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  1. #1
    Suspended topspeed's Avatar
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    Speaker Hall of Fame

    I saw this thread over at avsforum and thought it was a fun idea.

    What speaker(s) do you think should be in the Hall and why?

    My thoughts:
    1) K-horn; an obvious choice for the obvious reasons
    2) Quad ESL; one of the most accurate speakers ever made
    3) B&W Nautilus; a groundbreaking design. A compelling argument could be made for the Matrix 801 as well.
    4) Advent & AR; from Voice of the Theater to AR9, Kloss was a genius
    5) Bose 901; Before you start throwing tomatoes (or worse), lemme 'splain. It was a groundbreaking design, came with a dedicated eq, and defined the "hi-end" for over a decade. Ask 99% of the population to name a hi-end speaker and they reply "Bose." It all started with the 901.

    Who have I missed?

  2. #2
    Suspended markw's Avatar
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    Ar 1

    The first acoustic suspension speaker and the first bookshelf design to produce bass to rival the behemoths.

  3. #3
    Toon Robber tentoze's Avatar
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    Dahlquist DQ-10. For very obvious reasons.
    ----Never Off Topic, Never Rude-----

  4. #4
    Canuck!
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    Wilson Audio WAMM - First Speaker sold by David Wilson.
    Tannoy Monitor Black - Its not really a complete speaker, but its history is very impressive.

    Gershman Acoustics X-1/SW-1 / Odyssey Stratos Extreme Monoblocks / Edge Electronics Si-1m Preamplifier / Sony DVP-NC555ES Transport Modded Caps and Opamps / Pro-Ject Debut II with Shure M97xE / Carver TX-11 Tuner / SonoCable and Harmonic Tech Cabling / Monster Power HTS1000 MKII / Monster Power HTS3500 MKII / Audio Note AN-K/Spe / Radii MSKT88 Monoblocks / SonoSilence One / Akai Reference Master

  5. #5
    Suspended topspeed's Avatar
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    Good stuff! I forgot to add the Infinity IRS.

  6. #6
    RGA
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    Well I suppose it would be an issue of why they're being inducted into a hall of fame. The Snell Type A should be there if only because it inspired others including my own spekaers - if they;re still making and them grwoing rapidly 30 years later and easily beating the Nautilus 801 then that means somehting to me - thus a hall of fame is no more than someone's list of favorites.

    Quad for example puzzles me - My criteria requires a speaker to have credible bass response - which Quad's don't have IMO. But each to their own.

  7. #7
    Silence of the spam Site Moderator Geoffcin's Avatar
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    Magnepan MGIII. The first in the Magnepan line to have the true ribbon tweeter. A driver that has yet to be improved upon.
    Audio;
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  8. #8
    Canuck!
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    I would pressume that the Quad ESL deserves a place simply because it is the first production Electrostatic Speaker IIRC... not necessarily because it was any good

    Gershman Acoustics X-1/SW-1 / Odyssey Stratos Extreme Monoblocks / Edge Electronics Si-1m Preamplifier / Sony DVP-NC555ES Transport Modded Caps and Opamps / Pro-Ject Debut II with Shure M97xE / Carver TX-11 Tuner / SonoCable and Harmonic Tech Cabling / Monster Power HTS1000 MKII / Monster Power HTS3500 MKII / Audio Note AN-K/Spe / Radii MSKT88 Monoblocks / SonoSilence One / Akai Reference Master

  9. #9
    RGA
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    That's probably why somehting like the Bose 901 is there. I never understood this reasoning - in other words they award the "theory" behind the product ---- err but it doesn;t sound right???

    Whereabouts in Nanaimo are you Corwin99? I go to school up at Mal-U. You've been at the A&B Sound judging by wehn you heard the Rainmakers - have you been to Soundhounds on Pandora in Victoria?

  10. #10
    Suspended topspeed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Well I suppose it would be an issue of why they're being inducted into a hall of fame.
    As Corwin noted, they would be in the HOF not because they are someone's personal favorites or they met their criteria for a "good speaker" but because they were revolutionary and had an impact on the world of audio. Landmark designs such as the ESL or MGIII's ribbon tweeter simply have to be recognized. Whether you like their sound or not is irrelevant.

  11. #11
    Canuck!
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Whereabouts in Nanaimo are you Corwin99? I go to school up at Mal-U. You've been at the A&B Sound judging by wehn you heard the Rainmakers - have you been to Soundhounds on Pandora in Victoria?
    I live in the North End... and i work in Downtown. My girlfriend goes to Mal... its a nice school. Yeah.. I've spent a bit of time at A&B... just booked my car stereo installation (new car so i had to swap the stuff) next week.

