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Post by MartinT on Feb 8, 2018 10:37:32 GMT
I've just remembered my first proper hi-fi speakers, a pair of Cambridge R40 transmission lines bought in 1978 as end-of-line cabinets. With the typical trio of KEF B139 bass, B110 midrange and T27 tweeter they offered no surprises but gave a usefully neutral and wide bandwidth sound with no nasties at all. I carried them through several system upgrades right up until I bought the JBL L100-Ts in 1986 or so.
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Post by ant on Feb 9, 2018 12:28:47 GMT
Only 2 things I can think of, my JBE series 3 which I still have, and a yamaha pf800.
The wife bought me the yam on a whim, she saw it and thought i'd like it. The mains tx was blown as someone had tried to use it on the 110v setting, it was fixed with a 9v transformer out of a lamp that had to go in a separate box as it was bigger than the knackered original. Loved the deck, twas the only bouncy belt deck ive ever had that I liked but had to sell it when I got made redundant.
The jbe i'd always wanted ever since I saw one in an old mag. Bought it, there was a delivery problem, I.e it got lost, and turned up 6 weeks later. It arrived on the day my youngest son was born, about half an hour after we got home.
So quite an attachment to it
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Post by MartinT on Feb 9, 2018 18:12:20 GMT
The JBE is a lovely thing.
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Post by dsjr on Feb 10, 2018 12:12:16 GMT
The ATC100A's I had were so much 'better' than almost anything else domestically *at the time,* I felt I'd ended my HiFi journey. Things move on and get more shiny-blingy, but I still miss them greatly and wonder what happened to them when the dear friend who used them daily for fifteen years after passed away and his family had no use for them.
The other audio 'thing' I now miss greatly is the NAS Mentor turntable. Now evolved into the more oil-rig looking Dias, the mentor was the ultimate heavyweight Rega, with a heavy duty bearing and a 70lb+ platter. That thing with matching stable-unipivot arm and Decca Microscanner, sounded closest to master tape I've ever heard vinyl before or since, an LP12 sounding thick, vague, almost wavery and splodgy in comparison - and the Mentor was further refined in terms of motor isolation and drive after mine, which was a mint used example in 1989.
I kind of miss the Nakamichi cassette decks and Hi-Speed Revox 2-track tape decks but only really for the visuals...
Last one is a Lustraphone LP100 amp. The first one I had was a smoothy and it had sensible engineering inside although the output stage popped on switch-on as suitable devices weren't available in the UK at the time apparently.
P.S. Paul D's post about the ES14's jogged a memory too. I knew Robin fairly well and saw him regularly at the time as we weren't far from the original Epos Chesham base (before the takeover). I was able to get wonderfully musical and petty accurate tones out of mine and only replaced them when I went the ATC route Looking back now, I should have kept them although my wife would have intensely disliked the stands (another time I turned gear-direction possibly way too soon). The way to go with speakers though - no bass unit crossover and instead of copious doping, a carefully designed phase plug and corresponding magnet 'circuit,' a cap for the tweeter only and an individually braced cabinet, the side walls with a carefully adjusted tension bar. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2018 14:13:41 GMT
The ES14’s still sounded better with the bungs removed though, Dave  |
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Post by dsjr on Feb 10, 2018 15:10:50 GMT
In your room they might, but I have good reasons, subjective in many rooms and objective via Robin himself that they should have been there mostly (I used them sideways) if an 80Hz boom was to be avoided and the 'Chesham era' ones had these bungs glued in. The popular issue 14 with phase plug on the main diver had less damping magnetic flux than the earlier one and this optimised the heavy cone and suspension for a semi-sealed box as well as optimising the bass-mid response as well as possible - subjectivism can't bend the laws of physics sir! But like this fuse 'thing,' if you peferred the ES14's minus bungs, then so be it. For me at home and in three dem rooms I worked in, they boomed badly without it |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2018 15:51:54 GMT
I got into ES14s pretty early, buying mine Oct 1988 from David at The Sound Org in York. Price had recently moved from £299 to £350. The dem pair were the earlier spec £299 ones sans bungs. David told me that these were better without bungs and recommended this way by Robin. The bungs weren't glued in with these, but were supplied for those with problem rooms. The new boxed ones I'd receive were recommended for use with bungs in and they were glued in to prevent confusion.
The shop demo ones stil has a tendency to boom on certain notes. My newer ones with glued in bungs boomed even more without them. The tragedy was that they really freed up without the bungs. They freed up even more without the stuffing but they rang like a pair of bells. Had I known then what I know now, I'd have mass damped the cabinet walls and tried some Proac-style drinking straws in the ports. My compromise at the time was to leave the bungs hanging party out the back.
ES14s did some great things and gave me some real goose bump moments, I tried all available recommended stands and the rarely seen Origin Live tripod stands we easily the best. I wish I'd kept my ES14s but I wish even more that I'd kept those OL stands. Massive footprint though, so not everyone's cuppa.
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