Technics SB 7000 A

oldrocker

Heading home today, I saw an "estate" sale sign at a house.
Was a "hectic" day, wanted to just go on home, but thought "what the heck",
turned around and ended up buying this old set of speakers from the guy.

Apparently, he and his wife are moving to Arizona as soon as the sell a bunch of stuff.

We talked for quite some time as I looked at all the stuff for sale, I told him I was really looking for vintage audio gear which he said he just "gave" most of it away as he did not want pack up any additional "non needed" items. He did say he had a few items left I might want to see.

Long story short, the guy is a Vietnam Vet, told me that when he was in Vietnam, he bought these at the PX along with other items and had them shipped home.

I know these speakers are not nothing to write home about but visiting with the guy was priceless..

skrol

They look like beasts.
http://www.thevintageknob.org/technics-SB-7000.html
http://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/technics/sb-7000.shtml

[Deleted User]

Cool story

Schurkey

I remember seeing advertising for the SB 7070, and the advertising created lustful feelings.

Never so much as saw a pair in "real life", no-one around here sold anything so fancy or expensive.

boston1450

Those look nice. I had a smaller pair come n go with super bass & they rocked

oldrocker

They actually do work, all drivers & switches seem to be working fine.
I think the dust bunnies opened a visitors center as these things are horribly dirty. They certainly have some bumps and bruises but they've traveled a many, many miles in their lifetime.

What little I've read about them, they have "cloth" made cones in them it appears?

On each of the tweeters. their is a warning label that says, keep away from watches, magnetic tape, etc as the magnet creates a very strong magnetic field.

Will try to get some pics up later this evening. I think I might just keep these for the nostalgic thing.

oldrocker

A few pics. None close up with light as they look much better in a less lit up room
No cloth on the driver, paper cone.
Sound wise, hard to explain, sitting dead center the vocals don't sound bad, bass isn't muddy or rolling yet not terribly weak either.
Imaging is really different on the mids and highs. Been switching the mid and tweeter dial settings 1-3 which drops the db's from 0 to -4.

At least they still make decent sounds for being about 45 years old as the gentleman who owned them told me bought them in either 70 or 71.

oldrocker

Guess who forgot to clean the dust out of inside the left speakers port before posting some pics...

boston1450

Very nice. Awhile back i had a Technics speaker brochure & i was amazed at how many speaker models they actually had. They had lots of them i never seen & amazed by how they looked & of course ya wanna hear them' just to say you did. Enjoy them speakers

Schurkey

oldrocker wrote: »

Sound wise, hard to explain, sitting dead center the vocals don't sound bad, bass isn't muddy or rolling yet not terribly weak either.
Imaging is really different on the mids and highs. Been switching the mid and tweeter dial settings 1-3 which drops the db's from 0 to -4.

Until you replace the caps in the crossovers--and preferably the resistors, too--there's no way to know how these are supposed to sound. The crossovers almost certainly contain electrolytic caps. Those caps are so far beyond their expected service life that there's no reason to expect they're working properly.

Nightfall

Never seen a Technics speaker like that. Technics makes me think of inexpensive stereo equipment - electronics that look like separate components but are actually a single unit. Not these. Thanks for sharing!

What's the box behind the mid and tweeter? Crossover?

oldrocker

I do believe it houses the crossover. Here's a shot of the top.

oldrocker

The "squiggly" lines is where a piece of foam used to sit that "apparently " fell apart years ago which should be a simple fix.

Yes I sure they are WAY over due to have the internal components replaced.

Right now I have some Queen playing on a Yammie R S700 at -30, sounds reasonable...

Nightfall

They're even "time aligned"? Impressive.

oldrocker

Nightfall wrote: »

They're even "time aligned"? Impressive.

Thanks NF,
I think it will be worth it to have some work done on them. The cabinets do have some dings and need attention but this will make a fun "winter" project.