    I went to soundhounds a month or so ago... it was pretty busy. I took a look at all the gear they had there... the Magnum Dynalab Receiver, and some of the MF stuff. Listened to the AN system in the main room there too. Nice place. Didn't really audition anything since i wasn't ready to make a purchase... kinda wanted that AN Tuner, but the guy said the Rotel one was better. You buy all your stuff at Soundhounds?

    Gershman Acoustics X-1/SW-1 / Odyssey Stratos Extreme Monoblocks / Edge Electronics Si-1m Preamplifier / Sony DVP-NC555ES Transport Modded Caps and Opamps / Pro-Ject Debut II with Shure M97xE / Carver TX-11 Tuner / SonoCable and Harmonic Tech Cabling / Monster Power HTS1000 MKII / Monster Power HTS3500 MKII / Audio Note AN-K/Spe / Radii MSKT88 Monoblocks / SonoSilence One / Akai Reference Master

  12. #12
    Shostakovich fan Feanor's Avatar
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    Ohm F -- full range Walsh driver

    Quote Originally Posted by topspeed
    ...What speaker(s) do you think should be in the Hall and why?...
    The Ohm F was the most popular model with this technology. I owned them for several years. Wonderful soundstage due, I guess, to their true omnidirectional nature. They weren't really the best in other respects. Also, they were really power-hungry: didn't sound like much 'til I got a Phase Linear 400.

    Ohm still makes Walsh driver speakers, but I believe most or all of their models are no longer full range.

  13. #13
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    I would add the JBL 4310 studio monitor and the L100 speaker. The 4310 and its successors were the most widely used studio monitors of their day, and most of the classic rock genre was mixed and monitored on those speakers. Those monitors also found their way into a lot of home audio systems as well. Introduced in the early-70s, the L100 was the consumer variant of the 4310. It quickly built up a very dedicated following (supposedly it was the best selling speaker of its era) and to this day still has a large user base.

  14. #14
    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by corwin99
    I live in the North End... and i work in Downtown. My girlfriend goes to Mal... its a nice school. Yeah.. I've spent a bit of time at A&B... just booked my car stereo installation (new car so i had to swap the stuff) next week.

    I went to soundhounds a month or so ago... it was pretty busy. I took a look at all the gear they had there... the Magnum Dynalab Receiver, and some of the MF stuff. Listened to the AN system in the main room there too. Nice place. Didn't really audition anything since i wasn't ready to make a purchase... kinda wanted that AN Tuner, but the guy said the Rotel one was better. You buy all your stuff at Soundhounds?
    Well yes because there really isn't anything here for me to get. I tried Blue Door Audio in Parksville but not the stuff I like.

    The AN Tuner has been discontinued - not everything they make is good - the AX One speaker was not spectacular. But they have the most gear - however you have to hane an idea as to what you want to listen to before you go so they can set it up - they have a lot of stuff to move around just to get at the stuff.

  15. #15
    Canuck!
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Well yes because there really isn't anything here for me to get. I tried Blue Door Audio in Parksville but not the stuff I like.

    The AN Tuner has been discontinued - not everything they make is good - the AX One speaker was not spectacular. But they have the most gear - however you have to hane an idea as to what you want to listen to before you go so they can set it up - they have a lot of stuff to move around just to get at the stuff.
    Yeah.. i buy a lot of my stuff online, and do the usual shuffle of changing/upgrading while i try and figure out what i want. I've wanted to check out the place in Parksville.. What lines do they carry?

    The main reason for wanting the AN Tuner was I guess the fact that it had a tube output stage. But i've heard that British tuners in general are quite poor. From what the guy said, unless you want to purchase the Demo peice, they usually have to order one in for you because they don't keep everything in stock in addition to the demo... so sometimes they give u the demo to keep while you wait for your stuff.. that would be a problem if buying from Nanaimo cuz then u gotta make 2 trips.

    Gershman Acoustics X-1/SW-1 / Odyssey Stratos Extreme Monoblocks / Edge Electronics Si-1m Preamplifier / Sony DVP-NC555ES Transport Modded Caps and Opamps / Pro-Ject Debut II with Shure M97xE / Carver TX-11 Tuner / SonoCable and Harmonic Tech Cabling / Monster Power HTS1000 MKII / Monster Power HTS3500 MKII / Audio Note AN-K/Spe / Radii MSKT88 Monoblocks / SonoSilence One / Akai Reference Master

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by topspeed
    I saw this thread over at avsforum and thought it was a fun idea.

    What speaker(s) do you think should be in the Hall and why?

    My thoughts:
    1) K-horn; an obvious choice for the obvious reasons
    2) Quad ESL; one of the most accurate speakers ever made
    3) B&W Nautilus; a groundbreaking design. A compelling argument could be made for the Matrix 801 as well.
    4) Advent & AR; from Voice of the Theater to AR9, Kloss was a genius
    5) Bose 901; Before you start throwing tomatoes (or worse), lemme 'splain. It was a groundbreaking design, came with a dedicated eq, and defined the "hi-end" for over a decade. Ask 99% of the population to name a hi-end speaker and they reply "Bose." It all started with the 901.

