Seeburg dds1

[Lazarus Long]

I have the chance to acquire TWO pair of seeburg dds1 speakers.. I looked at them today. 3 of the 4 altec horn drivers are working. The original utah 15" woofers appear to be functioning. Two of them have had realistic tone controls installed. The other two seem to be completely original. The cabinets are in fair to good condition. No major damage.. I have a goood idea of what the components are worth, except maybe the xovers.. Just not sure if these are more valuable as complete functioning speakers, or parted out..

The seller is also throwing in an old jukebox tube amp and a pair of mcm rca speakers. They would have been paired with the rca shp9 console I believe..

 

[nolasally]

Part away. Sell altec separately. Utah woof have little value. U might get an asian flipper who sends them overseas that would pay 500 for a complete set....

 

[Lazarus Long]

Part away. Sell altec separately. Utah woof have little value. U might get an asian flipper who sends them overseas that would pay 500 for a complete set....

Thats what I was thinking.. I was able to find a couple listings for the Utah woofers that sold at $125 or so per pair.. What about the xovers? $50 per pair? The green altec horn drivers are in very good condition...

The RCA SHS-9 speakers must have some value. Can't find any comps. They are in fair condition, no damage, but they could benefit from a refinish. Maybe $100 each?

 

[nolasally]

Its alot of heavy lifting and takes up considerable space. Id offer 500 for all. And be ready to walk if seller counters...

 

[Lazarus Long]

Its alot of heavy lifting and takes up considerable space. Id offer 500 for all. And be ready to walk if seller counters...

Haha. Thats exactly where we ended up. The cabinets were a little more beat up than I originally thought.. But two of the grills are still in very good shape.

 

[bowtie427ss]

But two of the grills are still in very good shape.

The grills are one of their bigger caveats, they are not acoustically transparent.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that these were 60's jukebox extension speakers, and nothing more. In stock form the grills and whacky woofer openings reflect a large amount of mid-range energy back at the woofers which creates an unpleasant amount of mid-band distortion.

Circa 2000ish i bought a quad of them(i still had a jukebox fetish, and several jukeboxes) thinking i was going to hang them in our showroom, and use them in a more substantial playback system. I quickly learned that without serious and extensive modifications(see GordonW's DDS1 build) they're limited to being a 60's jukebox extension speaker, and far from hifi even in 1960's terms.

Part away. Sell altec separately. Utah woof have little value.

Agree completely.

But, i would add that there seems to be no shortage of uninformed buyers willing to throw stupid money at those woofers. Apparently, they don't realize that new woofers are being made today(and back then) with vastly improved engineering, performance, and materials at an equivalent entry fee.

Not unlike the wife and the boat, my two happiest days with them were the day i got them, and the day i got rid of them.

 

[Lazarus Long]

The grills are one of their bigger caveats, they are not acoustically transparent.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that these were 60's jukebox extension speakers, and nothing more. In stock form the grills and whacky woofer openings reflect a large amount of mid-range energy back at the woofers which creates an unpleasant amount of mid-band distortion.

Circa 2000ish i bought a quad of them(i still had a jukebox fetish, and several jukeboxes) thinking i was going to hang them in our showroom, and use them in a more substantial playback system. I quickly learned that without serious and extensive modifications(see GordonW's DDS1 build) they're limited to being a 60's jukebox extension speaker, and far from hifi even in 1960's terms.

Agree completely.

But, i would add that there seems to be no shortage of uninformed buyers willing to throw stupid money at those woofers. Apparently, they don't realize that new woofers are being made today(and back then) with vastly improved engineering, performance, and materials at an equivalent entry fee.

Not unlike the wife and the boat, my two happiest days with them were the day i got them, and the day i got rid of them.

How much stupid money are you talking about?