What are these??

rromeo923

Bought at Goodwill today $15 for the pair. The badge says Stereo Flex. Nothing else anywhere. Fairly heavy old speaker. Hooked them up and they dont sound bad. Grills dont seem to come off. First pic is next to my Monitor 5's to give idea of size.


Ok Here are some pics.

gdb

Won't have to worry about the classic wandering Polk speaker magnet syndrome with those.

mhardy6647

Could be a house brand; not DIY per se, that's fo' sho'.
The drivers are both sourced from CTS (Chicago Telephone Supply, EIA code "137"); those are surprisingly capable drivers. One could expect performance roughly similar to the HH Scott S-11 speaker of the late 1960s/early 1970s (which used similar if not identical drivers) - although the Scott speakers may well have more carefully designed crossovers.

For a list of EIA speaker codes, see http://www.webervst.com/codes.html

rromeo923

Cool! They do sound pretty good. Tomorrow i will hook them up to my tube amp and spin some vinyl w/ these. Old School!

Is there some trick to get the grills off? At this point I think they dont come off but that doesnt make sense to me.

Thanks MHardy for the info!

cnh

I've not seen my HH Scott S-11s from the backside like that but here is a front pic of them. The pic is from the guy's office where I picked them up!

A three way 10" acoustic suspension design. They are pretty 'clean' sounding as suggested by mhardy above!

cnh

rromeo923

Found this. Looks like these are Stereoflex III's as they are the exact same cabinet dimensions etc.
stereoflex (1).pdf

gdb

I think those were built before the obsession for grille removal/driver gawking came into vogue. All fastening seems to be from inside the cabinet.

cnh

Interesting. I think I've actually heard of stereoflex? No doubt mhardy has.

I'm assuming you have the Series II?

I just measured my cabinets and looked up the drivers in the S-11s (maybe they are 12" 3 ways but they don't look it to me?).

24" x 14.5" x 11" roughly so a little shorter than the IIs but probably almost as heavy?

Give us a "review" when you get them up and running?

cnh

mhardy6647

Nope, it's not a name I remember - altlhough the thread at AK identifies them.
I thought that the S-11 was the Scott 2-way using that woofer (or a very close relative); maybe it was the S-14? I know that the S-15 was a three-way; I had a pair. Astonishingly good sound from three rather generic cone drivers.

From the 1968 Scott full line brochure :-)





The somewhat later Scott S-15 in all its CTS cone driver glory :-)



Did I mention earlier to the OP that it is well worth investing in a decent quality pair of replacement capacitors for the crossovers? PartsExpress's house "Dayton" brand (made, by all accounts, by Bennic) are very good values (although shipping and/or minimum order detract somewhat from that).

steveinaz

Paper cone delight, I think I have a woodie. Gotta love that function before form look. I love vintage speakers.

rromeo923

Came home hooked the speakers up to my tube amp, put on Steely Dan AJA vinyl and started to listen. Holy Bass! Turned up the volume and sat back and started to enjoy. I noticed that the left speaker seemed to have more info coming from it. Might just be the stereo mix. Anyway these speakers are nice. I like the sound better than my 5's and 7's. Not as good as my modded SDA 1C's ( thank god!). All of this came to a crashing end as my 17 yr old son came downstairs and asked me to turn them down because he was taking a nap. I remember not being able to wait till i was grown up so my parents would stop telling me to turn the music down. Now it is my wife and kids!!! Geez!
Anyway I will report back more when I get some alone time with these speakers. Initial impression- $15 Well Spent!!! Hell Yeah!

rromeo923

Did some more listening. I wish I could have you guys here listening also. Not sure how to describe these speakers. There is a certain Rawness to the sound. They cant handle too much volume, distortion occurs. However there is something addictive to the sound. Vintage?? I was listening to John Denver Rocky Mountain High LP and I was taken back to when I was a kid. My dad was a big John Denver fan and we listened to that a lot. I closed my eyes and I was back in the 70's.

