PART TWO: Forty Plus Years Buying and Trying Home Stereo Speakers. Dynaco Spendor B&W

November 2, 2018

#284

Gentle reader,

Are you ready for more speakers? I count almost 100 different pairs of speakers that I took photos of. I didn't really buy any others until the Dynaco A25 with the cheap replacement drivers died. See:PART ONE: Forty Plus Years Buying and Trying Home Stereo Speakers. Dynaco Spendor B&W  In case you missed the first chapter. It covered speakers A through D.

Another group pose. I never play music with a setup like this. You will learn about all of the speakers. 

Electro-Voice and others have some unique names for their speakers. These are: Interface: 1 Series II models.

Note the foam around the dome tweeter? I've seen others do that. Spendor's LS3/5A have all kinds of treatments on their baffle. BTW, Baffle is the name of the panel the speaker drivers are mounted to. The business end of the speakers, so to speak.

Once again, I replaced the original terminals with inexpensive three-way binding/banana terminals.

I was looking through pictures with my grandson and came across this photo from the 1990's. I am told that they are EPI 120s. 

We once stopped at a small thrift store and laying on their backs on a bottom shelf were these GENESIS I speakers.

Unfortunately, someone replaced the woofers with Radio Shack units. Still, most interesting tweeter construction.

This is another type of inexpensive dual-banana/binding speaker terminals. They are the standard 3/4" spacing. Often seen on test equipment for test leads, but they make dandy speaker terminals as well.

Now these were a most unusual find. You can read who made them and where below.

The emblems on the front, appear to read: CE PROFESSIONAL SERIES 8. 

The company was apparently long out of business. I could find nothing on these. The grilles were glued on, so I never saw what they had. Someone bought them from me. Ever heard of them?

Next is a pair of JBL speakers. A famous name, for sure.

These are P30 models. Modest three-ways with 8" woofers.

Simple spring terminals as is so often the case. Bass reflex port on the back.

Part of the fun of doing something like this is seeing things that have been gone for years. I completely forgot I had some KEF speakers! The right woofer had been creased. I was able to smooth it out some from the back. 

They are C25 models and seemed to be well made. 3/4" MDF on all sides and proper terminals.

My dad had KLH 17s when we were growing up. So, I was familiar with the name and look of them.

For a while, I played with a Mitsubishi Midi system. A cassette deck was part of it, not shown. Wharfedales, KLHs and the Electro-Voice units all stacked. See the tiny power amp clinging to the bottom of that metal rack? Sherbourn was the maker. It was for whole house systems. 12 volt trigger to turn in on remotely.

KLH TWENTY models. I don't know if any KLH models from back then had dome tweeters. These and the ones further down did not.

These have molding of solid walnut around the baffle boards.

If memory serves, there were four of these, and they had a single RCA terminal on the back. Part of a system. They were four Ohms as well. Again, I put in binding/banana terminals.

These are model TWENTY FOUR and the cone tweeters are not imprisoned like the ones above. I always found the concave woofer surrounds a bit odd back then.

These have simple flat fronts with walnut veneer on them.

It was easier to replace the screw terminals with these properly spaced gray binding/banana terminals. A much neater job.

This photo is a few days after I found the Klipsch KG4 speakers for $9.99 at a thrift store. Of the bases they came with, the glue had failed on one. So, to improve the sound, I took the plastic corner brackets and used them to tilt them a bit to improve the sound.

Sans base, in front of my Cerwin-Vega speakers. Two 8 inch woofers and their famous horn tweeters.

12 inch passive radiators on the back. There were some fine cracks in the surrounds. Not all the way through. So I coated them with RTV silicone glue on both sides. To prevent further degrading.

That glue that had ONE job to do!

Hard to see, but the manufacture date is on there as well as the serial numbers and the names of the QA people.

I suck at math, but I seem to recall that a 3, where the 4 is means cubed. So, these are four dimensional? 

The other base that to this day still has the brackets stuck to it.

When I looked at these pictures, I could not recall having them. That is because they only had the one. But check out the terminals on the back!

Capable of tri-amplification? I believe so. But shouldn't there be jumpers installed? Are you familiar with these?

Ah, yes. The Lyric speakers. I found these at my old Salvation Army. I was not familiar with the brand. The foam was shot and at the time I'd never messed with refoaming. So, I had already replaced the cheap woofers with ones made by POLK called Eosone. I managed to let the screwdriver slip TWICE and poked holes in the new woofer's foam! Black RTV fixed them. Grrr.

They had silver colored plastic square frames around the drivers and one with mesh over the port at the upper right. This photo (above) shows the left with all new Eosone drivers, the right stock, minus the frames.

Original midrange verses Eosone replacement. Some difference! Note: "SQUAWKER", below.

Original tweeter verses Eosone replacement.

Excuse for a crossover verses the ones I chose to do the job.

Below is probably the only photo of the Lyric/Eosone speakers in place. This was when the stereo was still in the living room.

Next, are the pieces of a Radio Shack Mach Two speaker. My memory is kind of fuzzy on this one. I remember a previous owner had butchered the cabinets to make generic 15" woofers fit. Yet, as you can see there are some genuine woofers. And they were refoamed, with apparently the wrong size foam. Well, age does have it's benefits. Can't remember everything.

Midrange speakers that are not sealed back because there were cups to seal them. To be seen below.

Tubes? What tubes? You had to be there. Fairly long tubes, too.

The tweeters that seemed to me that they were off by 90 degrees. I have been told that I am incorrect.

Said woofers. I must have found some, somewhere. But since all the pieces are here, maybe the cabinets were too far gone?

Aforementioned cups along with all the crossover parts and terminal cups. And it looks like I added binding/banana terminals to them.

A crossover with light bulbs on them. I just learned what they are for: They absorb the excess energy and glow to save the smaller drivers from overloading. Very clever!

OK, that takes us from E to the beginning of M. That's enough for today. Class is dismissed.

I really enjoy creating these articles and sharing our adventures and quirks with you. You comments are welcome here or on FaceBook. I only check once in a while for comments left here. But once I see them, I respond.

Thanks,

Scott
November 2, 2018