Found Some Vintage Speakers. I Have Questions.

Arkagone

I found some Harvard Electronics speakers. I can't find anything about them on the web. But my friend has them, and he's literally going to throw them out. So I need to know if I should buy them. All i've found on Harvard Electronics was this: "I am brand new to this forum, and I know this reply is years late, but I hope this info will help in the future. Harvard speakers were NOT a Silo in house brand. Yes, they were sold there, but the pair I have to this day were purchased through Wall to Wall Sound. These were top of the line speakers in their day, and quite expensive with (at least my pair) having a 20-20,000 frequency response and some very heavy magnets to handle the power of the receivers at the time. My late brother actually cracked the plaster downstairs from the bass. My brother was a major audiophile, and researched every component carefully. He decided on the Harvard speakers, and they are still the best sounding speakers in terms of reproduction quality to this day. If anyone ever finds these for sale at a resonable price, grab them. The only drawback is the same for all old speakers: the foam surrounds for the woofer dry out and need to be replaced. But this is a simple fix by ordering new foam from any number of sources on the web and doing the repair yourself. It's very easy. Hope this helps." "Julius Futterman was associated with a company called Harvard Electronics, where he built some very high-end OTL tube amps. "

Okay so, coincidently, that is exactly what's wrong with them. Just the foam round the woofer. I'm not educated on the foam fixing whatsoever. I consider myself an audiophile, but what would something like that cost?

George Grand

Paying someone to re-foam woofers is going to depend on the size of the woofers. A couple 12" should not cost more than $70 or $75 to do (for the pair).

I wouldn't be in a big hurry to restore those Harvard loudspeakers. Despite the sparkling comments.

msg

Interesting. post up some pics if you can.

how much would they cost you if you were to buy them? if not much, and you're somewhat handy, I'd take the opportunity to experiment with re-foaming and see how you like them.

I regret letting go of an old pair of Pioneer CS-E9900 speakers that had disintegrated surrounds. They were probably nothing to write home about, but I liked them when I used to use them, until the surrounds began to deteriorate. I had them sitting around for a few years thinking I'd get around to repairing them, but ended up chucking them during a Fall purge, thinking I wanted something newer anyway. Three years later and building out my first relatively "real deal" system, I find myself wondering now whether I could have repaired them myself and how they would have sounded in a more robust system than I ever had before.

If the speakers can be had cheap enough, I think you can get surround kits for $30, and like GG said, maybe even get someone to repair them for you, though personally, the attraction here to me would be doing it myself.

pitdogg2

well here's your chance to get some practice on refoaming woofers. It is really not hard to do but does take some time. If you'd like to try shoot me a PM I'll try to explain as well as I can over the net.

cnh

George is right. Harvard speakers are nothing special, and if not the Silo house brand, then certainly a house brand for someone else. If you want some classics from that period look to AR, KLH, Advent, Allison, EPI, ADS, etc.

But if you like a project. Certainly go ahead and refoam them.

cnh

cnh

Site is acting up again. Double post!

cnh