Unitron Speakers

Unitron speakers? Huh? An easy thrift store pass by..... It is what is in the box that the treasures can be found.

This pair caught my eye as the cabinets are in pretty good shape and made of real wood veneer, they do need a bit of sanding and new polish, that is easy work.

I opened these up and found a 10" Coral woofer and Coral Alnico tweeter, I figure the cabinets and the drivers were well worth the low low asking price.

My plan was to find a new home for some 10" Foster Alnico woofers and a tweeter of some sort, these boxes would fit the bill.

 I got these home and listed to them with the Coral's in them, boomy, boxy sound was all I heard. The Q's are too high from the woofer for this box. I pulled them out and inserted the Foster 10" Alnico woofer and a Radio Shack 4" Alnico full range speaker, crossed over with a simple 22uf cap around 900hz. Now these speakers sound delightful, like amazingly delightful.

 

Like amazingly delightful, I am going to do more finishing work on them but I have them up and running and I like what I hear.

I mounted the Corals on a spare baffle board that I had around and gave these a listen....OMG these on a baffle are a completely different speaker. Super efficient, the high Q's add beautiful sounding bass for its size of the woofer and the mids and highs are dreamy delicious. Just as I suspected.

New baffles will be made for these and I will offer them up for sale in the near future.

Raising funds for a new Single Ended tube amp

Do you like the content of this blog?  Want to help contribute to the ongoing musings of a audiophile junkie?

I started a Gofundme link to raise money for a nice new tube amp, my older single ended tube amp seems to be acting up and I am saving up for a new Audio Nirvana EL34 tube amp.

I am also in the process of liquidating much of my current gear to help the funding of the amp.

I believe in an abundant universe and feel that readers of this blog will be generous in their support.

Cheers and thank you for your continued support of visiting this site.

Akai/Foster JMI FE103 Open Baffle completed

I got the Akai/Foster 12" with the JMI FE-103 clone 4" completes today on baffles that have seen lots of different speaker configurations in them.

This set up seems to sound sweet to my ears, the last modification I did was I added a single 22uf capacitor in line with the 4" speaker in first order to roll it off at 900hz. The little 4" woofer was working to hard to reach the lower bass notes and had cone breakup.

I opted to mirror image this pair.

Next Open Baffle Project: Akai/Foster 12" woofers with Foster FE-103 4" clone full range

My next open baffle project will be this Akai/Foster 12" woofer matched up with a JMI Japanese Machinery and Metals 4" full range speaker.

The JMI full range resembles a Foster FE-103 speaker in every fashion. The JMI and Akai are both ferrite magnet speakers. Presently I have them set up on a temporary baffle until I make some new baffles. I am running both speakers without a crossover, relying on their natural roll off, so far this combination is the one I like the best out of the three I tried today.

Of course the finished product will not look like this, this was just a temporary set up to get an idea of matching the speakers and the sound.

I tried these 4" alnico full range also and found I needed to croos them over with a 15uf capacitor, still the 4" speakers shouted louder than the woofer and the bass was mismatched to the woofer output.

Last I tried a pair of Foster FE-163 speakers, these too were much more efficient than the 12" woofers and sounded unbalanced. I think the Foster Fe-163 will saved for a back horn loaded speaker build in the future.

Audio Nirvana Super 12 Ferrite Open Baffles

Lucky me, I have been manifesting a pair of Audio Nirvana full range speakers for over one year and a pair finally landed on my lap today, locally.

These speakers are from David Dicks online site called Common Sense Audio. There one can find all the products that are single driver full range specifically for Single Ended Tube amp nuts like myself.

A friend has a had a pair of the Classic 10 Ferrite  connected to the Audio Nirvana EL34 Single Ended Tube amp, we listened to them just leaned up on the floor and I was impressed with the sound knowing full well a open baffle or a proper enclosure would make these rally shine.

I am super stoked to be writing this blog post as these play in the back ground.

I think the quest for an open baffle full range set up is nearing an end, as these play I now feel I might be selling some excess speakers.

I am glad it is near winter, cold dark and rainy in the Pacific North West as I get to loose myself in the sweet, sweet sound of a Single Ended Tube amp and this pair of open baffle Audio Nirvana 12" Ferrites!!

Finally!!!!! I think I am at the ultimate sound set up to indulge in audio ascension bliss.

Rotel RX-950AX Receiver and Rotel RCD-955AX CD Player

A beautiful combination Rotel receiver and CD player landed in my possession recently. The Rotel RX-950AX receiver and the RCD-955AX CD player.

The RX-950AX receiver is rated at 50 watts per channel and sound fabulous on my Advent speakers, for some reason solid state does not work well with open baffles, only a tube amp seems to sound well.

The sound stage is wonderful and almost as revealing as a tube amp. A very nice sounding solid state receiver.

Viking SC 5813 Receiver

An interesting Viking receiver came my direction a while back, Viking was the house brand for a Canadian department store called Eatons. Back in the 70's and 80's Sears, Eatons and Woodwards all had some sort of department house line of stereo equipment.

These units were always made in Japan at the time and branded under their own name.

This Viking SC 5813 receiver is also branded under Lafayette LR-3030 and the Setton RS-229 models, although the Setton had some differences.

This unit was from 1977 and was rated at 30 watts per channel. It had the classic silver face of that era and has a warmer tube sound to it but as with all solid state units they never reveal all the detail in the music due to the complexity of the circuits verse a Single Ended tube amp.

Eatons department store is long gone and these units are pretty rare to find, this one is in really good condition, so a pretty cool find in the vintage audio world.