would you buy these speakers

leftwinger57

I've seen these Design Acoustics P-8A listed for months on C/L. Over at Ak many believe they are a good speaker but the down firing woofer can rot and be problematic. Already there some condition issues mostly minor like a nice chip out of top of one of the cabinets. pushed in dust caps, and no grills. He listed them $30 have seen a mint pair for $90 on Cannuk Audio Mart and dropped his asking price to $20. It's an hour drive so 2hrs round trip, then of course hearing them at his place. I don't need them and would like some opinions. Not real wood but also not white vanners either.
Like many here said they would take a set w/ imperfections if not to bad or detrimental to their sound.


http://cnj.craigslist.org/ele/5012131938.html

mhardy6647

Rotten surrounds aren't a big deal unless that particular woofer has an exceptionally hard to find sized surround.

I am not sure I'd drive two hours for a pair -- but the price certainly seems reasonable enough to me.

leftwinger57

Because the woofers are bottom firing and seem to have a raised platform of some type I would think 4 screws and 1 could get to see them if the guy lets me. I think they are 8" woofers so not to rare and dust caps are cheap enough. Oh, the mint pair was on U.S. Audio Mart for $95 or b/o. Again over at AK they do say the PS- 10s are sweet spot for Point Source and these are 1 level lower.

http://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649184711-design-acoustics-ps8a-point-source-3way-speaker-system-98-obo/

George Grand

That's not going to be a "knock your socks" off purchase. Save your money for something that might be.

westmassguy

Lew, I re-coned a pair 2 years ago. Those bottom woofers had very shallow baskets, and I had to have custom kits made for them. The base has to be removed to inspect them properly. They tend to take a lot of abuse, because they're hidden. You don't realize they're shot until the damage is done. Creased or shredded cone, shorted voice coil kind of damage.

mhardy6647

good reasons to avoid the drive, it sounds like...

leftwinger57

That seals the deal for me....NO SALE

cnh

The D.A. PS-10s were the speakers from that line to get if you were going to get anything. They had better mid and bass drivers. Point source was their ad. line-although not quite that with two drivers and a down-firing bass driver. I have a brochure around here somewhere?

Need a small to mid-sized room with those. Designed to save space.

George Grand

Not to disparage the entire AK population, but they have a very large following there for a lot of the lattice-grille monstrosities with 12 and 15" woofers from Pioneer, Sansui, etc.

You have to take AK with a grain of salt. Maybe a couple grains.

cnh

I recently auditioned some Sansui SP-X8700s. Very much in the mode Mr. Grand describes above, mostly out of curiosity. I was NOT expecting much. And I did not hear much. I took along a tablet and did some TONE sweeps. The speakers could not produce much bass below 60 Hz or so and barely reached 14, maybe, 15Khz with any clarity. They sounded a lot like what they were. Here's a shot. Advents, KLH, Acoustic Research, some nice vintage pieces there. But Pioneer and Sansui speakers, yeah, not so much. But some good amps and receivers from the silver era!

mhardy6647

George Grand wrote: »

Not to disparage the entire AK population, but they have a very large following there for a lot of the lattice-grille monstrosities with 12 and 15" woofers from Pioneer, Sansui, etc.

You have to take AK with a grain of salt. Maybe a couple grains.

I resemble that remark -- well, except for the speakers impugned by Mr. G. I likewise impugn them.

Yes, a fair amount of mis- and dysinformation there -- as on most of the World Wide Web.

leftwinger57

Not that I bought into everything anyone says,this is why I also asked here before pulling the trigger. There are as here guys who do collect like DR.Morbious DCM Time Frame and Time Windows and I guess could be called an authority on those of which I own TF 350s. Also tons of retro speakers like Frazier Black Boxes,Rectilinear Hi-Boys, ARs and the like. Then you have all the McIntosh crazy crowd in their own slot.

bryantspaint

Original Time Windows rock!!

cnh

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Not that I bought into everything anyone says,this is why I also asked here before pulling the trigger. There are as here guys who do collect like DR.Morbious DCM Time Frame and Time Windows and I guess could be called an authority on those of which I own TF 350s. Also tons of retro speakers like Frazier Black Boxes,Rectilinear Hi-Boys, ARs and the like. Then you have all the McIntosh crazy crowd in their own slot.

