Continuing with my recent German speaker finds of late is this pair of Visonik David 5001. Along with the Braun L200 and the Canton HC100's here is another fine German mini speaker.
This pair needed a refoam of course at this age of the speaker, and once done it represents the fine speakers that Germany put out in the 1980's.
After the refoam job, good for another 30 years.
Speakerlab SJ speakers, an interesting find as of late is the smallest of the Speakerlab speakers called the SJ. This is a 4.5 inch full range speaker in a small ported box with a super tweeter added for the highs. They claim these caould be used for a car, although they seem a bit big for that.
They do have a big sound and surprising bass response, along with decent highs from the paper cone.
The original brochure can be found in the Speakerlab site from 1980.
https://speakerlab.net/catalog_13_1980.html#
I did do a screen shot of the catalogue from their site.
Another local score in the last month was a pair of Braun L200 speakers. As you may know I am a big fan of these German speakers and the drivers they use. They can be found in A/D/S, Visonik, Grundig, Canton, and Heco to name a few.
This pair came in the usual, needs new foam condition and the speaker leads had failed at the solder point, which I have experienced before.
I opted to get rubber surrounds instead of the foam ones for longevity.
I have these currently set up running off my little Fosi Class D amp and they sound wonderful. These make great near field monitors with just enough bass from the 5" woofers. I do note that they are not as efficient as the Canton HC100's but they have better bass extension than the Canton's.
This is a super wonderful little speaker with a great big sound stage and silky smooth treble as with all Braun speakers.
I came across a cool pair of Roberts S-911 Air Stream System speakers this week for a great price. There is little information on the internet on these speakers but a lot of information on the equivalent Akai SW-30 speakers. When you Google these the only pair that come up is a pair that was for sale on Canuck Audio Mart.
These look really cheap but they are a brilliant back horn loaded design or labyrinth designed speakers with a Foster FE-103 or equivalent hi sensitivity 4" full range driver.
When I opened these speakers up they had a 4" Roberts clone of the Foster FE-103 speaker inside the box. They look like they have a inexpensive cabinet which they kinda do, but there in not a lot resonance from a 4 inch driver to colour the sound with the cabinets.
There is a current day following of Foster FE-104 speakers that used a Horn Loaded design to produce sufficient bass, not window shaking bass but bass you can hear down to about 50Hz.
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The frequency response: 50 - 17'000 Hz and the efficiency: 95 dB / W / 0.5 m which would be about 92 dB at 1 meter. these are currently hooked up to a Fosi class D amp and would also sound great on a single ended tube amp.
Bass is surprisingly good in a close monitor space, midrange is also great and the highs might not be as crisp as a speaker with dome tweeters but it good to my ears. These speakers will fill a small room with great sound but would get lost in a big room.
I was really impressed with how efficient these are and how big the sound is in a small space.
I have not posted for some time now and I have been collecting up a few decent speakers as of late, and this pair of Canton HC100 is a cool pair of car speakers that were meant to be on the back dash of a car.
These speakers are in the same lineage as Grundig, Braun and A/D/S that have the same drivers with there wonderful tweeters. This pair came to me pretty dirty and it took a bit of cleaner to make them look better, also the cabinets are a little rough around the edges. The drivers are in great working order.
They are a wedge design cabinet with a 4 inch woofer and 3/4 inch tweeter, did I mention how good they sound?
In my camper/mobile office running a little Fosi Class D Bluetooth amplifier they sound great, almost takes me back to my man cave stereo days in my earlier times.
These speakers are just fabulous for their size and the space I have them in. Simply amazing!!
The above picture is how they are set up in my mobile/camper office.
My blog has been very quite as of late as I have not really found to much cool gear worth bringing home, most of the time it is the black plastic stuff that is everywhere on the market.
I did come across this super cool Procom PR-400 which is a Rotel SX-200 made between 1970-1972. These are made in Japan for Charles W. Pointon, most likely an OE brand under their own name. From my internet sleuthing Charles Pointon brought in Gerrard turntables into Canada.
This little monster in rated at 10WPC so nothing to upset the neighbours, and I like the low powered type amps.
It has a Sherwood/Marantz look to it and build quality, made in Japan.
The bulbs are burnt out, the pots needed cleaning and the nice wood veneer case needs a bit of a redo with sand paper and a wood stain.
Not much information on the Procom series but lots if you Google Rotel from this era. I look forward to getting to listen to this at some point.
Locally, this pair of A/D/S B8 Monitors was listed and the price came down to a level that I like to buy really good speakers at.
This pair is in exceptional condition, with an eight inch woofer and the famous Braun dome tweeters. These are similar to a pair of A/D/S L520's from the late 70's early 80s' only slightly smaller in the cabinet size, I would probably say they are the modern equivalent of the Braun L500. I have had a pair of the A/D/S in the past including the L420's and the smaller L300C.
I did come across a pair of A/D/S L8E Monitors many years back and one tweeter was shot so I ended up parting the other tweeter out and saving the woofers, I am happy to come across this pair of similar speakers.
These are amazing 8 inch two way speakers and I think they may be sticking around for awhile.
