superdog
AK Member
Model 2.They are old but except for a recap they were restored.
Whats the most dissapointing speaker you've ever heard?
- Thread starter nick parkin
- Start date
AvFan
Super Member
Heresy I know...B&W 804 Diamond. I auditioned a used pair in a local shop's sound treated room and they just fell flat. Mids were recessed and couldn't fill the gap between the nice bass and high frequencies. I really wanted to like them but passed. Maybe it was the supporting gear but I have to think the shop would have put their best foot forward to sell them.
I did something similar to you when I had the 2Ci...used them for acoustic music and jazz, used different speakers for rock/amplified music.
The current versions are a very different sounding speaker than the earlier models. They, along with the subwoofers, negated my neef for that strategy. I sometimes think Vandersteen should have given them a different name....maybe the 2.5.
superdog
AK Member
I hear you.One of these days I'll gravitate to the more refined setup to eliminate some of the other setups but right now I'm back in the throes of the addiction.
david1111
Barba non facit philosophum
Energy Connoiseur C-1.
I compared them with a bunch of speakers the same size and even smaller, trying to find one that sounded as bad, or worse ... none of them even came close.
The C-1s were the worse ever. But they sold real quick, cuz of the name. Weird.
I have an Energy Encore 8 sub, that is great, so I thot the C-1s would be decent.
Wrong again ...
Dave
I compared them with a bunch of speakers the same size and even smaller, trying to find one that sounded as bad, or worse ... none of them even came close.
The C-1s were the worse ever. But they sold real quick, cuz of the name. Weird.
I have an Energy Encore 8 sub, that is great, so I thot the C-1s would be decent.
Wrong again ...
Dave
ebcdic
Member
For me:
Wharfedale W60. 2 Ways. Sounded so, small and boxy. I know they have a following but I just did not get it. Tryed with vintage tubes as well as SS. Recapped, same sound. The furniture though was beautiful...Ended up moving them along. They were a 10/10 cosmetically. The guy I sold them too commented "Man they do not sound great, but they are so cool looking". Ended up getting my asking price....
Wharfedale W60. 2 Ways. Sounded so, small and boxy. I know they have a following but I just did not get it. Tryed with vintage tubes as well as SS. Recapped, same sound. The furniture though was beautiful...Ended up moving them along. They were a 10/10 cosmetically. The guy I sold them too commented "Man they do not sound great, but they are so cool looking". Ended up getting my asking price....
Brindabella
Well-Known Member
Sold JBL back in the 80's. Loved the L series and then the TLX range came out...it was a WTF moment. No amp, source or genre of music could not make them stop sounding shrill, brittle and hollow to me.
Rob
Rob
Gnesen
Super Member
For me it was New Large Advents. They weren’t bad at all, just not as good as I was expecting from all the positive reviews out there. It was the same with Marantz receivers. Quite good quality and real pretty to look at, just not significantly better sounding than lots of other gear. And, no, I don’t think all amps sound the same.
The design objectives were geared more towards reliability and holding price point than improving sound quality - where there were some improvements to be found. While the closer positioning of tweeter to woofer and more open grill backing slightly improved sound quality a smidgeon, the biggest changes were in the simpler crossover and ferro fluid cooled tweeters. Another change was to re-align the tweeter level control's response. What was "Extended" on the original now became "Normal".
I can run my modified New Advents all day long with a 300 watt/channel amp with no worry of smoking the tweeters. I upgraded the crossovers and choose to listen to them sans grill with anti-diffraction pads (furniture pads from Lowe's) around the tweeters.
Last edited:
Surprised but not surprised to find the AR LST here .. owned the LST-2 as a teen and they were wickedly adept at pointing up amplifier deficiencies ..
I liked them, but they could potentially sound great if someone would just design a 150 watt per channel tube amp for them ..
I liked them, but they could potentially sound great if someone would just design a 150 watt per channel tube amp for them ..
Last edited:
You are 100% the newer 2 series are a completely different speaker and I often find people who listen to the older versions and not liking them being put off by the 2 series as a whole not knowing that there were and are many many changes as they progressed through the years . What we have today with the current model of the 2 series is a much more refined completely revamped speaker .
Audiofreak71
And yet, AR completely abandoned that driver configuration model with the AR9 series.
