Why Vintage Speakers?

villian

Just wanted to know the reasoning behind everyone here having or holding on to their vintage speakers vs trading them in for some newer ones? I have my reasons, but I'd like to know yours!

nooshinjohn

Why not start another poll?

villian

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Why not start another poll?

I'm not sure what options to put for this one LOL.

Any suggestions?

Better build quality?
Harsh Tri-laminates

Timothy Smith

In my case it is mostly because of "Bang for the Buck".

Used vintage speakers can typically be had for 10% to 50% of their original prices. And that is off the low $ prices in the 60's' and 70's, and 80's prior to major inflation of the dollar.

I think that vintage speakers (the good ones) usually sound better than new speakers too. To my ears, most newer speakers sound harsh. Of course there are a lot of junk vintage speakers out there too. Ones that never sounded very good when new, or have been trashed or abused, or modified since.

I have yet to find new speakers, dollar for dollar, that I prefer over vintage Dahlquists, Meadowlarks, Vandersteens, Quads, Polks, Epicures, A/D/s etc.

In my case, the exception is Maggie MMG's, which are probably considered vintage too, although the new versions are updates of older Maggie designs.

I also have to admit that sometimes there is also a nostalgic factor working, it is a pleasure to find and buy speakers that I lusted for when younger but could not afford.

steveinaz

I think alot of recent speakers are viewed as "cookie cutter" where it seems older models were more unique. Especially this trend in "Home Theater" speakers where everything looks the same, IOW, no character.

soundfreak1

I find it bery simple, to buy the quility of sound I get in my vintage polks it would cost 4 to 5 times the price and still not be "better" . Just that simple!

zane77

There is a sense of satisfaction in taking a pair of vintage SDA's that already sound great and doing the mods to them and making them sound fantastic.

Timothy Smith

It's the equivalent of picking up perfectly good, stock, running condition, Hemi Daytonas, 396 Nova SS's, and BOSS 302 Mustangs on CL for only a few $1000's.

Maybe new Fusions, Camrys, and Altimas are more practical, get better mileage, pollute less, and come with a warranty....but where is the thrill?

nooshinjohn

Timothy Smith wrote: »

It's the equivalent of picking up perfectly good, stock, running condition, Hemi Daytonas, 396 Nova SS's, and BOSS 302 Mustangs on CL for only a few $1000's.

Maybe new Fusions, Camrys, and Altimas are more practical, get better mileage, pollute less, and come with a warranty....but where is the thrill?

The only trouble with your analogy is that all of the classics you mention sell for high 5 and 6 figures these days.

Timothy Smith

nooshinjohn wrote: »

The only trouble with your analogy is that all of the classics you mention sell for high 5 and 6 figures these days.

That's exactly what I mean, the automotive equivalent is AS IF you could pick up those crazy, cool, fun cars for only a few $1000's.

Then again, maybe I like vintage speaker because I am getting kind of "vintage" myself.

DollarDave

villian wrote: »

Just wanted to know the reasoning behind everyone here having or holding on to their vintage speakers vs trading them in for some newer ones? I have my reasons, but I'd like to know yours!

I've found that my vintage speakers hide the inherent errors found in digital copies because they were engineered prior to the digital age. My newer speakers reveal these annoying digital artifacts.

quicksilvergts

Quality over quantity. I feel there was more to lose when building audio equipment years ago.
No super mass production hence less quality control.
Don't get me wrong, now days there is excellent audio gear but when you hear older/vintage gear and it sounds better than your new gear well...
My RT16/cs350 sound better than my Monitor 70/cs2 series 2,, IMO.
And the rt is 20 yrs old lol. I agree with the cost as well, only if you get the older higher end models

Cheers s

Mr. Bubbles

I am a vintage BAMF'r why shouldn't my speakers be the same.

mhardy6647

Purely economic, in my case. Dollar for dollar, and to my taste, I simply couldn't do any better than these.

DSC_8060 by mhardy6647, on Flickr

disclosure: only the drivers and crossover networks are vintage, in this case. The cabinets are modern, based on "Billfort's" re-design of the classic ALtec 620A enclosure: http://www.wardsweb.org/Billfort/

Timothy Smith

Finding some really good vintage speakers will take more effort than buying new from a store or online, especially for the person that can't, or won't, throw cubic money at a problem.

There may be some disapointments, setbacks, ripoffs, etc. but the payoff is likely huge.

I recently borrowed some brand new $1500 highly regarded, high-tech, well reviewed bookshelf, "modern" speakers and sat down with an Adcom speaker switch and tested them against half a dozen pairs of vintage speakers I had at the time for hours and hours. Various types of music, sources, tubes, SS, CD's, vinyl etc. My thought was that maybe I would quit chasing and just buy something new and great, and sell the rest.

