This pair of Philips 22RH480 speakers recently caught my eye locally, I have not been in the market for new gear recently but these speakers have a lot of right elements in their design that caught my attention.
There is not a great deal of information on these speakers in North America, a few French blogs have some info.
From what I learned so far is these are circa 1969 vintage, Philips product did not make it to the North American market very often probably due to a lack of distributors, so these could have come over via an estate.
The Philips 8" woofers have cast baskets, Alnico magnets and rubber surrounds, there is a nice Philips 4" full range with a whizzer cone acting as the mid range and a Coral horn tweeter. The cabinets are the the Dutch mid century design style with walnut veneer cabinets.
In my mind all these components add up to make a very nice speaker.
Although a little shy in efficiency for a 2 watt single ended tube amp, they do sound sweet, next I tried the 20 watt push pull tube amp, but this was not as nice of a sound.
The new Yamaha CR-420 that I picked up this week sounded really nice with these speakers.
Since the cabinet is a acoustic suspension design the 8" woofer is tight sound with respectable bass as the cabinet size is a decent size. The mids with the 4 inch full range and whizzer are really nice and the Coral tweeter adds just enough sizzle at the top end.
Over all this is a pretty impressive speaker from Europe, a really good mix of components seem to work well.
I like the gems like this that get overlooked in the market place as everyone is stuck on Pioneer HPM's or JBL's
Jan. 8 2018
A little update:
I have been running these speakers for a few days off the SE Tube amp 2WPC, These speakers have pretty solid bass down to 50hz and roll off from there, the bass is really tight. The mid range is luscious without any hints of nasal or chestiness in vocals. The Coral tweeter does the highs in perfect fashion.
Overall these speakers remind me in some senses of what you would get out of a Braun speaker, polite, correct and smooth. The difference is the cone mid range with the whizzer, it will beat the big Braun dome anytime in my view, and that is a pretty tall order.
These speakers seem to command a pretty respectable resale on the used market and I can understand why if you are serious about your hi-fi, that is it for now, I got more listening to do.
There is not a great deal of information on these speakers in North America, a few French blogs have some info.
From what I learned so far is these are circa 1969 vintage, Philips product did not make it to the North American market very often probably due to a lack of distributors, so these could have come over via an estate.
The Philips 8" woofers have cast baskets, Alnico magnets and rubber surrounds, there is a nice Philips 4" full range with a whizzer cone acting as the mid range and a Coral horn tweeter. The cabinets are the the Dutch mid century design style with walnut veneer cabinets.
In my mind all these components add up to make a very nice speaker.
Although a little shy in efficiency for a 2 watt single ended tube amp, they do sound sweet, next I tried the 20 watt push pull tube amp, but this was not as nice of a sound.
The new Yamaha CR-420 that I picked up this week sounded really nice with these speakers.
Since the cabinet is a acoustic suspension design the 8" woofer is tight sound with respectable bass as the cabinet size is a decent size. The mids with the 4 inch full range and whizzer are really nice and the Coral tweeter adds just enough sizzle at the top end.
Over all this is a pretty impressive speaker from Europe, a really good mix of components seem to work well.
I like the gems like this that get overlooked in the market place as everyone is stuck on Pioneer HPM's or JBL's
Jan. 8 2018
A little update:
I have been running these speakers for a few days off the SE Tube amp 2WPC, These speakers have pretty solid bass down to 50hz and roll off from there, the bass is really tight. The mid range is luscious without any hints of nasal or chestiness in vocals. The Coral tweeter does the highs in perfect fashion.
Overall these speakers remind me in some senses of what you would get out of a Braun speaker, polite, correct and smooth. The difference is the cone mid range with the whizzer, it will beat the big Braun dome anytime in my view, and that is a pretty tall order.
These speakers seem to command a pretty respectable resale on the used market and I can understand why if you are serious about your hi-fi, that is it for now, I got more listening to do.
Hello Dave ,
ReplyDeleteThis is great !
I bought a couple of weeks ago a couple of 22RH480 in the neighborhood for 40€ , lucky me I know , and since then I gathered a lot of info .
To bad I don't have the time now but I'll write to you tomorrow or as soon as some time available . Talk to you soon , Manu .
do you sell a couple of 22RH480? i want to buy
DeleteHello Dave ,
ReplyDeleteJust bought a pair of undamaged 22RH480's here in the neighborhood for 40€ , lucky me , I know .
The neighborhood is 'La Provence' in the south of France . We are a Belgian couple that moved over here three years ago .
The meaning I bought them was to have spare speakers (parts) for the 22RH497's I have since a long time and I restored recently .
Well ... things turned out differently .
I'm restoring the 480's now just because they sound great .
The 480 is the very first 3 way speaker that Philips ever made , that was in 1968 .
The woofers are the 10" (not 8") AD1055/W8 , stamped with their production number 4304 078 70261
The squawker is the AD35015SM /5 . Very little info to be found about , it was used for very short time .
The tweeters are 16 Ohm Japanese made by Coral 5HH17SD . They were bought in Japan because Philips did'nt had
their own tweeters yet .
The woofers , I think , are pretty impressive .
Both of the Coral tweeters in my 480 are dead . I hear everywhere that they are not realy super anyway so I'm changing them by
2 x AD0160T8 from one year later . (2x8 Ohm = 16 Ohm)
A very interesting site about Philips vintage stuff is here :
https://philips-vintage9.webnode.be/
Manu .
Sorry if this is the wrong venue, I didn't see any other way to contact you.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the EPI module speakers like you, in fact I have an early pair of EPI Model 70s. I recently had an interesting experience where they didn't play well with my Sony STR6060FW (circa '68 TOTL Sony receiver, great with BA A150s), and was wondering what amplification you found they play best with considering your diverse collection of speakers and amplifiers. I like them so much that I'm willing to buy an amp based on its match with just these speakers.
Also curious to hear your comments on the sonic improvement you notice with your wiring/cap upgrade. I'm hyper-aware of brightness in the treble and wouldn't want to sacrifice any smoothness.
Anyway, I look forward to your response, thanks.
do you sell this pair of 22rh 480? i want to buy
ReplyDeleteHello Dave as your suggest I've used a Yamaha Cr-800 and the Rh480 sound Beautiful !
ReplyDeleteMy video on youtube to show what can togheter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybqNKI70aQ&t=118s