Noresco NEC-571 Speakers

I came across another pair of Noresco speakers, the NEC-571. Super heavy, solidly built with a real wood veneer.

Instead of using Isophone drivers, this unit uses Foster drivers. The woofer seems to be Alnico, the tweeter seems to be a full range 3" driver that acts like a mid range/tweeter, it has an open back on the casket but its own separate box inside the speaker.

These speakers sound pretty solid with deep bass from the 10" woofer. The speaker box is an acoustic suspended design.

Efficiency is pretty good as they sound pretty loud on the tube amp.

They remind me of the ADC 303AX speakers that were featured here a few months ago.

The cabinets sanded out the blemishes pretty nice and a coat of Circa 1850 Terra Nova oil brought back the luster of the Walnut. I pulled the old faded speaker cloth off to reveal the drivers, it needs to be replaced.

A much different offering than the Noresco NE-561 speakers featured here early. These have more bass but not nearly the sound stage as the NE-561's.



 

Akai UC-U2 System update

I found the matching Akai SW-N2 speakers that go with this Akai compact system.

Currently have it running in the kitchen listening through the iPod, great little bedroom/kitchen/den near field set up.

Sherwood S-7210 Receiver

This Sherwood S-7210 also arrived with the Tannoy Mercury Gold M20 and the Marantz Model 28 yesterday. This is my third Sherwood's receiver that I have come across, the other two were the S-7200 and the S7100A.

Although exactly the same frontal appearance as the Sherwood S-7200, this model was rated at 26WPC versus the S-7200 36WPC. Perhaps the difference was the Quadraphonic or Dynaquad 4 channel stereo that was being marketed at the time, really all it was was two pairs of speakers.

Anyway, the build quality of the Sherwood S-7XXX line is outstanding and the sound is really great for early solid state gear. As I have posted before on this blog, Sherwood receivers often get over looked for the Pioneer, Sansui and others which make these units incredible bargains in the vintage hifi world. Early Sherwoods are worth seeking out if the likes of Marantz, Pioneer and others become less value for the money.

Marantz Model 28 Receiver

I love low watt solid state receivers from the late 60's and early 70's and another gem arrived yesterday that needs a bit of a tune up under the hood but non the less really impressive, this 20 WPC Marantz Model 28.

Preceding the Marantz 22XX series this unit still seems to be stamped with the Superscope label on the owners manual.

Besides the typical oxidization in the pots there is a bit of static noise in the right channel which could indicate a week filter cap.

Early listening revealed solid bass without the loudness and a pretty warm and detailed mid to high frequency fulfillment, not unlike a tube amp. Early solid state units are as close sonically as you can get to a tube amp, as that was the standard when IC's were introduced.

This unit will go into a repair shop and get tuned up and the walnut case will be refurbished, an update will be published when done.

Tannoy Mercury M20 Gold Speakers

Another wonderful pair of Tannoy speakers arrived this week, the Tannoy Mercury M20 Gold speakers. These are a bit more of a consumer friendly version of the dual concentric line or the Oxford line. Offering a veneer cabinet with a dome tweeter as opposed to the horn tweeter which reveals so much more detail.

Much smaller than the Tannoy Oxford Golds, which are my main reference speaker on the tube amp and larger than the Tannoy Mercury M2, which seem to be a modern (late80's early 90's) version of these.

I personally like the esthetics of these speakers and the driver quality is pretty good for a entry level price point Tannoy speaker.

These are the original made in Scotland units and not the licensed units that API had put out in the "C" series here and here.

So how do they stack up? Great bass response from the ported enclosure with  he 8" polypropylene woofer, mid range is nice and smooth and the tweeter does a great job as any dome will do if not even better.

The speakers are not as efficient (90db) as the Oxfords (93db) and not as revealing in the total sense of the music. the sound stage is deeper with the Oxford's and more articulate, hence why the Oxford's are standard to which all other speakers are compared, especially on the tube amp.

These are speakers that other British manufactures had to compete against including numerous Mission, Celestion, B&W, KEF,  JPW and numerous others, the budget audiophile competition was tight in Britain and lucky for me these speakers are here and now and they still sound fantastic.

Tannoy recently announced that they were moving their production from Scotland to China, this will make all Tannoy speaker made in Scotland only rise in value as Chinese manufacturing is notorious for cutting corners and speakers will be made to the lowest common denominator, I know, I have had Mainland Chinese refuse to buy audio gear from me regardless of the brand name if it was made in China, they know.

If you are a budding audiophile just getting into stereo or a die hard high end tube amp guy, Tannoy's are one of the best if not the best (15" Tannoy Gold's) speakers to obtain.

Gale Silver Monitors

The British have landed again here at Speakerholic headquarters with a pair of Gale Silver Monitors.

Relatively unheard of here, these speakers compete against the likes of Paradigm Atom's with the same size drivers and cabinets. These are a little higher end with Bi-amp wiring on the rear.

The bass performance is pretty impressive for such a small box, surprisingly so.

The side to side imaging is pretty good but not as deep on the front to rear imaging.

Very nice through the tube amplifier although at 88db in efficiency it is best suited for solid state.

Piano and guitar are reproduced nicely with the proper depth and decay in the piano cords. A little bit chesty in the reproduction of male vocals.

All in all this is a pretty impressive little offering from England and very suitable for a near field monitors, bedrooms or small apartments.

The full specs can be found on Gale's site.

Akai UC-U2 Amplifier

This nice little Akai unit showed up this week, the UC-U2 amplifier, this 23WPC unit is from the early 80's and would have come as part of the micro systems that where popular during that time.

The build quality is pretty good on the inside with a large toriodal transformer and pretty impressive 6800uf filter caps. For 23WPC this means it will be pretty stable under 4 ohm loads.

There is two tape monitor loops and a decent phono stage.

It is a pretty nice sounding unit for 23WPC with plenty of punch.

Compared to the earlier Akai AM-2450 it is not as nice sonically or visually, still it is a super cool little unit.