[bhobba]

I have to give a plug for my old favourite the Gale 402's.
http://www.kabrna.com/hifi/gale_review.htm

Crappy load, not as bad as the 401's that would regualrly destroy amps, but still crappy.  I drove it with an old proton amp.  ME's produced a better sound but not by much and I did not feel lioke spending the extra dosh.  One the the few speakers I know that actaully told you how good your amp was.   My Axis LS88's are the same.  Hopefully my new SP Timepieces will not be as fussy - however I suspect thay will be or even more so.

Thanks
Bill

[hibuckhobby]

Without a doubt...my Dahlquist DQ-10's.  Huge soundstage, never harsh and just got  bigger sounding
as you turned up the power...until of course, the fuse in the back would finally blow.

[Wayner]

The Dynaco A25XL. Dynaco sold the most pairs of speakers in U.S. history and for good reason: they image like crazy and had great spectral presentation. I have one pair powered by a Van Alstine 170EX in the Dynaco 120 chassis. Bass midrange and high end....what more do you want? Not made for concert levels and certainly not the main speakers for any audiophile, but a pleasure to own nonetheless. With proper placement, it's like you can sit way over on the left side and hear great stereo. Then go sit on the right side and hear great stereo. Then go sit in the middle and go crazy. Nice on old vintage stuff. They also have survived the test of time.

[James Romeyn]

The Dynaco A25XL. Dynaco sold the most pairs of speakers in U.S. history and for good reason: they image like crazy and had great spectral presentation. I have one pair powered by a Van Alstine 170EX in the Dynaco 120 chassis. Bass midrange and high end....what more do you want? Not made for concert levels and certainly not the main speakers for any audiophile, but a pleasure to own nonetheless. With proper placement, it's like you can sit way over on the left side and hear great stereo. Then go sit on the right side and hear great stereo. Then go sit in the middle and go crazy. Nice on old vintage stuff. They also have survived the test of time.

I owned several pairs A25's, & one pair A50 (huge cabinet, dual staggered diagonal 10s w/ single offset tweeter).  The cabinet veneers were special.  If memory serves, Danish drivers (Scan Speak or?), yes?  No wonder the SS D29 is still one of the best tweeters extant...The A50s were the single most power hungry speakers I experienced.  The lamps in the meters of my Phase Linear 400 would frequently dim on peaks, as would the entire electrical system of my parent's home (built in the 1940s or 50s).  The A50s were macho but I'd say the A25's were a better overall package.  I think I paid $100/pr for the A50s, A25s $50/pr in excellent condition. 

I absolutely wish I had a pair of A25XL's.       

Nobody mentioned one of the all time greats, the JBL L100 10" 3-way home speakers (or 4311 pro models w/ "presence" & "brilliance" controls at the bottom of the front baffle).  These speakers are shockingly good, even w/ what I believe was a paper cone tweeter (paper mids of course).  They just sounded so good when I heard them in the late '80s on good components that it really shocked me.  High sensitivity, very dynamic, musical & enjoyable, no funny resonances from the ported design.  They'd probably be even better w/ improved xo's.  Why have great 10" 3-way standmounts been abandoned?       

[WEEZ]

My favorite was the Large Advent. Wish I'd never sold 'em. (my brother still owns two pair-and he won't sell'em.) They didn't image as well as some; they had a slightly recessed midrange; didn't go real high; but they had great bass; played loud as hell with good power behind 'em; and were musical and pleasant to hear.

My second favorite was the Dynaco 25's.

If either of these speakers were cloned and made today..they'd sell very well 'cause they made music enjoyable and looked good doing it. Walnut veneer and biege grill cloth may be out of style today.. but I still like it. 

WEEZ

[ohenry]

I owned several pairs A25's, & one pair A50 (huge cabinet, dual staggered diagonal 10s w/ single offset tweeter).  The cabinet veneers were special.  If memory serves, Danish drivers (Scan Speak or?), yes?...

They used SEAS drivers.  SEAS sold a complete speaker version in the US (Sennheiser was the distributor) between the A25 and A50 in the early '70's that used a fabric dome planted in the middle of the two staggered 8" woofers.  I had that speaker and really loved it for many years.  They did take mucho power to really shine.

Speaking of good stand-mount three-ways being abandoned, there are a few around such as Rick Craig's offering...

[Wayner]

The Dynaco A25 series used several tweeters, the early version was a Scan-Speak but was later replaced by the Seas H087 driver. The A25XL used the Seas H086 driver that went down to about 1XXX cycles. The cross-over is a simple 12db slope using a 8 mfd cap and a .(75 mh coil (I think)) that gives it a cross-over frequency really low. The woofer was naturally rolled off. The A25XL's also have a resistor ladder level control, (3 position). The A25 has a 5 position control.