UGH, Winter....

motorstereo

Nice pick up on some surprisingly good Technics speakers (I didn't think there was such a thing). I brought home a pair a few years back and recapped and restored them. I used body filler on the crumbling corners and satin black rattle can for an almost perfect match on the original veneer. There's also a fair amount of caps to replace and I didn't notice much of an improvement when I re-did mine. I checked all the resistors (lots of them to) and they all met spec so I didn't bother with them. Good luck to you with them

oldrocker

motorstereo wrote: »

Nice pick up on some surprisingly good Technics speakers (I didn't think there was such a thing). I brought home a pair a few years back and recapped and restored them. I used body filler on the crumbling corners and satin black rattle can for an almost perfect match on the original veneer. There's also a fair amount of caps to replace and I didn't notice much of an improvement when I re-did mine. I checked all the resistors (lots of them to) and they all met spec so I didn't bother with them. Good luck to you with them

Thanks,

Of the limited threads I can find, most say the tweeters are vulnerable to eventually failing. Still haven't removed ant drivers yet but plan on this weekend to start getting into them some. I don't think they are as old as first thought. Seems around 1977 is more realistic.

I might "pick your brain" with a few questions sometime in the future if you don't mind?

One question I have now is did the set you found still have the foam in front of the tweeter and if not, what type did you replace it with as I did read something about various types of foam used to "reflect" the tweeter sound.

motorstereo

Yes my foam was rotted away and I used air conditioner filter foam which looked just like the original. It may or may not have the "acoustic properties" as the original foam and I did it mainly to have them look original. The biggest pain for me was recovering the 2 top cages without any folds or wrinkles. I eventually had to settle for a fold on each side of the cages.
I drove mine with several different 200wpc amps and never had a problem with the tweeters. Like most speakers this size they also benefited from being tilted back slightly and better yet up on stands. One of the more noticable mods I made on mine was reducing the oversized port which seem to take some of the flabbiness out of the bass. And yes Technics sold them from 77-80 and they retailed for around $900 for the pair

oldrocker

Do you remember the color of the foam you used?

The top sections are not that bad, it's the lower sections that have had a hard life.

I have some tilted/raised stands I might try, they are kind of small, not sure if they'll work with the original base design.

Greatly appreciates your input. THANKS

motorstereo

It was grey and almost an exact match for the original foam. If you don't have a stand that'll work with the original base a two by placed under the front base will also work to tilt them back. This isn't as good as getting them up close to ear level but it's better than leaving flat on the floor.

Schurkey

motorstereo wrote: »

I checked all the resistors (lots of them to) and they all met spec so I didn't bother with them.

The problem with resistors isn't that they won't meet "spec" for the stated resistance. The issue is that cheap resistors can add a fair amount of noise to the signal, and better resistors add less noise.

motorstereo

Understood; and there's a LOT of resistors in these crossovers. From what I could see they're used to pad down the mids and highs. In my case I ran the pots full on and didn't see the need to lower the noise of something I didn't use.

oldrocker

Yep, there is bunch of em, just pulled one crossover out to take a look see.
To tired tonight to mess with them..
Damn, should have at least have taken a few pics.

Schurkey

motorstereo wrote: »

Understood; and there's a LOT of resistors in these crossovers. From what I could see they're used to pad down the mids and highs. In my case I ran the pots full on and didn't see the need to lower the noise of something I didn't use.

Suspicion: "pots" are much noisier than a plain resistor, no matter what position the pot is adjusted to.

If you like the sound with the pot in a certain position all the time...remove the pot, measure the resistance, then order a quality resistor or resistor network to match the pot resistance, and solder-in the resistor(s).

That, of course, won't work if you're using the adjustment to tune the speaker to various albums, or types of music, or just for giggles.

motorstereo

Lol; Understood again Shurkey. These 7000a's were a pair of speakers I brought home for free. I didn't see the need to go full route on them and also didn't want the pots bypassed for originality purposes. There wasn't a problem anywhere just a simple recap for gp while I was redoing the cabs which were in very sad shape. Perhaps if I had your ambition I would've gone further. As I mentioned earlier there was little change if any when I recapped. Swapping correctly functioning resistors and or bypassing pots would have been even less noticeable except for time and money spent.