can reduce the size of the infinite baffle with concomitant loss of bass response. My Bozak B-313 is about 2.5 cu ft instead of the 5 cu ft recommended; the low end climbs about 20 Hz as a result. I can live with that because the speakers are of a manageable size. I expect that the OP's cabinets would experience improved low-end accuracy at likely not much cost of frequency response. The ported cabinet isn't going that low, anyway.

maxhifi said:
I sold them a few years ago, can't keep everything!
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Well, that's a shockingly defeatist attitude. You keep that up and your membership in the North American Hoarder's Association will be revoked. And then where will you be? Oh, right. In a home without narrow pathways created by speakers and HiFi gear...
 
maxhifi said:
Biggles


Believe it or not, when I was a teenager I used to play AC/DC at concert levels on extremely similar old Goodmans speakers, and they sounded more like actually being at the AC/DC concert than anything I've had before or since (not that I listen to AC/DC anymore!) Part of this is down to AC/DC having such a loud and shrill concert sound, full out assault on your ears. They never relied much on heavy bass.

They are super sensitive, and provided you're careful not to blow them or apply EQ, they go incredibly loud. You could literally hear them down the street, if I had my window open.
Click to expand...

That's pretty darned cool. Yeah, most rock of that period and earlier didn't have bass that dug all that deep. Tons of mid-bass slam though. And that's too bad about not listening to them much anymore. I still have my copies of Highway to Hell and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap I bought when they came out. They don't get played frequently, but I still listen. Besides, It's a Long Way to the Top is a pretty darned good tweeter test. If your tweeters can make a bagpipe sound smooth, you're good to go.

Biggles
 
drbiggles said:
Agreed, I can attest to that from firsthand knowledge. Although, an aluminum cone 1960's tweeter does really well.
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The Bozak tweeters are a beautiful thing.

Goodmans tweeters, however, are paper-cones and, well, not so much. Usual spikey/spittey behavior in the upper registers. The full-range drivers with whizzer cones don't do that well, either, for the same reasons.
 
I had a Twinaxiom in an identical cabinet. Found it in the attic when I was a kid and just big enough to wrestle it down from there.
I hooked it up to a Proton clock radio and can vouch for its high sensitivity and sound quality!
I gave it and a lot of other hifi stuff away during hard times... sigh.
Always glad to see more Goodmans being rescued.
 
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