I can honestly say everything vintage that I had sounded better to my ear than the new ones. That included some speakers I had picked up from $500/pair down to as little as $50/pair.

I will still be open to the epiphany of finding something new and better within a budget, and I would welcome suggestions too.

halo71

For me it Bang For The Buck pure and simple! Also looks play into it....I'm not a fan 'usually' of tall narrow baffle speakers which seem to be the norm these days. And on the used market there are still deals to be had. Like Enders picking up a pair of Infinity RSII's for $200 recently. Cost of refoam and rebuilding the XO's (if needed) are far more economical than buying new...to me at least. And plus I would love to hear a modern equivalent to it, or my RSIIIa's, Monitor 10's etc. I do not have SDA's yet. But I would betcha you'd have to spend quite a bit today to buy something that would best any of the speakers I just mentioned.

drselect

Because they look cool, retro is the in thing, and the 1s and 0s sound nifty on them.

PolkieMan

I hang on to mine cause when I bought them they weren't vintage they were new.
I like the SDA looks and sound if they made newer better SDA speakers I would be
interested.
I am happy and very content with them.
On the Monitor 4 that I have, they are so good for what I paid for them, and easy to move around for different areas

Mikey081057

Back in the day, some of us older guys probably looked at some of this gear and said "I would like to be able to afford those someday" and now we can have them for a fraction of their original price in today's dollars vs yesterdays dollars. So if you put a grand into a pair of vintage sda's n 2014 dollars you have something that you might have paid upward of 2500-3000 back in the 80's. But is's all about what you enjoy... to some people a pair of .99 cent earbuds and an Iphone is audio nirvana...

Mystery

Few things:
1. A lot cheaper like most used things.
2. Easily renewable unlike most used things.
3. They've gone through decades of quality test. There are a lot of crappy vintage speakers as well.
4. Proven combination with vintage SS and tube receivers.
5. Older folks are passionate about them from their young days when they couldn't afford them.

mhardy6647

This isn't exactly on-topic vis-a-vis truly 'vintage' loudspeakers, but -- more, I think, than most other hifi components -- loudspeakers tend to be 'fashion' products and most (not all!!) don't hold their resale value very well at all. Consequently, it is easy to buy pretty high-end/expensive loudspeakers that are one or two or three years old for a fraction of their original cost on the used market. They're good as new, just way cheaper.

Of course, as Epimenides the Cretan might have put it: "All generalizations are false, including this one!" ;-) There are some loudspeakers that have held their value phenomenally for even many decades (we're not quite to the century mark for the electrodynamic or dynamic loudspeaker driver as we know them). I tend to favor those kinds :-)

Here's a nice 'bucket list' courtesy of good ol' Art Dudley of loudspeakers/drivers everyone should spend a little quality time with before deciding he or she is "a speaker expert" :-) I own a couple of those on the list, and have heard a few of the others; some nice stuff.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-116



EDIT: Heh, I just noticed that the 604B in Art's photo above has been reconed :-) That's a much later 604 woofer cone, with accordion surround. The original 604B had a simpler, uncoated paper surround. Doubtless the cone shown has a lower fs...but it ain't quite authentic :-)

PolkieMan

Another way of looking at it is yea I paid $2750 but I had them all these 24 years so only 114.58 a year for what I really really wanted.

Mikey081057 wrote: »

Back in the day, some of us older guys probably looked at some of this gear and said "I would like to be able to afford those someday" and now we can have them for a fraction of their original price in today's dollars vs yesterdays dollars. So if you put a grand into a pair of vintage sda's n 2014 dollars you have something that you might have paid upward of 2500-3000 back in the 80's. But is's all about what you enjoy... to some people a pair of .99 cent earbuds and an Iphone is audio nirvana...

Mikey081057

PolkieMan wrote: »

Another way of looking at it is yea I paid $2750 but I had them all these 24 years so only 114.58 a year for what I really really wanted.

Where else can you get so much happiness for less than $115 bucks a year?

mhardy6647

DSkip wrote: »

Vintage gear is only fun for two reasons: economics and nostalgia.

Any of this 'vintage speakers are better than modern speakers' BS is just that. Not trying to start a flame war here, but it irks me when people say that, in general, a vintage speaker is better than modern speakers. So much progress has been made in speaker design that its simply not true. The truth of the matter is most vintage speakers tend to roll of the top end and accentuate the lower end, giving a fuller sound with often times little power behind them. Most are very syrupy, lack detail, and make me feel like I'm swimming through mud. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but this holds true. Most of the good ones retailed for thousands of dollars, such as the TOTL SDA's at $3k. Even in 1990, that's $5500 in today's money. That can buy you one hell of a speaker at MSRP and STILL leave money left over for some nice electronics behind it.

