This Ever Happen to U

boston1450

Have you ever stumbled upon a beautiful pair of speakers & buy them & get'm home n they sound outstanding. Even after reading bad reviews everywhere on the net. You know they are a cheap speaker BUT ya still say to yourself-dang those dont sound bad
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So the other day im out n about. Stop at local Goodwill & bhold there is a almost minty pair of Marantz sp1000's & you know they arent all that. Well i also see a small minty Onkyo r805x 2channel receiver w/sub out. Huh. Why not. 30.00 cash out cant go wrong. Hookem up & wow. 15wpc i think i read & i am so impressed with how it sounds. Listened to it for 2+ hours total time & still impressed. Anything like this ever happen to you ?

Mystery

You are crazy.

Hehe... there were few moments but I forgot what they were now.

voltz

The Joy of Music! Rock-on-Randy

years ago when I was a teen (bout 38years) and I was left home alone with my brother Bose receiver & ESS speakers. All was right with the world that day

mhardy6647

I can name two pairs of speakers that followed me home and sounded far, far better than they should.

Pioneer Project 100A. Ported, US-made "Pioneer" three-ways with a dome MR and a cone tweeter - oh, and a dust cap that says "PIONEER" in big letters. But they actually sound quite respectable; in fact, I kept them & still have them to this day.

Project100A by mhardy6647, on Flickr

HH Scott S-15. Little sealed box "monkey coffins" loaded with three pretty generic CTS cone drivers (and, to Scott's credit, a deceptively sophisticated crossover). Look like something Crazy Arturo's HiFi Heaven would've bundled with your Superscope or Nikko receiver... but again, smooth and musical; they do nothing wrong. These I gave to a school teacher (friend of a friend) for her classroom -- else I'd have kept them too. Actually, that 4-1/2" pincushion frame CTS "midrange" driver was a pretty nice component; just ask Matthew Polk ;- )

scotts-15drivers by mhardy6647, on Flickr

Your Marantzes, on the other hand, are junk! ;-)
(I keed, I keed... ahhh, realistically -- no pun intended! -- who knows?! I have no reason to doubt your testimony!)

gudnoyez

$30 for both the receiver and speakers good deal to try them out, they appear to be in good shape enjoy them, have you hooked them speakers up to the rest of your vintage Marantz gear yet?

boston1450

Nope. Not gonna happen going in the screen outdoor/outside room this spring. Mark those HHScotts look like early 70's & by the looks of em, hefty buggers too. interesting tweets on the Pioneers

Sea

A lot speakers from New Englad era are surprising good. I have pair of refurbished Original Advents that sound really good. They are only rated at 100 watts so it real easy to blow the tweeters. I have them in shop area running on a vintage carver system.

But like Kingman says "it only matters what it sounds like to you"

pumpkinman

I found a pair of Boston Acoustics A70's at a Goodwill for $1.91
I was impressed by the sound.

tonyb

The only things that ever followed me home have been puppy dogs and drunk women. I eventually came to realize the puppy dogs were lower maintenance.

mhardy6647

Just beware of drunken puppies...

[Deleted User]

I said that before, "I love those drunken puppies."

mrloren

I don't remember the model but back in the early 80's I picked up this strange pair of Sansui round tower speakers from the 60's. They had a 15" down firing woofer and 3 each mid's and tweets. They sounded awesome till my apartment got ripped off. I got the set with a sansui amp and pre amp at a garage sale for like $100 from a drunk marine

mrloren

and I loved them Advent Maestros

mhardy6647

mrloren wrote: »

I don't remember the model but back in the early 80's I picked up this strange pair of Sansui round tower speakers from the 60's. They had a 15" down firing woofer and 3 each mid's and tweets. They sounded awesome till my apartment got ripped off. I got the set with a sansui amp and pre amp at a garage sale for like $100 from a drunk marine

Awesome, eh? ;- )

Sansui had a knack for stuffing as many drivers as possible (often a deranged mixture of cones, domes, and horns) into as small a box as possible.... but... you know, I definitely remember cylindrical Sansui speakers...but danged if I can find any evidence of them right now, today, via Google! :- (

I did see these, though...
Sansui SF-1 omnis. These actually look kind of interesting.



source: http://audioklassiks.de/wordpress/?paged=83

Pioneer was certainly known for cylindrical "end table" loudspeaker cabinetry in the 60s and 70s (speakers as furniture became, at least transiently, a fairly big business in the 1960s as hifi moved from hobbyist to more mainstream home use).



source: http://www.oaktreevintage.com/SOLD_Stereo_Speakers_PIONEER.htm

... but, then again... there were always these abominations... made by the same folks who were, at the same time, making some quite nice turntables and arms, and some pretty decent MM phono cartridges as well.

empahs by mhardy6647, on Flickr

cnh

Well, surprisingly, those old Allegro 2000s I have around here somewhere that cost almost nothing sound a lot better than they look or the boxes that they're in, courtesy of some half decent drivers. Especially that Foster/Fostex Horn! (Disregard the "tuned port"!)



And those cheapo KLH bookies that BB used to sell for $20 on sale, which I do believe have resurfaced as P-Express's Dayton B-652 were quite passable on a Denon AVR in a friend's large room. They did get congested when you tried to push them though!

So, yeah I can believe that sounds fine.

Here's another example. When I first moved into our current house I took my dbPlus 440s and hooked them to a cheap RCA table top all in one CD changer, dual cassette, and FM/AM unit of about 15w x 2 and they sounded several times BETTER than the speakers that unit came with. That's the kind of effect we're talking about aren't we? Some of these bookshelf units are designed to push small bookies of 4-6 ohms impedance.

Is that Onkyo one of those mini-unit bookshelf types? Because those can surprise at lower levels. And have!


cnh

mrloren

yes the speakers looked like the CS-05, I was bummed when I lost them they sounded great. I had them as end tables in my low rent apartment, people freaked out when they found out they were speakers.

I have been trying to find a pair for some time but to find any vintage audio in San Diego is more than hard or they want top dollar. It's easy to take it to TJ and get top dollar there.

mhardy6647

mrloren wrote: »

...

I have been trying to find a pair for some time but to find any vintage audio in San Diego is more than hard or they want top dollar. It's easy to take it to TJ and get top dollar there.

That seems rather surreal.

mrloren

mhardy6647 wrote: »

That seems rather surreal.

I don't look as much as I should but I do look at least once a month or as cash allows. In TJ where people don't have as much cash buy new the used market is high.

San Diego sucks for audio gear. we have Fry's, Best Buy and a few high end shops. the used market is CL and garage sales. I go to swap meets a few times a year and there is never any good audio equipment

boston1450

Ive seen killer deals out that way. Now shipping over here (East coast) is not a option. Saw some SDA's the other day i wanted & i dont even want to go there