    Who have I missed?
    Actually, the original Bose 901 wasn't that a bad speaker.

    The Klipschorn is a quite pleasant sounding speaker at reasonable levels, though it's not super accurate. I personally preferred the original Klipsch Forte over the Klipschorn, La Scala, etc., not to mention the Heresy.

    The original Quad ESL was probably one of the most accurate speakers of its time. It is a good speaker within its dynamic limitations, but I found it to have some roughness in the upper midrange. They also were quite directional, as are electrostatics generally. The ESL-63 was quite flat on axis and in the right set up could sound very good. I found they need some space to be at their best, and we no longer have that kind of space. They can do a creditable job on Saint Saens' Organ Symphony so I don't know where those who claim they had no bass are coming from--must not have heard them in a decent set up. However, a subwoofer can be a big help with them, if properly set up (and for some strange reason, some people, even some professionals, never seem to get the knack). To me, the ESL-63 was a big improvement on the original ESL (often called ESL-57 in recent years). However, when it comes to accuracy, I'm afraid quite a number of speakers beat them for flat response over a wide angle, including my PSB Stratus Minis at $1200 Cdn.

    I have never been a huge fan of Magnepan, though the ones I've heard were pretty good. But I haven't heard the recent models. Still, they are popular and highly regarded.

    The Kef 104 was one of the first computer-aided design speakers; the totally different Kef 104/2 had conjugate bass loading which still has many fans, and the Kef 105 was a nice big speaker in the "pregnant robot" configuration also shared by the various iterations of the B & W 801. I think computer-aided design has helped bring down the cost of good speakers, of which there are many nowadays.

    I would like to have heard the Infinity Servo-Static.

    The Dynaco A-25 was a nice sounding budget speaker for its day, and still sound quite pleasant.

    The Altec 19 had a big 15 inch woofer and a big hornloaded tweeter. If the mid- and hi- frequency adjustments were set properly, it could be a quite accurate speaker, and quite detailed, even at low levels (my dealer said most of his customers for Altec 19s lived in apartments, and liked the detail at moderate levels. They could throw a very wide and deep image. Of course, if adjusted improperly, they could sound awful . . .

    The AR-9 was a very nice speaker.

    The IMF TLS50 and 80 were very nice big speakers but never made a big name.

    The Allison One was something of a breakthrough in designing speaker for specific locations in a room--these would be placed against the back wall. As well, they were designed not to have a floor dip in a room. The Allison Three, I think, was designed for corner placement. The Allison Four had very wide dispersion and was meant to be placed on a shelf against a back wall. The Allison speaker line has been resurrected by a group of businessmen and investors, so one can now get them again. It would be interesting to hear them again.
    "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
    ------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.

  17. #17
    Suspended topspeed's Avatar
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    Good One!

    Quote Originally Posted by Pat D
    The Allison One was something of a breakthrough in designing speaker for specific locations in a room--these would be placed against the back wall. As well, they were designed not to have a floor dip in a room. The Allison Three, I think, was designed for corner placement. The Allison Four had very wide dispersion and was meant to be placed on a shelf against a back wall. The Allison speaker line has been resurrected by a group of businessmen and investors, so one can now get them again. It would be interesting to hear them again.
    Allison! How could I have missed that one? The Allison 3 was just reviewed in TAS, quite favorably I might add. Looking at the pictures, I'm not quite sure I understand how you place them. Am I missing something or do they actually fire towards the walls? However it works, I'd definitely say these were landmark designs.

  18. #18
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    A long time ago AR used to have both a hall of fame and hall of shame in the review section. Wonder what happened to it.

  19. #19
    Loving This kexodusc's Avatar
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    I can't think of an exact model, but surely there's a legendary Cerwin Vega model that many a college party had AC/DC cranked to the max???

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    I see the B&W Nautilus version, but what about the B&W 801 Matrix. From what I understand, it's one of the most widely used recording studio speakers. They've been used to provide the "reference" sound for recordings from Classical to Rock. I believe they should hold a respected place in a true Hall of Fame for speakers.

  21. #21
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    ADS 2001, 2002, and 200c - circa 1972
    The 2001 and 2002 were Bi Amplified mini speakers based on the Braun Output C. The 2001 had outboard amplification and the 2002 had it built in to the enclosure. The 200 was passive. Agruably these were the catalyst for the subwoofer/satellite systems we see everywhere today.

    M&K "Volkswoofer" - maybe 1980 or so. First powered subwoofer cube. 50W with 12" servo woofer. Often sold with ADS 200's (at least here in New England) as a pretty good sounding Sub/Sat.

