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.

NAD Model 20 Speakers

Following up on the NAD Model 30 featured back in March 15, 2015, this pair of NAD Model 20's showed up this week.

NAD made two pairs of speakers (Model 20 and Model 30) and the philosophy was to produce the best speaker possible to rival the best audiophile speakers at their price point.

The Model 20 uses an 8 inch Braun woofer connected to a brilliant Braun dome tweeter.

These speakers punch well above their size with amazing bass response and fantastic imaging, not quite as good the Model 30 with the large mid range dome.

NAD only made the these speakers for a couple of years with Braun drivers, so these speakers are pretty rare.

Hooked up to a tube amp these speakers really shine over a solid state amp.

ESS Model 9 Speakers

A pair of ESS Model 9 speakers arrived this past week as I wanted to hear what the HEIL Air Motion Transformer sounded like with the tube amp.

I was not disappointed in the clarity and accuracy of the tweeter. It is in essence an electrostatic tweeter which creates a real "Air" about it. Paired with a tube amp and its clarity these little 2 wayspeaker with 8 inch woofers really shine. These speakers are pretty efficient so they match well with a Single Ended Tube amp.

The bass notes are a little lacking due to the cabinet size but the sound stage depth and imaging suggest that you are listening to a much larger speaker. Mid range and the highs are pleasant with absolute clarity that electrostatic drivers can do.

The cabinets in this pair are solidly built with a real oak veneer, this pair has seen some "Wabi Sabi" nicks and and bumps, but that tells me that they have been well enjoyed in the past. this pair has already seen a re foam by the previous owner.

On Solid state equipment these speakers do not shine as well as they do on the tube amp, something the previous owner never got to hear.

A new set of caps might be in order and I will open them up to see if they went cheap on the inside of the box.

Over all rating on these are as follows:

Match well on tube amp:  *****
Match well on solid state: ***
Depth of imaging: ****
Spacial imaging: ****
Build Quality: ****

Rotel RX-1603 Receiver

One of the King Daddy of the "Monster" receivers came my way, the Rotel RX-1603.

This offering from Rotel comes in two parts with the pre amp tuner up front and the massive power amp in the rear.

This unit was rated at 180WPC into 8 ohms and 250WPC into 4 ohms.

An absolute stunning unit and rare to come by, these were $1100 USD back in the 70's.

Another write up can be found on the Classic Receiver site.