Over the weekend I picked up another pair of Optimus 5 speakers and when I got them home one woofer was deadsville. I have bought probably 40 pairs of speakers without hearing them and this is the first time that has happened. I paid next to nothing for them so it was no big deal to order another one from Ebay.
As I was telling another member who bought some Optimus 1Bs yesterday, Optimi or Novas can be a pain in the butt to open up. The irritating part is that the barrel nuts that grip the nuts that hold the woofers in ALWAYS fall out of the wood.......and of course it happened twice this morning. Oh well.
I tested them by taking down my Imperial 6s from the front system that right now is powered by the new to me Onkyo 4500. To finish this part of the story: The new driver works and the speakers sound fine, but the Onkyo does not drive them well at all. They are less sensitive than the easy to drive Imperials so the Onkyo will be leaving for a while.
As I was changing them out I was noticing how different makers did things differently in order to make a speaker to the price point and still make money. The Marantz speakers use fairly pedestrian drivers but, as anybody who has heard them, they sound far better than the sum of their parts indicate they should. The cabinets sides are pressboard covered in a nice walnut veneer. The standard terminals are pure crap; just two cheap screws. I had nicer ones installed when I had them recapped a while back. But with all that, my 6s are just sublime and I love them.
The "cheaper" Realistics have a plywood cabinet with fronts of pressboard as can be seen in the pictures. The crossovers are not expensive but they have more adjustments than the Imperials do. And the Fostex drivers are actually pretty nice with heavy magnets. But the Realistics have much nicer screw type terminals that are a lot nicer.
Which set sounds better? Right now the Marantz do. But they have been recapped and the Realistics have not. Do the Realistics sound bad? Heavens no! They have super solid bass with nice highs and mids that compete well with both the Imperials and my rebuilt KLH 6s. After seeing how easy it was to get to the crossovers I will try and get those capped soon so I can really compare them.
Radio Shack in the late 60s to the mid 70s tried pretty hard to compete in the mainstream speaker market and do it at a lower price. They did a better job than most realize I think.
Oh, and if all you want to do is tell me how shitty Realistic stuff is, please just move on and start your own thread.
As I was telling another member who bought some Optimus 1Bs yesterday, Optimi or Novas can be a pain in the butt to open up. The irritating part is that the barrel nuts that grip the nuts that hold the woofers in ALWAYS fall out of the wood.......and of course it happened twice this morning. Oh well.
I tested them by taking down my Imperial 6s from the front system that right now is powered by the new to me Onkyo 4500. To finish this part of the story: The new driver works and the speakers sound fine, but the Onkyo does not drive them well at all. They are less sensitive than the easy to drive Imperials so the Onkyo will be leaving for a while.
As I was changing them out I was noticing how different makers did things differently in order to make a speaker to the price point and still make money. The Marantz speakers use fairly pedestrian drivers but, as anybody who has heard them, they sound far better than the sum of their parts indicate they should. The cabinets sides are pressboard covered in a nice walnut veneer. The standard terminals are pure crap; just two cheap screws. I had nicer ones installed when I had them recapped a while back. But with all that, my 6s are just sublime and I love them.
The "cheaper" Realistics have a plywood cabinet with fronts of pressboard as can be seen in the pictures. The crossovers are not expensive but they have more adjustments than the Imperials do. And the Fostex drivers are actually pretty nice with heavy magnets. But the Realistics have much nicer screw type terminals that are a lot nicer.
Which set sounds better? Right now the Marantz do. But they have been recapped and the Realistics have not. Do the Realistics sound bad? Heavens no! They have super solid bass with nice highs and mids that compete well with both the Imperials and my rebuilt KLH 6s. After seeing how easy it was to get to the crossovers I will try and get those capped soon so I can really compare them.
Radio Shack in the late 60s to the mid 70s tried pretty hard to compete in the mainstream speaker market and do it at a lower price. They did a better job than most realize I think.
Oh, and if all you want to do is tell me how shitty Realistic stuff is, please just move on and start your own thread.
