Odd Hobby - Vintage Speakers

schwarcw

I sold a pair pf Rogers LS3/5A's (15 ohm) about six weeks ago. I saw these go for about $1,400 - $1,600. These seakers originally sold for about $700 in 1977. I had the original boxes, packing, test reports, etc. I had these hooked up to my Fisher X-1000. They sounded decent but I thought my Monitor 7's sounded better. The LS3/5A speakers are about the size of a shoe box.




I put the Rogers LS3/5A on audiogon about midnight before I went to bed with an asking price of $2K plus shipping. By morning I had 7 full price offers. One guy who was not the first to respond offered me $2,500 to sell them to him. I emailed the first guy to respond. He drove from Cleveland to Pittsburgh that afternoon to pick them up. The buyer appeared to be a wealthy Asian (Mercedes, Blackberry, nice briefcase. He went wild when he saw the speakers.

Back to the Polk Forum here, I see seller's having a hard time selling their Monitor 7's for $100 -200. I thnk the Monitors sold for about the same price ($700) back in the '80's. I just don't get it The Monitor sounds so much better. The LS3/5A has no base response below 60 Hz. The image and mid range vocals on the LS3/5A are remarkable. But I still think the 7's are a much better deal and great sounding speaker.

BaggedLancer

I'm going to venture to guess it's supply and demand. The demand for those speakers is high among collectors, they are relatively rare, and certain people just love the way they sound.

I thought the exact same thing on the JBL 240Ti's I sold, strange how the market goes sometimes.

billbillw

Well, the Monitor 7C had an MSRP of $240 a piece in 1985. They are (relatively speaking) plentiful.

People generally look at the late 70's a the golden era and this was a time that the $ was strong, so you got a lot for your money back then, so $700 in the late 70's is quite a bit more than $480 in the mid 80's.

I don't know much about the Rogers, but I see that Stereophile has a writeup about the LS3 series and that certainly must help build the hype/awareness about them, hence driving up price/demand. To this day, most people I know are clueless about how good the older Polks sound.

But hey, sounds like you made a killing on those, and since you didn't really like the sound, you won't miss them.

mhardy6647

The image and mid range vocals on the LS3/5A are remarkable.

That's why they fetch the big bucks.

Polk specifically and deliberately compared the sound of the original Monitor Series (7 and 10) to far more expensive British monitors (i.e., the LS-3/5A spec monitors, Spendors, etc.) as part of the marketing spin. Polk further pointed out that their pricepoint was a fraction of the British monitors.

George Grand

Looks like you've got some vinyl money Carl. Glad I opened this thread.

Mike Reeter

Carl,I remembered seeing your add on A'gon when I was shopping for a pair of monitors also.

The add was there one night...sold the next day:D

I remember Russman saying that almost all of his vintage gear goes overseas,with the cheap $ right now,there are a lota good buys for foreign currency.

dorokusai

The bulk of my gear has went to Canada this past year.

The Rogers LS3/5 is a audio benchmark worldwide, the Monitor 7 is an audio benchmark....in Club Polk. The LS3/5 design has been remade, copied and revisited in many forms, by multiple manufacturers. The Monitor 7....not so much and not even by Polk Audio. It's a great speaker but you have to keep it in perspective.

Jstas

You also have to remember that Polk Audio has a stigma, undeserved and unfairly applied IMO, of being a "mickey mouse" speaker or a bargain basement brand. Of course Club Polk is going to be a huge jock rider for Polk Audio and there's nothing wrong with that.

But venture outside of Club Polk and mention whatever Polk speaker you want and the "audiophiles" will turn up their noses at you. Even if you have a set of LSi 15's which get rave reviews or a massive set of SDA SRS's that will compete with anything from the highest ends of the markets from their time. About the only think I ever see Polk Audio getting respect on is the SRT system. That is essentially the pinnacle of HTiB to most people but the dynamic range and impact that setup has just floors damn near everybody that has a chance to hear one.