Ive never heard the AR speakers so I can’t comment. But if they were anything like the vandersteens 2series and they gave that up then they took a wrong turn with there speakers I take it .
Audiofreak71
Last edited:
It's evident to me that the LST series was intended to compensate for limited driver power handling capability at the time at the expense of comb filtering. Much like JBL speakers from the 70s like the 4311/Century 100 that drove a 5" midrange a good octave past its optimum range resulting in weird polar response and imaging. Which you don't find in the current LSR series.
Note there are a sum total of zero speakers today that use anything approaching what you find with the LST speakers. There's simply no good reason to.
Note there are a sum total of zero speakers today that use anything approaching what you find with the LST speakers. There's simply no good reason to.
reydelaplaya
Super Member
For me, hands down it has to be Polk Audio M3 Series 2 cheese-wedge/bookshelf speakers from the early 90s.
I had them as my rear channel in my HT setup back then, and have just continued to lug them around in case a spare set of speakers is needed. They were fine as a rear channel, and played nicely with the SonyD990/Pro Logic I had running the show.
But any time I have ever hooked them up to any stereo as just the main pair of speakers, it's so disappointing I usually have to just turn the whole thing off for a minute and just be baffled as to how these things could sound this bad. LOL And yet, every single time I break them out and go to hook them up, I'm expecting that THIS time, they'll sound good.
They never do. They are nothing but midrange and sound a lot like old nasally radio/newsreel recordings from like the 30s or 40s. They've always sounded that way, except when they were playing rear channel. I'll never understand it, but most likely I'll still be the dummy that decides to hook them up again sometimes in the future 'just to make sure'. LOL
IIRC they were about 200ish in 1991 which loosely translates to 375 now. I built my main speakers in my livingroom for less than that, which are also 2-way bookshelf made with very nice parts, and they dance circles around these terrible Polks. LOL
Now 2c worth in defense of Bose:
Along with those Polks I mentioned above, I had the Bose Acoustimass AM5-Sii as my main L/R in that same system, and a Bose VCS-10 center channel. They were great for my use then, and have lasted to this day (even mounted for 11 years in a beachfront salt air environment when I lived in SJ). While I now more fully understand their drawbacks in that setup, that same AM5-Sii are absolutely amazing in a nearfield configuration for my computer setup here. Running off a Yamaha CR-1020 fed with a Creative XFi-HD external soundcard hooked to my laptop, they present so well that music sometimes extends several feet beyond the sides of the baffles. Lifted to ear level with some original stands you folks helped me track down last fall, I couldn't be happier that these are still in operation today. To think I wanted to gut these things for their drivers and make new cabinets when I first joined AK - What a noob! LOL
IMHO, Bose hate is unfair and undeserved. I think it mostly stems from the fact that they're a very successful company but not everybody is their target market - and a segment of those who aren't their target market seem to hold some sort of grudge against them for IDK maybe not making some super duper high end thing that'll pacify their more demanding expectations. Maybe?
Bose sells good sound that's stylish and convenient to a subset of the population that is content with exactly that and willing to pay Bose price for it. While they certainly ride on their reputation and price their products accordingly, they've been pretty innovative with a lot of their stuff. They also seem to be an ethical company from what I can tell, and if their products can last 30 years or more like mine have, I really see nothing wrong.
I'm confused. Audiofreak was talking about Vandersteen speakers. There design has little in common with the AR LST nor the AR9.
I was wondering what he was taking about myself, I just assumed that AR made a speaker similar to a vandersteen?
Audiofreak71
galactus2
Active Member
Lots of mention of various Polk models here, and I almost hate to jump on that bandwagon, but if the shoe fits.....
Their bookshelf model 15's are just terrible. Every single bookshelf speaker I've rotated in their place, which includes models from Klipsch, Paradigm, Wharfedale, DCM and Canton, make the Polks sound like tin pails.
To give Polk their due, though, @Wolverine has a nice large pair of vintage Polk floor standers (forget the model) that sound great.
Their bookshelf model 15's are just terrible. Every single bookshelf speaker I've rotated in their place, which includes models from Klipsch, Paradigm, Wharfedale, DCM and Canton, make the Polks sound like tin pails.
To give Polk their due, though, @Wolverine has a nice large pair of vintage Polk floor standers (forget the model) that sound great.