Rectilinear model XI Speakers looking for a guess as to their age and value

[Ric Harris]

I'm picking up a pair of Rectilinear model XI's for the low, low price of 20.00.
They look to be early 70's to me. The seller has no clue, of coarse if he did he wouldn't be selling them for 20 bucks.
So if I re-cap them and give them a fresh coat of tung oil what are they worth? 100? 150?
The only pair of Rectilinear speakers I've ever laid hands on were low boys. I sold them for a couple hundred back in the 90's. Beyond that I don't know a ton about the brand beside their being desirable.
Educate me.

 

[Nat]

Dollar questions don't belong here. Rectilinear made some well regarded speakers, and their smaller speakers seem to have sold well, at least on the east coast. But I don't think the smaller ones are particularly sought after now -- nice boxes, but fairly generic drivers, and no cult to whip up enthusiasm for them.

 

[joelongwood]

From the Classic Speaker Pages Forum......."The XI was the bottom of the line in 1971 at $80. Next step up was the Mini II at $100. The TOTL Model III Lowboy was $300. The XI is a simple 2-way bass reflex system with a 10" woofer and phenolic ring tweeter, crossed over at 1.8kHz. Freq response is reported to be 45-17k +/- 3db. The 10" Woofer W-11 was used in XI, XIa, XIb, XII. The 4" phenolic ring tweeter RT-11 was used only in XI."
I have The XI, the Mini III, Lowboys, and Highboys. The XI is a pleasant sounding speaker, but, to my ears at least, is not in the same league as the other Rectilinears I have. But for $20? I'd grab 'em.

 

[Ric Harris]

I'm picking up a pair of Rectilinear model XI's for the low, low price of 20.00.
They look to be early 70's to me. The seller has no clue, of coarse if he did he wouldn't be selling them for 20 bucks.
So if I re-cap them and give them a fresh coat of tung oil what are they worth? 100? 150?
The only pair of Rectilinear speakers I've ever laid hands on were low boys. I sold them for a couple hundred back in the 90's. Beyond that I don't know a ton about the brand beside their being desirable.
Educate me.View attachment 917695

From the Classic Speaker Pages Forum......."The XI was the bottom of the line in 1971 at $80. Next step up was the Mini II at $100. The TOTL Model III Lowboy was $300. The XI is a simple 2-way bass reflex system with a 10" woofer and phenolic ring tweeter, crossed over at 1.8kHz. Freq response is reported to be 45-17k +/- 3db. The 10" Woofer W-11 was used in XI, XIa, XIb, XII. The 4" phenolic ring tweeter RT-11 was used only in XI."
I have The XI, the Mini III, Lowboys, and Highboys. The XI is a pleasant sounding speaker, but, to my ears at least, is not in the same league as the other Rectilinears I have. But for $20? I'd grab 'em.

I will be picking them up tomorrow at 5:30. I did a little looking online and found that the XI's phenolic tweeter is the venerable peerless model found in many speakers of that era. The crossover looks identical to a few other speakers that used that tweeter. I think my AR4x have almost the identical crossover setup tweeter wise it's been a while since I rehab those but the crossover does have that look about it. Nevertheless the bottom of the line from Rectilinear is better than top of the line by other.

 

[Ric Harris]

Dollar questions don't belong here. Rectilinear made some well regarded speakers, and their smaller speakers seem to have sold well, at least on the east coast. But I don't think the smaller ones are particularly sought after now -- nice boxes, but fairly generic drivers, and no cult to whip up enthusiasm for them.

The dollars are more for justifying a 100 mile round trip and yet another pair of speakers that a surely don't need to my better half.
The speakers themselves are much like my Harman Kardon HK40's. Decent speakers no cult love. In fact my HK40's having the benefit of modern crossovers are pretty awesome for garage speakers.

 

[Ric Harris]

Love Rectilinear. Sadly you live so far away. I'd take them off your hands. I just finished restoring a pair of Highboy III and the XII. Keepers in my opinion... I'd go do a search for them on hifishark and look at past sales as well.

The thing is when someone is selling something like that on craigslist for 20 you never know what to expect. I checked the sellers address and he got a nice house in a high buck sub-division. So I can at least assume their not total crap cause people in that tax bracket tend to just dump stuff like that off at goodwill unless they have an attachment to them and thus have a need to get something for them. My hope is the stereo system that he used with those speakers may be gotten as well. I've hit a couple of those kinds of situation's where the receiver has issues and they know they need to recycle it but yet there it sits. Will update tonight. Just so you know if I place it on Ebay I'll let you have first right of refusal. If there crappy and need to be re-veneered it might be June before I have them up on Ebay.

 

[Nat]

Probably better to keep offers in PMs not in the thread.

 

[Gazdatronik]

The tweeters are CTS's. They might be blown, too. I've yet to find a pair of vintage speakers where the phenolics all still work. Parts Express sells a reproduction thats a drop, but I have no personal experience with them.
I have a pair in my garage I use. The have Panasonic tweeters that are very close to the phenolics. I actually like the way they sound, maybe I'll splurge on a used pair of factory tweeters. One thing about what makes them special is the good time/phase alignment due to good driver matching and minimal crossover components, which is a lost art these days

The caps are generally sealed plastic bodied caps. Test them before you change them, those caps don't fail often. The L-Pads tend to get nasty and crackly. No easy way to lube them as they are sealed too. I suppose they can be disassembled and re-lubed, I've had to do it before.

