Speakers

An “off-label” speaker event - my cell phone started broadcasting the low power tv station I was watching while I was trying to make a call. Had to switch the tv to a station with no signal.
At one office I worked at, we were within sight of the WJR AM 760 broadcast tower. Literally. We could see it from our office windows. Our warehouse had a long stretch of wire from the control box in the office to the telephone unit in the back of the warehouse, and we would pick up several radio stations jumbled together over every phone in the building. We had to put filters on all of the handsets in order to keep the RFI out of the calls. It was loud enough (especially WJR's broadcast) that you could sometimes barely hear the caller.

Beats the old days of CB radios, when someone with an illegal linear amplifier attached between the CB radio unit and the antenna would drive down the street and their voice would loudly break through whatever you were listening to in the house...
 
For me, there will be either Klipsch Heresy, Klipsch Cornwall, Tannoy Monitor Red, Gold or HPD or Dynaco A 25 speakers as what I run in old age. With a McIntosh MA 5100 or Sansui 4000 or Sony STR 6120 with the sources to match.
 
I'm not much of a fan of the "heritage" Klipsch sound, but I have to admit there is still some appeal in having a large listening area (like a basement) and setting up a pair or two of Klipschorns in the corners to get the place rockin'. :D It's true I could work with others in their heritage line, but nothing makes a statement as well as some Klipschorns! There was even a pair available a few hours away from me, in nice condition at a very reasonable price...but I ended up putting the money into other upgrades (including the C-J power amp deal that I fell into). And I don't really have room for them now anyways... :wink: Those K-horns and some nice tube amplification would work wonders.
 
Just a random observation.

While I was out west, I received the stands for my Vandersteens. (Thanks to an acquaintance who had no use for them--I got these for the price of shipping. :) I bolted them up yesterday and gave them a trial run.

These aren't tall stands--if anything, they are maybe 2-3" tall. They bolt onto the base of the speaker, and have three spikes so that they get a solid footing. These are a very thick metal, and T-shaped. You can sort of see them in the product image, the black base beneath the wood end panel on the bottom:

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The stands have adjustable spikes, so they can be tipped slightly backwards. (Richard Vandersteen has a formula for setting the correct angle on the site, and it depends on your height at the listening position.)

Everyone was telling me that the stands made a large difference in the sound. I couldn't see how that could be true since they are only a few inches tall, yet as I listen to these now, I hear what they mean. It seems like there isn't as much bass, but actually, it is much clearer and cleaner now, not boomy at all. Same with the rest of the range--it just seems clearer now. The spikes are poking through the carpeting and contacting the concrete pad beneath the family room (just like my equipment rack), so they are now very stable as well. Prior to that, they were resting on the berber carpeting.

Since the stands look so nice, I now want to refinish the end caps (the wood, top and bottom) and get new "socks" for the speakers, as these have a few pulls in them.

This whole story is typical of how I buy things. I watch carefully for sales, including locally on Craigslist. These were like an "emergency sale" situation--the homeowner was moving out of state within a few days and needed them gone, ASAP. Within a half hour of them being listed, I called and got the address, listened to them briefly to make certain everything worked, then hurried up and paid, and got them into the car before he changed his mind. :D This model (2...which evolved to later model numbers like the 2CI, 2CE and 2CE Signature II for the current version) has been made for decades, and the current version brand new costs about 8x what I paid for these, stands included. The stands just sort of fell into my lap, word of mouth--he'd purchased these to try on the older/shorter 2CI model (which normally uses a taller stand) and ended up selling the speakers, so I was the beneficiary of these stands.

My Dahlquist DQM9s were freebies. All it "cost" me was a ride out to Ann Arbor to pick them up, and a donation to a favorite charity (at the previous owner's request), plus the new surround foam. New, they were around $1,200/pair, so at today's prices, they would have been about $3,000/pair. Those, I may refinish and resell.
 
Did anybody ever get a set of "Speakerlab" kit speakers? They were a company out of Seattle that sold just the drivers, and they came with the plans for the boxes (or you could buy the pre-cut box panels -- you just had to paint or finish the exterior). The company was run by a bunch of long-haired rock fans who had a passion for good sound - their ads and catalogs were both fun and educational to read. I had two sets of the model "7" that we used for our DJ service. They were a good speaker. I still have all four of them today but they're in pretty rough shape. They sure sounded good back in the day.

Edit: After I wrote this post, I got to wondering if any of the Speakerlab catalogs are archived online anywhere. Sadly, I couldn't find anything -- too bad, they were a fun read and would be educational even today. The kidz don't know what they're missing, not having "big" speakers in their lives.
 
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I kind of remember the Speakerlab name! Haven't heard that in ages.

Having a "killer stereo" in the 70s and earlier 80s was like a rite of passage--whoever had the stereo and a good record collection would find themselves hosting friends all the time to hang out.

Some of us still do that, although where I'm at, we call it an "audio club" and we get together once a month at someone's house. (Including this coming Saturday.) For a lot of these guys now, it's more a chance to get together, eat munchies, drink beer and oh yes, maybe listen to the host's system(s) while we're there. :D
 
Having a "killer stereo" in the 70s and earlier 80s was like a rite of passage--whoever had the stereo and a good record collection would find themselves hosting friends all the time to hang out.
Yep, been there done that...in fact we used to have "TV parties" in our store on Friday nights when the "Midnight Special" would be on. We'd turn on all the TVs, crank up the best couple of stereos in the store and rock out. (Luckily the store owner, AKA my dad, never found out about these events!)

The gal who cleans our theater has a young daughter about 11 who likes to listen to music while her mom is cleaning...she'll sit there with the latest tunes blasting out of the tinny crap speaker on an iPhone and be completely happy. Funny, you'd think sound would be getting better and better as time goes on, but the trend seems to be the opposite.
 
