Stereo Speakers I have known. Part Two

Gentle reader,

Since I am so in to these speakers, I am spending way more time than usual listening to them. Picking out more and more favorites to see what new sounds I may here. 

This, is the second chapter in my known speakers essay. The first chapter can be found here:

The Robb Collections: Stereo Speakers I have known. Part One  

We left off with the SEAS component drivers from the one true Dynaco A-25 speaker as seen in the photos for the ebay acution.

Why is it we crave what we once knew in our youth? If I were to drive the 1960's and '70's cars I once owned, I would no doubt think, "What crap these cars were." With the popularity of digital TV side channels, such as ME TV and others that feature shows from that era or movies, actually viewing them reveals how truly lame and unrealistic they usually were. The nearly empty streets and highways of Los Angeles as featured in EMERGENCY, DRAGNET or CHiPs surely must not have been so, even then. But I digress. I just recall that I want to own, today, a pair of classic Dynaco speakers to see if they really sound as good as they said then.

On that note, let us continue....

A pair of Electro Voice Interface speakers shown in the condition I found them and after restoring them.

Next, a pair of Genesis I speakers. Turns out, they had replacement woofers from Radio Shack in place of the original ones. The buyer wanted only the tweeters and crossovers. Someone else wanted the R/S woofers.

Note the concave dome tweeters. Definitely unusual.

And, here is an official photo from their makers. It seems to have a metal grille over the tweeter and light green foam surround on the woofer.

Here is a pair of JBL P30 speakers:

They appear to be sealed or what was once dubbed "Acoustic Suspension", but in fact have reflex ports in the back.

Interestingly, they were made in Denmark, like the Dynaco speakers. I won't bore you with all the subwoofers that I've had. The name is a misnomer. The prefix "sub" means below. So, a "subwoofer" should reach lower bass notes than the main speakers at the very least. Yet, there are many objects called subwoofers, yet have a tiny woofer in them!

A group shot of what I had in June, 2012. Quite a variety, yes?

As noted in the post about Radio Shack diecast speakers, above you see one labeled as RCA. Next to it is the oldest Wharfedale speakers I've had. Classic 1960's grille cloth. Wharfedale is an old British speaker firm. 

 Above a pair of 1970's SONY units.

Above is a 1950's (?) Realistic electrostatic speakers. Had a power cord on the back and all kinds of electronics inside. I handed it off to someone that knew what to do to get it working. I think I have more pictures of it.

Above, is the Wharfedales, sitting with a pair of KLHs upon the Electro Voice units. In the middle is a classic Garrard turntable I put a new 78 RPM cartridge on and played the 78 RPM  records seen with it. Those small components are what were dubbed "Midi" verses "Mini".

Next up, a pair of KEF C25 speakers. KEF is one of the higher end speaker makers.

Back to the group shot above, are the KLH 24s shown below.

Next, taller and related to the popular KLH 17s are four KLH 20s. They came with a single "RCA" plug on the back and were part of a quadrophonic kit KLH made. They were four Ohms verses the normal eight Ohms.

 As you can see, I converted them to three-way binding/banana posts.

Now, back in the days of my youth, and later, it was fun to get a copy of the latest Radio Shack catalog. They can ALL bee seen here in an awesome web site devoted to the company:
Radio Shack Catalogs   So, back then, their top speakers were called MACH ONE and they had huge horn midrange units at the top, a smaller horn tweeter and huge fifteen inch woofers. I never did own any, but I did find:

Optimus PRO 4000 speakers. Gorgeous black walnut veneers and 15" woofers. Later, I did find some MACH TWO units, but turns out they had cheap generic replacement 15" woofers. The above had brown fabric grilles, but I like to listen to naked speakers.

Sometime later, one channel of my 250 watts-per-channel Adcom amplifier fried one of these woofers. So, I got creative and transplanted the upgraded Lyric speakers below:

New POLK Eosone drivers and a nice crossover replaced the cheap original parts.Both speakers above already have the new woofers. Yes, I twice, let the screwdriver slip and poke a hole in the surround!

Above, they have the fake metal frames around the drivers. The tweeters did too, but they were too small to place around the newer tweeter. The POINT about the above is that I slid the entire speaker into the larger cabinets! 

Here are some Paradigm speakers that I replaced their bad tweeters with new ones.

 Now, I'm not sure why I did that, as I later sold the remnants, seen atop the now covered speakers, below.

Well, that seems enough for chapter two. Are you getting the idea that I've owned a number of speakers in this hobby?

Thanks for looking,

Scott