    ADS300i - First plate type loudspeaker. Designed for car, but with optional in-wall mounting ring can legitimately lay claim to being the first high fidelity in/wall. (I know that Sonance claims that, but the 300i was on the market two years before Sonance existed, however Sonance was possibly the first to design it as an in-wall as opposed to adapting to in-wall.)

    None of these may qualify for their ultimate fidelity, but I believe that they are deserving for the influence thay had on changing the market.

  22. #22
    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by kfalls
    I see the B&W Nautilus version, but what about the B&W 801 Matrix. From what I understand, it's one of the most widely used recording studio speakers. They've been used to provide the "reference" sound for recordings from Classical to Rock. I believe they should hold a respected place in a true Hall of Fame for speakers.
    First I think the Matrix series was superior to the new ones.

    But be careful of this "used in recording studios" stuff. Some companies advertise that they are used in recording studios some don't. SOme companies are willing to GIVE their speakers for free to recording studios - so that they can advertise it - the recording studio is a business and they need "something" after all to record on. Then there are small outfits who don;t have much money and like us have to have a compromise due to budget. Furthermore many require near field monitors like those from PMC. They sound very good in the near-field but if you listen in normal living rooms at normal distance some of them can be pretty lousy sounding...I recommend them and like them but you need to listen in the right set-up.

    And remember some companies are used in numerous recording studios, as magazine reference spekaers, etc but the company has chosen not to advertise it. The reasons not too should be obvious. For example if George Lucas uses the N802 at Skywalker recording sudios. Let's say for example Star Wars came out sounding poor and this was done at that recording studio. Some people might then associate the poor sounding discs to the speakers - even if this is totally unfair. It also smacks to some consumers that gee they really need to push their speakers by using evey and all advertising means they possibly can to sell it when the sound all by itself SHOULD be able to do all it needs to do. But many people today don;t have the time to spend listening to 30 speakers for over an hour each - so the nice looking big name ones you see plastered everywhere which get good reviews get you down to maybe 5.

    Luckily my dealer carries some of the big names and the company that didn't need the hooplah was easily the best stuff in the store - but you would need to actually listen to the gear to know that.

  23. #23
    Suspended topspeed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kfalls
    I see the B&W Nautilus version, but what about the B&W 801 Matrix. From what I understand, it's one of the most widely used recording studio speakers. They've been used to provide the "reference" sound for recordings from Classical to Rock. I believe they should hold a respected place in a true Hall of Fame for speakers.
    I agree. Check my original post.

    Quote Originally Posted by rga
    But be careful of this "used in recording studios" stuff. Some companies advertise that they are used in recording studios some don't. SOme companies are willing to GIVE their speakers for free to recording studios - so that they can advertise it - the recording studio is a business and they need "something" after all to record on. Then there are small outfits who don;t have much money and like us have to have a compromise due to budget. Furthermore many require near field monitors like those from PMC. They sound very good in the near-field but if you listen in normal living rooms at normal distance some of them can be pretty lousy sounding...I recommend them and like them but you need to listen in the right set-up.

    And remember some companies are used in numerous recording studios, as magazine reference spekaers, etc but the company has chosen not to advertise it. The reasons not too should be obvious. For example if George Lucas uses the N802 at Skywalker recording sudios. Let's say for example Star Wars came out sounding poor and this was done at that recording studio. Some people might then associate the poor sounding discs to the speakers - even if this is totally unfair. It also smacks to some consumers that gee they really need to push their speakers by using evey and all advertising means they possibly can to sell it when the sound all by itself SHOULD be able to do all it needs to do. But many people today don;t have the time to spend listening to 30 speakers for over an hour each - so the nice looking big name ones you see plastered everywhere which get good reviews get you down to maybe 5.
    I suppose it could be all a marketing ploy, as preposterous as that sounds. Or, God forbid, it could be that they are highly accurate speakers that impart little to no colorations thereby allowing the mixer to determine what it should sound like instead of the speaker. Then again, most self-proclaimed "audiophiles" view any "marketing" efforts by audio companies as Satan reincarnate and automatically start dismissing that company. I've never understood that philosphy although I liken it to children trying to keep others from playing in their sandbox.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by topspeed
    Allison! How could I have missed that one? The Allison 3 was just reviewed in TAS, quite favorably I might add. Looking at the pictures, I'm not quite sure I understand how you place them. Am I missing something or do they actually fire towards the walls? However it works, I'd definitely say these were landmark designs.
    The Allison Three is a wedge shaped speaker designed for corner placement. The wedge goes into a corner and the drivers face out. As I said, Allison Acoustics is going again and you may wish to look around their web site.

    http://www.allisonacoustics.com/three.html
    "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
    ------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.

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    Hall of Fame and still going

    Ohm, Vandersteen and Magnepan. 3 innovative companies that are still around and sound great.

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