They are keepers, not sellers. Good, well rounded sound, plenty of bottom end. Not particularly high end, but not junk. Just a good speaker designed with an emphasis on getting your money's worth.

 

[Ric Harris]

Nat is right. The sad reality for me, up here in Canada, shipping, import, brokerage fees etc. makes even freebies from the US a real pain in the but and costly. I do know that if they came up anywhere close to me for a decent I'd pop on them. Love the Rects. So long as they are working and original, the rest is cosmetic which I can/would do as well. Fabulous vintage speakers.

Being here in Wisconsin one can appreciate shipping disadvantages.

 

[Ric Harris]

The tweeters are CTS's. They might be blown, too. I've yet to find a pair of vintage speakers where the phenolics all still work. Parts Express sells a reproduction thats a drop, but I have no personal experience with them.
I have a pair in my garage I use. The have Panasonic tweeters that are very close to the phenolics. I actually like the way they sound, maybe I'll splurge on a used pair of factory tweeters. One thing about what makes them special is the good time/phase alignment due to good driver matching and minimal crossover components, which is a lost art these days

The caps are generally sealed plastic bodied caps. Test them before you change them, those caps don't fail often. The L-Pads tend to get nasty and crackly. No easy way to lube them as they are sealed too. I suppose they can be disassembled and re-lubed, I've had to do it before.

They are keepers, not sellers. Good, well rounded sound, plenty of bottom end. Not particularly high end, but not junk. Just a good speaker designed with an emphasis on getting your money's worth.

I got them and they're in pretty nice shape but they have been sitting in this guys garage for a few years. Mind you the garage is finished and nicer than some folks houses. Nonetheless they'll get any batting material inside them removed and bagged and pitched followed by a solid fumigation before I bring them inside for testing. Nothing is more disturbing then a hatch out of spiders or worse. As for the tweeters I know the Parts Express model you speak of but I have a hunch these work. The drivers although dirty move freely and the surrounds are very good. The best part is these came with the original literature. Oh and the plastic grills are perfect best that I can tell.
I'm really pumped to try them out. Be back tomorrow with pics and first thoughts!

 

[Ric Harris]

I got them and they're in pretty nice shape but they have been sitting in this guys garage for a few years. Mind you the garage is finished and nicer than some folks houses. Nonetheless they'll get any batting material inside them removed and bagged and pitched followed by a solid fumigation before I bring them inside for testing. Nothing is more disturbing then a hatch out of spiders or worse. As for the tweeters I know the Parts Express model you speak of but I have a hunch these work. The drivers although dirty move freely and the surrounds are very good. The best part is these came with the original literature. Oh and the plastic grills are perfect best that I can tell.
I'm really pumped to try them out. Be back tomorrow with pics and first thoughts!

I do have some Harvard tweeters that look to be the same but I won't know till I pull them.

 

[Gazdatronik]

I got them and they're in pretty nice shape but they have been sitting in this guys garage for a few years. Mind you the garage is finished and nicer than some folks houses. Nonetheless they'll get any batting material inside them removed and bagged and pitched followed by a solid fumigation before I bring them inside for testing. Nothing is more disturbing then a hatch out of spiders or worse. As for the tweeters I know the Parts Express model you speak of but I have a hunch these work. The drivers although dirty move freely and the surrounds are very good. The best part is these came with the original literature. Oh and the plastic grills are perfect best that I can tell.
I'm really pumped to try them out. Be back tomorrow with pics and first thoughts!

Shouldnt have to fumagate, the only way for bugs to get in is thru the port, and it should be covered with a piece of felt from the factory. Removal and replacement of the stuffing could change the timbre, so I woulnt if i were you.

 

[Nat]

The Rectilinears I've seen have had either the Peerless cones, or larger paper cone tweeters (I assume from CTS), not phenoics tweeters. I think the phenolics were slightly later than most Rectilinears. I've never had 5s (nor, I think, the 3s, so they may be different).
I agree about changing damping material -- unless it is degraded, there's not really much upside to doing it.

 

[Ric Harris]

The Rectilinears I've seen have had either the Peerless cones, or larger paper cone tweeters (I assume from CTS), not phenoics tweeters. I think the phenolics were slightly later than most Rectilinears. I've never had 5s (nor, I think, the 3s, so they may be different).
I agree about changing damping material -- unless it is degraded, there's not really much upside to doing it.

I got lots of Dacron and having cleaned out spider nests in the grills I will be cleaning out the insides tomorrow when I replace the caps and clean the pots.

 

[Ric Harris]

I finally got around to hooking them up to the old Rotel in the garage and the first impression anyone would have is holy cow they've got serious bass. The only pair of speakers I've owned that had that much bass were Cerwin Vega D-10's and these may have more if that's possible. The tweeters desperately need new caps. They sound like there's low frequency leaking through cause there probably is.
As for the cabinets I will be putting new veneer on them. They're not awful but I have both walnut and cherry leftover from other projects and I think I may do cherry as walnut is BORING!
Overall these a far better speakers than I had expected. I post some pics soon for the before part of the project.