Open Baffle Electro Voice SP12 B speakers

This is the open baffle system that I have been listening to as of late. These beautiful condition Electro Voice SP12B 12 inch full range speakers.

Extremely efficient and without a crossover connected to a single ended tube amp, these speakers project a huge sound stage that has got me hooked.

I would like to get two more of these and make a new baffle for them, so two speakers in each baffle.



 

Dynaco A25 Speakers

My second set of Dynaco's after the A35's is the smaller brother the A25.

I enjoyed the A35's when I had them and found them best suited to a Solid State amplifier, these A25's I feel are the same. They do  not pair up well with tube gear.

There is plenty of information on these speakers and they were proven to be wildly popular in the 70's for good reason.

These have wonderful SEAS drivers in them and are extremely well built with a mid century modern wood finish.

Klipsch Tangent 30 Speakers

I came across my first pair of Klipsch speakers today, the Tangent 30.

The Tangents were Klipsch's mass market speakers for those who could not afford the Heritage line.

This speaker uses two 8" woofers in a sealed box and a horn compression tweeter. Super efficient at 96db these will work well with my tube amps. The cabinets are well built with real wood veneer and weigh in at 45lbs each.

So far I have had a few songs on these and I like what I hear. Granted I am a fan of horn tweeters mow. The dual 8" woofers have pretty good, tight bass response.

The Tangents were built between 1989 and 1991 and the focus was on clear sound, which when paired with a tube amp, these are very clear.

Mission 717 Speakers

Always a soft spot for early Farad Azima and brother Henry Azima Mission speakers.

This pair of white faced Mission 717 came up locally and I could not resist buying these beauties. The white faced with the Mission logo are my favorite generation of Missions.

This matched pair was in exceptionally good condition and just needed a light sanding to the cabinet and a coating of really nice wood oil.

The drivers for this pair are made with Franch Saire woofers and Audex tweeters. The woofers will never need to be re foamed.

There is a great article at audio4maniacs on the history of these white baffled Missions and it is worth reading to see what Henry and Farad where shooting for in the development of this speaker line.

I have had two other pairs of the white baffled Mission 700 speakers and I like these much better due to the French drivers.

Here is the original brochure form the 80's on these speakers.

At 92db sensitivity these are good for the tube amp.

I like early Mission loudspeakers and have had many over the years. They are very alive and musical with great dynamic range.

I have had a lot of speakers over the years and Missions are one of my favorites, there is something about them and I love having them.

Clements 300SI Redeux

Another pair of Clements 300SI or Spacial Image came my way today, my first experience was from a reader of this blog that had a pair and wanted to see how they sounded versus the NAD Model 30's.

His pair of speakers are in this write up here.

This is the pair I picked up today which look like an earlier version than his.

These are a little pair of speakers has a huge sound from a little 6 1/2 inch woofer that uses a transmission line enclosure. Bass is really deep for such a diminutive size.

The imaging is pretty impressive with a large spacial sound stage.

These need to be run with a solid state amp and I have them hooked up to a Harmon Kardon HK 395i 35WPC receiver. Both the SE tube amp and push/pull do not run enough power to get the best out of these little speakers.

These are nice Canadian audiophile speakers that really fly under the radar except for those in the know.

Tannoy Oxford Gold Open Baffles

I decided to open baffle this pair of cabinet distressed Tannoy Oxford Gold's. The original boxes were definitely worse for wear and often I found the bass boxy if not boomy due to the ported design of these speakers.

I opted for a really nice 9 ply with Cherry wood veneer. I also decided to invert the tweeter under the woofer like early Mission 700 or 717 speakers.

This is the finished result.

Sound wise these speakers no longer sound confined to the box, bass is much tighter and cleaner but not as low as when in the box. The mid range is more open as the woofer seems to handle most if not all of the mid range frequencies.

Aesthetically these speakers are my best project to date, I love the look of them and the pictures on this site do not give the speakers real justice.

JVC R-S5 Receiver

Early 1980's 27 watts per channel silver faced JVC receiver arrived today in mint condition.

This looks like it as in between the JVC JR-S300 and the JVC R-S33 class A receiver.

At 27 watts per channel perhaps build quality and sound was more important then gizmo's and gadgets as per the other two JVC receivers listed above.

This unit is pretty simple and clean looking. Best of all is the 90db sensitivity to the phono section.

Full specs are as follows courtesy of HiFi Engine

Specifications

Tuning range: FM, MW
Power output: 27 watts per channel into 8Ω (stereo)
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20kHz
Total harmonic distortion: 0.03%
Signal to noise ratio: 90dB (MM)
Speaker load impedance: 4Ω (minimum)