Ear buds, Bluetooth speakers, headphones (including those awful Beats headphones) and phone speakers are popular with many these days. Beyond that, the "home" speakers that operate via Bluetooth or WiFi (such as anything powered by Chromecast) are popular as well. Sonos is a big name in that type of speaker, and even Google now has a speaker that has gotten decent reviews. Thing is, they're basically just appliances that are plugged in and connected/controlled by a smartphone. It's sad how few of the younger types today even know what good sound is.

Headphone listening (beyond the smartphone set) has actually grown quite a bit--the HeadFi site is all about headphones at all price levels, and there are even headphone industry shows around the world (like CanJam).

Seems that listening has become more of a personal experience for many.

It's not like you can go into a store these days and get the HiFi equipment like the old days. Chains like Tech HiFi no longer exist. Best Buy just sells crappy home theater systems. There is still good equipment out there at a cost that is comparable to what we paid in the 70s and 80s, but it is so much harder to find, and impossible to audition short of ordering it and listening to it once it arrives.
 
We used to have those Midnight Special watching parties at my house. My dad was deaf as a post and mom tolerated us. As long as we kept the lights down we were ok. :laugh:
 
My buddy and I used to spin records in the basement at my house a couple of days a week, and hit some record stores on the weekends. He had a system at his house, but his dad worked at TACOM and worked early so there wasn't much chance in listening over there. When his parents were out of town, we'd hang at his house and spin records until 2-3am.
 
We were better off at my house since my best friend’s mom would break our records if she got upset at us for some reason. We lost more George Carlin and Cheech and Chong records that way.(Hey! That cost me $4.95!) :agree:
My parents might tell me to get out of the living room, but they never broke my stuff.
 
When I first started collecting comedy albums I had to really make sure my mom didn't hear any of the profanity - she didn't want that language in the house (and still won't allow it).
 
I never got into the comedy albums much. The only one I had was the Robin Williams Reality, What A Concept that I taped from my buddy, and I made sure I didn't play it while anyone else was in the house. :D He also had the Steve Martin album from the same era but I never found it all that funny to want a copy of it. At that age, and based on the crowd I ran with, we listened more to R&B/funk/soul than the rock that our classmates were into. Although my one pal nearby was big on Styx and REO, which is how I got into them.
 
I got Polk Audio speakers from March 31, 1986 & they are small & sounds great!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI
 
I have one of those situations now where I don't need any more speakers, but one of my buddies in our audio club is selling his pair of ELAC UniFi UB5s, and I can't tell you how tempting it is. He bought them last December from Music Direct (they had a rare walnut-grained option not available elsewhere) and likes them, but not enough to keep them.
 
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At one office I worked at, we were within sight of the WJR AM 760 broadcast tower. Literally. We could see it from our office windows. Our warehouse had a long stretch of wire from the control box in the office to the telephone unit in the back of the warehouse, and we would pick up several radio stations jumbled together over every phone in the building. We had to put filters on all of the handsets in order to keep the RFI out of the calls. It was loud enough (especially WJR's broadcast) that you could sometimes barely hear the caller.

Beats the old days of CB radios, when someone with an illegal linear amplifier attached between the CB radio unit and the antenna would drive down the street and their voice would loudly break through whatever you were listening to in the house...

Been there, suffered that. Dealt with a CCM station in Athens which used to overdeviate (the equivalent of AM over modulation) and splattered. And it's a 100 KW flamethrower. Leased site, absentee owner, I could get them on 4-6 different dial positions. When the lease was lost, and they moved the site to the next town north, all well (now clean, legal, and sound way better). And when that old Gates at the leased site, died (and wasn't repairable), the newer SS replacement has been way better.
 
I've been trying out a new wireless speaker on my road trip--the RIVA Arena. The Arena and the Festival are the two current speakers in RIVA's line-up. They are powered and they accept many wireless connection methods including the better-sounding Bluetooth aptX (backward compatible with standard Bluetooth), Chromecast-compatible audio casting, AirPlay, and DLNA (as a renderer), and can also play music from a USB memory stick plugged into the rear. It has built-in class D amplifiers driving three speakers with 50 watts. It has a stereo effect given its shape (it looks like a single speaker from a pair), but it also has a mode where you can use a second Arena and designate each speaker as left or right. It has three small passive radiators as well, and it has deep bass for such a small cabinet size (down to 55Hz). It came with the optional battery (got this used).

The larger Festival is a wide unit, so it has true left and right speakers inside, and also has deeper bass.

I've also realized that having a streaming subscription comes in handy while traveling--I don't have to shuffle SD cards or USB sticks if I don't want to. The streaming services have a lot of what I listen to, good enough for a few hours in a hotel room.

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Ha, funny...I'm looking at that RIVA speaker just above, and it has the battery. I bought a second identical speaker and they can be used as a left/right pair. I just ordered a battery for the second speaker (both battery and speaker are refurbished), but dang it, I lost the original battery for the other speaker! It is so much easier when hauling them outdoors.

Incidentally, if anyone wants a really good sounding speaker, but perhaps a larger version of this in a single cabinet, the RIVA Festival is available on eBay at half price, refurbished, for only $199. It would be great for a porch, kitchen, den, etc.. The bass is incredible for its size.

But on the note of speakers...I'm in New Jersey this evening just having picked up a load...


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Only in this hobby would you drive nine hours and 616 miles to pick up a pair of speakers. 🤣 (Because we're insane!)
 
My beloved Vandy's were sold a few years ago and replaced with these

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Bryston Mini-T

Not really "mini" as they are 3 ways, 8" woofer and weigh in about 45lbs each without stands.
Versatile speaker that is not very large.
 
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