Most of those are fine. But McIntosh speakers? Well, that is an acquired taste to put it nicely!

leftwinger57

Not their speakers per se' but the whole entity of McIntosh over there on AK has their own little kingdom. i see where the confusion lies I jumped from speakers to Mac gear.

cnh

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Not their speakers per se' but the whole entity of McIntosh over there on AK has their own little kingdom. i see where the confusion lies I jumped from speakers to Mac gear.

Got it, I know what you mean. To be honest, the only Mcs I've heard have all been SS and I've never been that impressed. I have NOT heard their tube gear (vintage?). But I do know a couple of Mc-heads who swear by their stuff.

Just like the Polk forums there is a "feel" to AK. I occasionally drop in there but I'm mostly here. Good info on "vintage" which is what I look for over there, except vintage Polk, that is! This is the place for that. I do prize my vintage Polks! And you know what some forums say about that? Us! lol

leftwinger57

There are fans for all brands. Take Klipsch for example. I own smalls for h/t but not any of the horn loaded speakers they are widely known for and pretty much panned here for being way to bright and fatiguing. Truth be told I only heard 7s for a few minutes at a store so not enough time but I like to have either 4.2s,Forte', or Quartets.Then I could say I have SDAs, transmission line DCMs, 2ways from the 70's and the smalls to round it out w/ the possible addition of front loaded horn speakers.

mhardy6647

Some of the Mac vacuum tube power amps are quite nice -- the MC-225, MC-30, and MC-60 are personal faves.

mhardy6647

The classic Klipsch "Heritage" loudspeaker sound is, to my ears, overly harsh and aggressive. Col. Klipsch had some interesting ideas (not all of them completely successful, to my ears). One of the more heretical (pun intended) of those notions was that - by far - the most important factor in loudspeaker design was the enclosure. The quality of the drivers was completely secondary to Col. Klipsch. Interestingly, up into the early 1960s (give or take) Klipsch used decent quality drivers (mostly EV and sometimes University) but moved steadily towards much more generic and even low-ish quality drivers (e.g., the Atlas PA compression driver used as the "squawker" - MR driver - in the Cornwalls I used to have).

A cottage industry in improving Klipsch loudspeakers has evolved; close inspection of many "Klipsch" speakers loved by their owners will reveal almost nothing of the original Klipsch speaker system remaining except the box itself. Even then, in many cases, that box being more or less modified. Of course, I guess that the "glass half full" way to look at that is that the Col. was right about the box vs. the drivers! :- )

FWIW, I also find almost all of the vaunted (and undeniably successful) classic JBL studio monitors to be unacceptably harsh to my ears. Obviously, though, many folks' tastes aren't congruent to mine.

As to horns generically, DSkip -- I'd opine that there is certainly a spectrum of sound from different horn loaded drivers and/or enclosures; hard to paint with a single stroke, although I think that the "bite" comment is generally apt. Depending on one's instrumental taste, that bite can be very realistic, e.g., for vocals, piano, and brass. I've heard no loudspeaker to date that reproduces the sound of a piano as realistically as my Altec Duplexes (electrostatics are on par, but the ones I've listened to lack a certain weight to their presentation relative to the Altecs).

Needless to say, I love my Duplexes, full stop. They are as smooth and sonorous as I need them to be -- but I'll readily acknowledge that Altec didn't get their factory XOs right, and (not unlike the Klipsch phenomenon), the cottage industry of aftermarket XOs makes all the difference. Of course, in the case of my Duplexes, that aftermarket XO was the product of the late Doug Sax's renowned MasteringLabs -- kind of a different pedigree than the little mom & pop shops selling XOs, components, and drivers to upgrade the ol' Klipsches.

Just sayin'...