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What type of speaker are you a sucker for?

'Stats, 'Stats, and more 'Stats!!!
I also like large box speakers, and unusual driver technologies &/or configurations... I want to own, or at least experience everything! I'd LOVE to get a pair of Wolcott Omnispheres, and Shahinian Obelisks... it's the big odd ball stuff "floats my boat".
 
Reasonably efficient 2-ways. I think if I could choose any configuration, it would be a big HF horn above a large-ish TAD/JBL/EV/etc woofer crossed pretty high, maybe horn loaded.
 
Gang-Twanger said:
You would probably love their car audio stuff. I haven't heard them in quite a while, but the ADS car speakers from the '90's were the bee's knees. I think I preferred them to the equivalent Boston, MB Quart, and Soundstream stuff, and basically everything else out there. Focused and vibrant, yet VERY-natural-sounding. Great tweeters.
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I often used ADS speakers in the car audio systems I built years ago. Agree they were hard to beat but now I use Focal which are amazingly great sounding speakers in a car.
 
stoutblock said:
I often used ADS speakers in the car audio systems I built years ago. Agree they were hard to beat but now I use Focal which are amazingly great sounding speakers in a car.
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Wow, didn't realize Focal was in the car audio game. I've been out of it for quite a while now, although I do want to do another car system at some point. I had nice gear in my old system, but I've learned a lot since then, and I would certainly make a few changes if I could go back and do it again. I realize now that a lot of it comes down to personal tastes and how a particular piece of gear is VOICED (One man's pleasure can be another man's pain, and that sort of thing). I wish I had fully-understood that back when I was building my old car system (I spent about $4000 on gear alone... Great gear, but I could have done better, knowing what I know now).
 
Adda said:
True ribbon tweeters and paper cone drivers.
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You mean like the old Decca London ribbon tweeters? I'd love to have a multi-tier system comprised of those along with some cone-mids and woofers. I also like cone-tweeters as well. The ones on my main speakers are to die for (I had no idea a cone-tweeter could sound so-good).
 
saltwater said:
Of course bozak.
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Nice to see that you haven't been swallowed up by those CG's. I was worried they might be too-much for ya' (too-big... in terms of size AND sound), but that doesn't appear to be an issue. I briefly-worried about that when I got my W90's to their new home, but after spending two months with them, they're not going anywhere.

Your setup must be SO-great for jazz stuff and classical. Between the Pilot and those CG's, you've got that "Golden Age Of Stereo" thing wired down REAL-tight...

Sunday morning is the time for jazz & classical... (or the Beatles). I'm playing a few CD's from my CBS Great Performances collection (Analog-recorded classical stuff). I have about 15 of them so far. They're from the mid '80's. Well-mastered and VERY-crankable...
 
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Gang-Twanger said:
You mean like the old Decca London ribbon tweeters? I'd love to have a multi-tier system comprised of those along with some cone-mids and woofers. I also like cone-tweeters as well. The ones on my main speakers are to die for (I had no idea a cone-tweeter could sound so-good).
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Yup just like those the DECCA DK30, my GAMMA 50's have the GAMMA VLD-12 ribbon tweeters and their construction is pretty much the same.
The horns have the same shape, they both have flat wire transformers and AlNiCo magnets.
The sound is to die for, all the detail you could want, very dynamic and they achieve total transparency, it's like they are not even here.
The GAMMA 50's are three way speakers with 12" GAMMA BK3013A paper cone AlNiCo woofers and BK138A 5" paper mid driver, also AlNiCo, all in a 50 liter BR box.
Since I got GAMMA BK3013A woofers in my speakers again (an old one blew and I have used SkyTronic 092.222 woofers for quite a while, but no more), and air tightened the box, they have the most wonderful sound, vintage bass synthesizers never sounded this good.
The mid woofer are these speakers weakness, it's detailed, but sounds kind of veiled, a bit peaky too, but the VLD-12's and the BK3013A's hide these short comings well enough.
 
Adda said:
Yup just like those the DECCA DK30, my GAMMA 50's have the GAMMA VLD-12 ribbon tweeters and their construction is pretty much the same.
The horns have the same shape, they both have flat wire transformers and AlNiCo magnets.
The sound is to die for, all the detail you could want, very dynamic and they achieve total transparency, it's like they are not even here.
The GAMMA 50's are three way speakers with 12" GAMMA BK3013A paper cone AlNiCo woofers and BK138A 5" paper mid driver, also AlNiCo, all in a 50 liter BR box.
Since I got GAMMA BK3013A woofers in my speakers again (an old one blew and I have used SkyTronic 092.222 woofers for quite a while, but no more), and air tightened the box, they have the most wonderful sound, vintage bass synthesizers never sounded this good.
The mid woofer are these speakers weakness, it's detailed, but sounds kind of veiled, a bit peaky too, but the VLD-12's and the BK3013A's hide these short comings well enough.
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Yeah, saw the picture you posted of one of those. They're from the mid '70's, right? I bet those sound really-nice (Must have been a fairly-expensive speaker if they were still using alnico drivers in the mid '70's... Few companies were, due to the much-higher cost). I'm especially-critical when it comes to judging a speaker's midrange-response. My next big purchase will be an amp, either tube or solid-state, so I can get even cleaner upper-mids & highs. It amazes me how clean a lot of these older speakers are. Some of the cleanest/clearest/best-sounding are also among the oldest.