If you think it's bad in home audio, try talking to people about car audio!

Now the magazines are a different story. All the rags rave about Polk products fairly often.

zingo

I think on of the reasons Polk is "looked down on" or whatever you want to call it is because they do have a reasonable price tag. Look at some of the mags who review LSi9s as "should cost twice the price". Price does play a factor in the audiophile community whether or not "audiophiles" want to believe it. I think it is also because Polk is available at box stores and not just boutiques. Plus, Polk sells many different lines of products besides passive speakers. I think some people assume that if you sell a speaker bar or an iPod dock, how can you be HIFI?

Jstas

zingo wrote: »

I think on of the reasons Polk is "looked down on" or whatever you want to call it is because they do have a reasonable price tag. Look at some of the mags who review LSi9s as "should cost twice the price". Price does play a factor in the audiophile community whether or not "audiophiles" want to believe it. I think it is also because Polk is available at box stores and not just boutiques. Plus, Polk sells many different lines of products besides passive speakers. I think some people assume that if you sell a speaker bar or an iPod dock, how can you be HIFI?

But Bose is "hi-fi" to most people and that's all they sell.

schwarcw

Mike Reeter wrote: »

Carl,I remembered seeing your add on A'gon when I was shopping for a pair of monitors also.

The add was there one night...sold the next day:D

I remember Russman saying that almost all of his vintage gear goes overseas,with the cheap $ right now,there are a lota good buys for foreign currency.

Mike, all of the offers were from Asians. The LS3/5A has a glorious image in a 6' X 6' X 6' triangle. Most homes in Asia (Japan and China) are small and the LS3/5A is in high demand. Expecially the 15 ohm version. I am surprised that the Rogers LS3/5A hasn't caught on like the Bose or the other smaller footprint speaker that has a good WAF. For voices, jazz and adult contemp music it can't be beat. Newer versions are made by Stirling, Harbeth and some others. I think the retail is about $1,700+

nspindel

Lasareath wrote: »

Exactly, some people think they get the best speakers because they spent $100,000.00

I recently went to a new client's house in NYC and I was talking stereo systems with this guy and he said my wife just ordered a pair of new speakers.

And I said, Oh yea, Here's mine, and I showed them my business card with my speakers on them.

And the wife said "Oh, My speakers will sound so much better, I bought Wilson Audio.

And I said Oh, That's nice, How did they sound?, And she said I didn't listen to them, But they must be the best, they cost $100,000.00

And I laughed a little chuckle and said "I hope so, Mine are the best I ever heard and they were less than $3000.00

And she got this crooked disgusted broken smile on her face!

What a stupid Rich ****!!!

They do sound like the kind of folks you want to have as clients, though, and I don't even know what you do for a living!

Marty913

There is a certain category of people who impress other like-minded people with how much something costs; then again there are others who impress people with how little something costs. As long as everybody's happy, I guess it all works out.

Face

Vintage Tannoy's are another group of speakers that have retained, if not appreciated in value over the years.

15" Reds(drivers and x-overs) were $500 in 1970, now sell for $2500.

15" HPD385A's(drivers and x-overs) were $800 in 1980, now sell for $1200-1500.

15" Silvers can now sell for up to $10,000 a pair. New they couldn't have been more than a couple of hundred.

avguytx

I don't think I even own a pair of speakers that are newer than 20 years old. My Polk SDA SRS II's may be the newest of the bunch being built from 86 to 88. After that, it's 1978 Klipsch Heresy H-BR's, ADS L810's (84 or so), Altec Lansing Milano's (1973-ish range...fancy cabinet Valencias), New Large Advents, Small Advents, Dynaco A-25's, Technics SB-7000's, Fisher XP-7's, Bose 901 Series IV's, Electrovoice Interface C's, and a few others here and there.

Well, I guess I do have some newer speakers but that's in my HT setup which consist of 3 inwall and 4 in ceiling speakers plus a Sunfire sub.