Turntableguru

Keep in mind, this is one person's opinion. A review that does not show real-time analysis is subjective. As for a hole in the mid-range, this is highly subjective. I am an electrical and accoustical engineer by education, having repaired and built many Dynaco and Seas systems, and have listened in person to the likes of Malcolm Jones in design having met the man years ago at Chicago Summer SEAS. Frankly, there is NO significant difference between an A25 or an A25XL that can be measured, for this simple reason: Computers didn't design these, the engineers at SEAS did, painstakingly so. Haffler stuffed these boxes with fiberglass dampening by hand with a better baffle and design in connection with SEAS, improving on the original SEAS spec for box design. By trial and error. Depending on that hand laid dampening fiberglass and individual worker production variance, each A25 from any variant will sound unique due to variations in the "stuffing. Looking up the spec of the drivers will tell you, if anything, the A25XL's 25 F-EW and H86 high freq. combo offer an advantage in top end frequency response. The A25 if anything, can have a dip around 800 cycles when compared to the XL which tends to be smoother in the mid-range. (My measured observation on decades old stuff) I.E., a hole. Finally, without testing the caps...this being 30 and 40 year old stuff after all, will lend to the fact that this is one person's ears and highly subjective. Holes in mid-range can be due to the factors of individual speaker dampening, leaky capacitors, and degrading pots. All this to say buy an A25XL when presented the opportunity. There is no bigger bang for the buck. IMO as for timbre and musicality, the XL spanks the Original. If you are in want of updating your A25 or XL, purchase the SEAS HO 881 (27TFFC) from somebody like Madisound. It pairs well with either Woofer, ALNICO or the Ceramic and is an improvement! A pair of current design A26's will set you back $1500 and you will have to build them! (Ceramic woofer structure l might add). Any A25 is very competitive with any speaker up to 2grand today. In 1969 they were decades ahead of their time, and that without the aid of computers. The woofer design of light construction and super fast response heralded the direction of modern speaker design. The A25/XL even today is still tough to beat. Drivers and designs like the AR1, AR3 became relics of the past. The only difference between an A25 and today's stuff are the electrolytics and improvements in tweeter longevity and response. The woofer, is simply brilliant. The A25XL'S and A25 were a super value then and a better one today.