What a great thing this music stuff is!

gdb

Get you some Advents for another wave of nostalgia !

cnh

rromeo923 wrote: »

Did some more listening. I wish I could have you guys here listening also. Not sure how to describe these speakers. There is a certain Rawness to the sound. They cant handle too much volume, distortion occurs. However there is something addictive to the sound. Vintage?? I was listening to John Denver Rocky Mountain High LP and I was taken back to when I was a kid. My dad was a big John Denver fan and we listened to that a lot. I closed my eyes and I was back in the 70's.

What a great thing this music stuff is!

gdb wrote: »

Get you some Advents for another wave of nostalgia !

I agree, the S-11s above get a little congested if you try to drive them "too hard". But they can still play quite loud.

I have Large Advents in the basement (also some B.A. A-100s down there)--a very different sound from the S-11s, a fuller, deeper bass but not as clean in the mids and a bit edgier on the highs compared to the Scotts. But, remember, Advents are two ways. The Scotts and Stereoflex are 3 ways.

Yeah, it's Vintage, whatever that means.

Enjoy!

cnh

gdb

Two ways are all the ways I've ever needed.:cheesygrin:

mhardy6647

gdb wrote: »

Get you some Advents for another wave of nostalgia !

Naaah, don't do that - get a pair of Polk Audio Monitor Series Model 7A! :-)
Much more refined sounding and articulate loudspeaker than the Original Large Advent (IMO,YMMV, yadda yadda)...

gdb

The "Vents" waayyy predate the Polks.

gdb

Mettra fect, I do have a pair of 7As w/Peerless!

mhardy6647

gdb wrote: »

The "Vents" waayyy predate the Polks.

Not "way" - coupla years (ca. 1974 vs. 1976).
EDIT: OK - based on info at www.classicspeakerpages.net looks like the OLA (Original Large Advent) dates to 1970-71. Borderline "way", I'd opine.

rromeo923

I also have 7A's w/Peerless. Gonna have to bring them upstairs for a comparison. I also have 5's w/ Peerless and some 10's w/2500's .
Whose up for a speaker shoot out? !
I would love to hear some other speakers. Before I started this Polk thing I never had any good speakers. This is certainly addictive.

gdb

"Not "way" - coupla years (ca. 1974 vs. 1976)."

An eternity in the technology race......

gdb

I've never heard of 10s with 2500 tweets, you might have a rare model .

rromeo923

I think 10C's

cnh

I'll be picking up some 7Bs soon, have the 5As and 10As, and Original Advents, Scotts above, etc. So I might be interested in this shoot out as well.

I've never heard 7s. I have compared the 5As to my ADS L520s. The 5As are softer up high, with the ADS coming in with more resolution--nonetheless you can listen to the 5s forever. The same is fairly true of the ADS.

10As are pretty awesome sounding on my Marantz 2265 (just about enough vintage power for them!).

cnh

Joe08867

Stereo Flex was built by University. They should be pretty nice speakers. University was owned by altec at this point who was owned by i think LTV. The round indent on the back of the cab would be where it would say University and have a Brilliance know. Somebody probably did some work on them and never put it back on.

The early ones had a very large circle the later ones were much smaller like yours.



I am guessing they are Stereo Flex 3's by the look of them.

rromeo923

Joe08867 wrote: »

Stereo Flex was built by University. They should be pretty nice speakers. University was owned by altec at this point who was owned by i think LTV. The round indent on the back of the cab would be where it would say University and have a Brilliance know. Somebody probably did some work on them and never put it back on.

The early ones had a very large circle the later ones were much smaller like yours.



I am guessing they are Stereo Flex 3's by the look of them.

Aha! Very cool. My searches said something about University but I couldnt find anywhere that showed this speaker as a University Speaker. They do sound nice in a cool way. I am gonna pull the crossovers and see whats up w/ that. Initially looks like just one capacitor. Need to look closer.

Thanks everyone for all the info and seemingly solving the puzzle. How fun!