Here's a pair of speakers I want to find someday. They're just little, old vintage bookshelf speakers, but they're voiced just the way I like. Timbre is right on, and I love how organic and lifelike they sound. Very-open for such a small speaker. These would be excellent for an office system playing jazz and classical and the occasional Beatles track...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R75sr4c7CGM
 
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Gang-Twanger said:
Yeah, saw the picture you posted of one of those. They're from the mid '70's, right? I bet those sound really-nice (Must have been a fairly-expensive speaker if they were still using alnico drivers in the mid '70's... Few companies were, due to the much-higher cost). I'm especially-critical when it comes to judging a speaker's midrange-response. My next big purchase will be an amp, either tube or solid-state, so I can get even cleaner upper-mids & highs. It amazes me how clean a lot of these older speakers are. Some of the cleanest/clearest/best-sounding are also among the oldest.
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Yup my GAMMA 50's where built in 1975, at least that what's written inside the box.
But the VLD-12's came out in the early 70's, not too long after the original Stanley Kelly ribbon tweeter, and this is no coincidence as it is a total ripoff of the original Kelly design.
GAMMA did make improvements though, the VLD-12 is more efficient then the DK30.

The VLD-12's where made in Bulgaria before the fall of the iron curtain, so at the time they where very cheap compared to western brands.
Their designs where basic, everything that could be done cheaply without impacting the sound, was done to the fullest.
But many of their old designs are still in production today, the VLD-12 has been replaced by the VLD-13 which has a mounting mechanism for the ribbons, something the VLD-12's lack and it still has AlNiCo magnets.

The reason GAMMA kept using AlNiCo magnets is because cobalt was expensive in the west, but not in the communist states.

An interesting link about the Decca Kelly ribbons:
http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/ribbon.html

And here something about paper drivers:
http://www.mother-of-tone.com/speaker.htm

I agree, mids are important, so I have plans to build a new pair of speakers, with VLD-12 ribbons and some 6" Wavecor Nomex drivers, two per side.
I have a feeling the GAMMA 50's will surprise me again once those speakers get built, they have kept doing that for the last 17 years so why not again.

Well I'm sure some of the really nice modern speakers sound very clear too, but it seems it was a more common trait in older speakers, I blame plastic cones.

Gang-Twanger said:
Here's a pair of speakers I want to find someday. They're just little, old vintage bookshelf speakers, but they're voiced just the way I like. Timbre is right on, and I love how organic and lifelike they sound. Very-open for such a small speaker. These would be excellent for an office system playing jazz and classical and the occasional Beatles track...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R75sr4c7CGM
Click to expand...

Those do look very nice, very vintage indeed, much like some of the old B&O's.
 
Adda said:
Yup my GAMMA 50's where built in 1975, at least that what's written inside the box.
But the VLD-12's came out in the early 70's, not too long after the original Stanley Kelly ribbon tweeter, and this is no coincidence as it is a total ripoff of the original Kelly design.
GAMMA did make improvements though, the VLD-12 is more efficient then the DK30.

The VLD-12's where made in Bulgaria before the fall of the iron curtain, so at the time they where very cheap compared to western brands.
Their designs where basic, everything that could be done cheaply without impacting the sound, was done to the fullest.
But many of their old designs are still in production today, the VLD-12 has been replaced by the VLD-13 which has a mounting mechanism for the ribbons, something the VLD-12's lack and it still has AlNiCo magnets.

The reason GAMMA kept using AlNiCo magnets is because cobalt was expensive in the west, but not in the communist states.
Click to expand...

That's good to know about the availability of alnico in some countries vs others. That gives me some ideas about speakers to look for in the future. And I'm not much for plastic cones either (Every speaker I've seen with them seems to have that BBC kind of voicing, which just isn't my thing, no matter HOW well they're made).

Thanks for the link. I actually skimmed through it at least once, but that's 'cause there's a lot of technical talk. I read through it again (It'll be a while before I totally understand what guys like that are talking about). I noticed that the Decca ribbon-tweeter has a low crossover-point (just like the alnico Super 3's in my W90's). Makes it very-easy to integrate with mid drivers.

Now, I know the Decca/Kelly ribbons were used by Decca Radio & Television, but were those used by the record company as well (and Deram and all that)? And by the way, I love those DIY cabs with the Decca ribbons (That's not an AK'er, is it?).
 
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