[Vintage-Audio] Modern Speaker For Vintage System?

[Phil Lefever]

>Alright my fellow wizards of wires, if you had to purchase a present day
>three-way system with fifteen inch woofer that could be adequately driven=
 by a
>vintage amp delivering 35 watts per channel RMS, what would it be? And=20
>why?

I agree with Michael's thought that a 15" woofer really isn't
needed (or desired) unless you are looking for maximum output
levels.

While I love vintage audio equipment for nostalgia reasons I
really can't see using old speakers in my main playback system.
While the old classics were well made and efficient they weren't
designed nearly as well as modern speakers. I am talking about
high quality HiFi speakers here not mass market junk though.
Today we have the ability to computer optimize drivers and
crossovers and for vibration FFT analysis etc. Speakers made
by Paradigm, B&W, and other high end company's are very good
indeed and _in_my_opinion_ far superior sonically to old classics
that are likely no better for their aging.

One thing I have always believed is important in a quality
speaker design is to choose a design that doesn't require
any crossover between drivers for the entire human vocal
range. Most classic 15" 3 way designs crossover from the
woofer at around 800 cps. If the design were to choose
low/mid drivers in the 6 1/2" to 8" size range then this
driver will work well up to 2500 to 3000 cps eliminating
the undesired crossover point. If truly low bass output is
an issue a subwoofer is easily integrated at a crossover
point of around 80 cps. I currently run a system using a
JBL 2335H 15" in a 5 cubic foot vented box. The sub is driven
by a modern 500w MOS-FET amplifier at frequencies below 75 cps.
The mid bass drivers are 6 1/2" which run from 75 cps to
3000 cps when a passive crossover transitions to a 1" soft
dome tweeter. I have found this to be sonically correct to
my ear as well as having sufficient headroom.

Another advantage for the bi amplification and subwoofer is
that my low power tube amplifiers don't have to deal with
the low bass. This aids headroom and helps eliminate the
problems of "mushy" bass that many transformer coupled tube
amplifiers seem to have.

The prices I have seen for some of the old vintage speakers
would buy a number of different "modern" speakers that would
be much more sonically correct.....

73

Phil Lefever



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