Innovative Speaker Designs ISD Spirit 0.25 Speakers

An interesting pair of mini speakers came my way, these Innovative Speaker Designs ISD Spirit 0.25, these see to be well made, locally in Kelowna BC. 

I do not have much information on them but once I saw that they were using Vifa drivers I knew they were of pretty good quality.

The real Rosewood veneer in great shape and the speakers seem really well built with Bennic polypropylene capacitors in the crossover. 

The Vifa woofer is 4.5 inches (C11SG-05) and a Vifa D19SD tweeter.

Not exceptionally low on bass of course, these would benefit with a sub woofer crossed at 150hz. The midrange and highs is where these speakers are at.

 

 

Pretty cool little speakers and a very nice little find locally.

Electrohome Single Ended Tube Amp

 This little four watt single ended tube amp was returned to me after I donated it to a yoga studio that I trained at.

It was mostly recapped by David Yee in Vancouver and since I got it back I have done the large caps and cleaned the amp up, with a new paint job, got rid of the large capacitor can added the volume pot and on/off toggle to the top.

It really is amazing how just 4 watts can really sound! I love single ended tube amps and they seem to getting harder to find. This unit came out of an old console stereo.

I will sell this little amp so hit me up if interested.

An update:

Now complete with a nice wood case for it.

KLH Model 17 Speakers Returned

This pair of KLH Model 17 speakers made their way back to me after I donated them as part of a stereo system at a yoga studio that I trained at.

These are great vintage 10" two way speakers, I originally owned these in 2017 with the original blog postings to be found here and the recap pages found here.

Very similar the Henry Kloss Advents that I have had many experiences on this blog. 

I have them paired with an Electrohome Single Ended Tube amp that I also gave to the yoga studio.

These are a great sounding speaker and well worth searching out.

 

Marsland Canadian 1200 Full Range Speakers

Today a super rare pair of 12" full range speakers were listed on a local classified site. These Marsland Canadian 1200 speakers.

I did a Google search on Marsland speakers and the only vintage ones that populate are the Imperial 1200 speakers,with a bell dome cover on the magnet.

Without a doubt, these Marsland speakers that were made in Waterloo Ontario, same place as some of my vintage Electrohome gear, are built to a quality standard that is rarely seen.

These have a huge cast basket with what I think is an Alnico magnet behind the magnet cover, I say this because if it was a ferrite magnet it would not sport the cover. The cover for the magnet seems machine made and precisely fitted.

I managed a small audition just propped up against the Audio Nirvana Baffles and was blown away by how great they sound. I feel these are best suited to a Single Ended Tube amp, as my push/pull sound flat with them.

I do not know much about Marsland and these speakers in particular as there is not much information out there on them. If you come across this post and have some knowledge, shoot me a message.

I will have to make special baffles for these as the basket profile does not fit the test baffles I have.

 

Yamaha CR-800 with Philips 22RH480 Speakers

 A kind reader wished to share his set up with me, it is a nice Yamaha CR-800 receiver matched with a pair of Philips 22RH480 speakers. A very nice set up in my opinion. I am grateful in any way that I have helped audio enthusiast pick and choose what might come available in the local used market.

Enjoy this Youtube link of his set up.

This Blogger expression of gratitude

I would like to say thank you to the readers who stumble upon this blog and read my stereo ramblings! I have had a few heart felt emails and comments in regards to the value that others see in my musings about vintage audio.

I was originally inspired for this blog by Lloyd Naftolin's Seventies Stereo Blog. I wanted to add extra elements of repair walk through processes where I could. 

It has been fun to have all the stereo gear come and go, lots of late night listening sessions, and lots of great enthusiast that I met buying and selling gear.

Thank you for stopping by and I am grateful that I can help you discover your own stereo journey.

David

Zenith 5L29 Single Ended Tube Amp

 

Winter is coming and I finally got around to doing a bit of work on this Zenith 5L29 single ended pentode tube amp. I won this on Ebay about a year ago and it sat in storage. I finally have the time and space to work on tube amps again. 

This little guy is probably maxed out around 5-6 watts per channel. This unit comes with bass, treble, bass boost and volume. It runs two EL84, 12AX7 and a 6FQ7 with 5Y3 rectifier.

So far I just added the speaker terminals along with new RCA input jacks and CL90 inrush current limiter to bring the voltage down a bit from the wall socket. No cap work has been done on it yet.

This is a great little single ended unit and sounds great in my office with a not very efficient pair of Monitor Audio MA-9 speakers.

These are worthy little amp if you can pick one up, super easy to get up and running as a stand alone amp.

November 3, A little update, this little amp sounds fantastic and has really grown on me. I do not use the Bass Boost switch as it takes away the detail of this amp, I may just rewire this circuit out of the amp period.

Loving this amp, what more can I say.....