If you own a pair of these speakers (I have 2 pair), you may want to check out the woofer terminals, as they seem to fall apart. I have rebuilt the terminals on all the woofers. The tweeters are fine, and while your in there, give the rotary switch a shot of some DE-oxit 5.

If your cabinets have shallow scratches, the walnut veneer is about a 1/32" thick. I have re sanded mine to an almost perfect condition and re-oiled the walnut. They look great.

One other point is to either use the small hole it the speaker binding posts or use a dual 3/4" spacing banana jacks. The reason for this is that the banana jacks on the back of the speaker are a little shallow, and a single banana likes to get loose and fall out. Someday I will replace them but the dual banana works great.

I really love all of the vintage speakers like Advent, KLH, JBL, and of course AR. I used to own JBL-L00's, AR-Xa2 and AR-5's. unfortunately AR used that damn foam surround and if you buy a set on eBay, the surrounds will have to be replaced.

Great memories!

[avahifi]

I once visited the home of Wade Burns, then the chief Dynaco designer.  His system used four A25 speakers stacked per channel       (on their sides - stack of four each side) driven by a Dyna St-400.  It would play LOUD!  Loud enough to terrorize the fish in his aquarium when he cranked it up (and me too).

Frank Van Alstine

[WEEZ]

Frank, I'll bet that was awesome.

I used to drive stacked Advents with a Dyna 400. One afternoon, when the house was empty, I put Thelma Houston's 'Pressure Cooker' direct to disc on the turntable; cranked the gain pots on the amp to max; cued the first cut; and set the pre-amp pot to 2:00 o'clock. The volume about knocked me down.

Now, the Advents when paralleled, probably dipped into the 2-ohm (or less) range at some frequencies; and you can guess what happened next. After a loud transient somewhere on side one of that album; the left channel went silent. I opened the fuse holder(s) that Dyna had on the front panel for the speaker outputs. Sure enough- the left channel 2 amp fast-blo fuse looked like a nuclear explosion went on in there. It saved my speakers...but all the output transistors in the left channel of the amp were toast.

(after the repairs to the amp; I wired the speakers in series instead of parallel from then on  )

WEEZ

[rcarlton]

I agree with the large Advents. I have the 5002's which sounded pretty good for several years until.....Klipsch Cornwall I's. They have reissued the Cornwall as III's now and they sound even better.

[fredgarvin]

Back in the day we had Klipsch Cornerhorns in the shop and we sold diy clones as well. But i never cared for the T-35 tweeter much. The Ess AMT in our competitors store were my faves. The top end was a revelation back then. After that it was the Infinity ribbons that captured my lust, but all I could afford were B.I.C formula fours! So I stacked a pair of my diy two-ways on top of them. They had the new KEF dome tweeters. The bass really coupled well on those.

[john1970]

Bozak Concert Grands (the large ones with four 12" woofers per a channel).  The infinite baffle bass is absolutely amazing.  No speaker I have ever heard has ever reproduced bass as accurately as those old Bozaks.  Newer speaker designs have improved midrange and treble.

Best,

John

[Brad]

After reading about the Bozaks in Vacuum Tube Valley mag, I've really wanted to hear them.....

[Don Maico]

I have a pair of Kef Duettes dating form the middle sixties Probably will sell them eventually as they are too big for my room (which is small). Heavy too.They must of been hand made in those days as one can still see the varnish brush marks nad there are few drips as well.. The fornt grill is made of wood wirh vertical slots cut into it from top to bottom. Ive done a search on them but can find precious little about them

[Whitese]

my favs are:

EV12trxb, JBL L-96 and Bozak CG's...

[bolly]

Tannoys and bigg IMF's! 

[TONEPUB]

ESS AMT-1

[TomS]

Double (stacked) Large Advents driven by a Walt Jung modded Dyna PAT5 and two very heavily POOGE'd Hafler DH220 amps rocked

[Whitese]

Tannoys and bigg IMF's! 

Bolly!!!!!!

[S Clark]

Double (stacked) Large Advents driven by a Walt Jung modded Dyna PAT5 and two very heavily POOGE'd Hafler DH220 amps rocked

I had a quad of large Advents, replaced them with a pair of Design Acoustics D-12's and never looked back. They weren't even close.
Favorites
1. Ohm model A
2. Design Acoustics D-12
3. Heil ESS