Six months and plenty of change

This corner of the blogsphere has been silent as what was a great man space that often looked like this........

and had many great speakers, amps, beers and scotches of the years came to an end. Almost all the gear was sold off and what was left went into storage as a major shift in my life occurred.

Slowly this blog is re emerging with emphasis on building speakers, open baffles and back horn loaded using full range newer and vintage high efficiency speakers suitable to working best with tube amps,

I have moved from Vancouver to Victoria and have been scouting the area for decent gear but mostly come across the same stuff as before but at highly inflated second hand market prices, so I pass on a lot of it.

I have come across some gems though, stay tuned.

Philips 22RH480 Speakers

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.

  

Yamaha CR-420 Receiver

I stumbled upon this mint, mint, mint, did I say mint? Yamaha CR-420 receiver yesterday.

I like early Yamaha solid state receivers, they are up there with early Sherwoods. This silver faced unit from circa 1977 is rated at 22WPC in 8 ohms and is in spectacular condition. I paid a bit of a premium for it in the thrift shop terms but a unit of this condition had to purchased and the dollar value was worth it.

Although I generally do not use solid state units anymore I do like to have at least one unit on hand for certain speakers. Currently I have a NAD 7130 that matches really well with the NAD Model 20's, this pairing is for sale for $300 and is simply stunning. The NAD receiver I will only sell as a complete set leaving me with just this Yamaha.

Inside the unit was cleaned out and I was surprised to see two nice big Elna 6800uf caps and universal joints that connect the input circuit to the switches on the front, one does not see this type of workmanship in today's disposable audio era, very cool.

 Another little attention to detail is the twin headphone jack and the Yamaha headphone jack plug, still intact after 40 years, pretty cool to see that.

I will try this unit out with the Speakerlab Super 7's and I am expecting an incredible sweet sound.

NAD 7130 Receiver

Another NAD receiver arrived yesterday, this 7130 model runs at 30WPC and has both a MM (Moving Marnet) and a MC (Moving Coil) phono input, something you rarely see in a model of this power level.

I did clean out the inside and all the pots and switches.

I have yet to mate this with either the NAD Model 20's or the NAD Model 30's but will do so in the near future.

Most reviews seem pretty positive on this unit and  have always liked  NAD's stuff. Clean and simple.

Technics SU-7300 Integrated Amplifier

This nice little 41WPC Technics amplifier found its way to me today, a beautiful silver faced unit with a veneer wood case. A nice feature is the VU meters that have a low level and a high level. got to love the old analogue VU meters

A phono pre amp with a 78db signal to noise ratio make it very sensitive to the pick up on the phono cartridges.

These were built in the Golden Era of HiFi between 1976 and 1978.

More info can be found on the Stereonomono site.

This unit matches up nicely with the Mission 717 speakers.

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.