Preferring vintage speakers because they 'hide digital glare' I can understand, but I'd suggest that you don't have good synergy in your system if you're getting annoying digital glare. Even on poorly recorded music, I can sit in my room for hours and not get fatigued. Synergy with vintage speakers is much easier because they simply don't perform as well as modern designs...

Many believe this; some don't -- the truth is probably 'both/and" -- out of curiosity: how many of the speakers on Dudley's little laundry list have you listened to? Not just heard for 5 minutes, but spent some time with? (Not that the answer has any bearing on the legitimacy of your post; I really am curious, though!)

That said -- de gustibus non est disputandum; there's no accounting for taste; and the best thing for anybody interested in this stuff to do is to, I'd opine, listen, listen, listen -- and to trust one's ears and one's gut. The more listening one does before plunking down cash, the better an investment one will likely make... but "better" really is in the eyes (ears!) of the beholder.

Just my opinions, of course.

(No comment about the SDAs; just not a big fan and I really don't have anything intelligent to say about them except that they're well worth a serious listening session when the opportunity presents itself)

audiocr381ve

DSkip wrote: »

Vintage gear is only fun for two reasons: economics and nostalgia.

I put several friends in front of my modded CRS+ and my modern Totem Hawks and every single one of them preferred the CRS+ including myself. They don't know **** about speakers either.

So you're wrong on both the economics and nostalgia points.

cfrizz

For me it is very simple, my RTA-8Ts are 24 years old and still working (with the original tweeters) and sound great now that they are properly powered. I like the sound, I am used to the sound, and while none of my speakers match it all sounds good.

If it's not broke there is no need to waste money trying to fix what isn't broken!

If the sound of your speakers agree with your ears (which are the only ears that matters) but you feel something might be missing, the first step is to add a powerful amp rather than new speakers. The amp will let you hear what your speakers are truly capable of. If after that you still feel something is missing, than by all means try another pair of speakers, and you will already have the amp in place to get the best out of them.

If someday my beloved RTAs pass on to speaker heaven, then I will get myself a new pair of speakers. Until then, I'm sitting back and enjoying what I have now.

ALSATIAN in USA

Me, I chose POLK for the uniformity of the look (same driver, not anarchy like JBL) and because polk drivers have rubber surround and stand a 1000years!.. for $ also!..The SDA effect unique in the world and the sound!

mhardy6647

DSkip wrote: »

Am I? I liked the Totem Forest I had. I really did. In the end, they moved out because they were just too bright and I couldn't tame them...

Now... not to be a jerk, but... reading the last sentence suggests to me that you really didn't like them, when it was all said and done.

"Just too bright" wouldcertainly be a deal-killer for me (which is why there are only a pair of JBL "Metregon" horns & 275 compression drivers and a pair of LE-8Ts here, all dump finds... most JBL hardware is just too ear-gouging for me).

As a not entirely unrelated aside: I bought a pair of Polk Audio Monitor Series Model 7A in 1978. I liked their overall sound, balance, and presentation then... and I still do.

EDIT: Oh, and I do agree that there are some fine modern horns -- but there are some fine vintage ones, too (e.g., to my taste, Altec 1505 multi-sector horns with 288 drivers... boy howdy!... but those lose out on the "economics" front!).

audiocr381ve

DSkip wrote: »

Am I? I liked the Totem Forest I had. I really did. In the end, they moved out because they were just too bright and I couldn't tame them. Synergy.... did you catch that part of my post? Those CRS+ you have are nice speakers, and as I said before, they are the elephant in the room. There isn't anything else out there like them. Re-read that entire post again and it'll make more sense.

Yeah I did read your posts thoroughly but you made some very strong statements that simply aren't true.

And by the way, I completely agree with you that modern speakers are built better and are far more accurate. My point was that there are with out a doubt vintage speakers that flat out (no pun) sound better than a lot of newer designs and of course, the reverse is even more so true. I just didn't think it was fair to say that interest in vintage is all about economics and nostalgia.

mhardy6647

DSkip wrote: »

I actually enjoyed them quite a bit, but they were fatiguing. Totems are known for needing some good SS behind them, and I don't have that in house. It wasn't worth the effort or financial burden to make that happen - I'm too invested in my SET's to do such a thing. I played around with cables and the like but the bottom line was I needed more power for them to blossom.

Ditto! ;-)

cfrizz

DSkip wrote: »

I like this post Cathy. I'd extend it to the entire chain. Speakers can only produce what they're fed, and that includes more than just the amp.

Perhaps, but for me to date, the amp made the biggest and best improvement to my system. Every other change made minor to zero difference.