White Van Speakers. Who Fell Victim to those Sneaky "Salesmen" Back in The Day?

 July 10, 2026

#459

Gentle reader,

There is an interesting Audio-Equipment-History YouTube channel called "Multimedium". They make many videos about the historic brands around the world, always very informative. They received requests to do a video about the darker side of the hobby, the infamous White Van Speakers. youtube.com/watch?v=WOAQG_4iou8

I found those two black speakers many years ago at an antique store. I'd never heard of the brand, but, the price was good so I bought them. They actually didn't sound to bad... These are the only photos of them. [My very first real speakers, 1970's Dynaco A25s, sat atop them.] I ended up giving the black ones to my eldest son, Paul, as memory serves. On their backs were all kinds of technical specifications on stickers. At the time I had never heard of the infamous White Van speakers...

My skinny self, 6'3" tall and only 155 pounds at my first job, a Mobil gas station in Denver, Colorado, located on Colorado Boulevard.

However, at my first job, back in 1973 or so, something happened which was eerily similar to a man named Pat I worked with, who always seemed to be up to something. One day, an old fellow drives in, opens his trunk which has a large cardboard box inside it containing a large television. The front of the box had been cut away to show the front of the TV set. The old man said that his wife had passed and he couldn't afford to make the payments on the TV. "I kept the box for some reason. So, I put the set back in it. I had to get my neighbor to help me, it's so heavy, you see. I was hoping to sell it for enough to pay off the loan." Or a story similar to that. Pat bought his story, "Hook, line and sinker". He told the old guy to wait right there while he ran to the nearby bank to get the $200 the man said he needed and bought it the second he got back. It was a struggle for the two of us to get it from the old man's car trunk and into the shop. Well, he cuts the tape from the top of the box, ready to begin to enjoy his bargain new TV. Much to his horror, the only thing in the box was the front of the television with it's huge tube and several cinder blocks! 

For once, Pat had met his match. He did not work there for very long after that.

Those sleazy purveyors of White Van Speakers and the underground "factories" and those who worked there were experts at creating what looked like good speakers, which had name brands that sounded like legitimate companies and later on into the age of the Internet, they even created fake web sites for those "brands" which backed up their claims that they truly were good speakers! Those men, and there were always two of them according to the video, they were selling those speakers at drastic price reductions because of "A screw up at the factory" or other such line said to lure the innocent into their slimy clutches. 

My next and so far last, encounter with some White Van Speakers was at the local Salvation Army one lucky Wednesday in 2014. That was the same day and same place where I also found my beloved Cerwin-Vega! LS12 speakers. The only CVs I've ever seen in the wild. One of which is on the left. They are my main speakers to this day and sound fantastic! Both pairs were marked $99. so I bought them immediately.

I was suspicious of these "DIGITAL AUDIO" speakers. Curiosity took over and I decided it was worth it to buy them too and try and figure out what they were. Those two shallow "ports" made me suspicious at the time.

This sticker is similar to the type of information which was on the back of the other black speakers I found years earlier. 

I decided to take them apart and see what the drivers and crossovers looked like. 

The drivers and the crossovers seemed to be legitimate. The woofer and midrange cones were metallic, beefy and quite heavy. Note the lack of any kind of gaskets on the drivers. As you can see, they have labels on their magnets which back up the "brand name" claims on the back of their cabinets.

Look at the banana plug terminals above, they are thick and solid metal. 

The crossovers, I wish I'd taken pictures of the bottom of them, have capacitors and choke coils on them. The large horn tweeters seemed robust and well made too.

Anyway, I posted the entire drivers, crossovers and wiring for sale via eBay. I never heard back from the buyer as to what they did with them. Nor do I recall what they sold for.

So, now that I've told you my White Van Speakers story, please comment below or on Facebook and tell me if you ever encountered those infamous white vans and their occupants in your lifetime or if you ever bought some you encountered in thrift stores or anywhere else such as I did. And thanks for reading this article.

Scott Robb

July 10, 2026

#459