speaker 'voicing'

[Guest rickcee]

Hi to continue the thread 'Advent speakers' Mr. Tyson was the last post, . . .

First, I should say I should just shut up. No scientific knowledge, plus my ears are 'blown' - can't hear past 12,000 khz test tones On CD-with headphones. But just for fun:

I believe starting in early '70's there were 2 or three events - high volumne rock & roll, high power amps (late '60's AR amp was 55 watt ch. by mid '70's mass prod. recievers commonly had over 50, even 100. Now, hard to find less than 50 - a very inexpensive technics reciever has 100 w/ch.) Third, I believe there is/ was a trend to 'brighter sound' If you want to call it more accurate, or change in buyer taste, or . . .

Advent in about '75 re designed it's special cone/dome tweeter, both with ferrofluid for higher power capacity AND with a 'brighter sound' Either St.Review or H.Fidelity had a test mentioning this. This is before the 'second gen. large Advent' with the rounded front moulding and generic 1" dome with higher crossover.

AR Was noted for smooth high freq. with downward slope on freq. graph. For exam. High Fid. test of AR 6 (Mar.71) " The new speaker 'listens' very easily for long periods of time. It sounds smooth but not reticent or 'remote'. " Quote sums up Mr. Tysons view.

Further -St.Review tested the new 'classic' AR 303 with a choice set of original AR 3a (supplied by - T.Tyson! ) "The AR 303 had significantly flatter response at the high frequencies, however, about 3 to 5 db stronger than the AR 3a above 6 khz." **st.Rev.June '95**

My main spks. are '78 Koss 1020 which have very strong low freq. AND rising high freq. output. St.Rev.Sept.79 "We had no doubt that we would find a smoothly rising top-end characteristic" "Whether this brightness was beneficial or disturbing depended largely on the program material." I have AR 302 spks (AR 5 repro.) And Dynaco 25's. actually, I frequently listen to the Dynas. They're technically the worst of the 3, but still good, and being my first 'real speakers' . . .

IS this run on or what? Sum up I think speakers beginning in mid '70's got a brighter sound, including AR. More accurate ? Better ? Probably. Anyway, if it's smooth response, ya can use the tone control to suit your liking. Rick

[Guest]

>My main spks. are '78 Koss 1020 which have very strong low freq. AND rising high freq. output. St.Rev.Sept.79 "We had no doubt that we would find a smoothly rising top-end characteristic" "Whether this brightness was beneficial or disturbing depended largely on the program material." <

How I can vouch for that. In my youth I sold several pairs of these and their little brothers (or are these the little brothers?).

I would not, however, characterize the low-frequency as "strong." I wouldn't say it was weak, either. My memory is fading, of course, but I seem to remember a bump that made an acoustic guitar have a "feel" to it, but pipe organ low notes (harmonics?, is that really a "note" way down there?) were. . . just cut off / missing at the frequencies that rattle windows in their frames.

I also could not stand to listen to solo violin on them.

*BUT* they were absolutely marvelous-sounding on the whole, I don't know if it was accuracy, but it was *fantastic* on things like saxophone, acoustic guitar, and other reed and "plucked" instruments and there was something about them on human-voice that was. . . nothing short of miraculous.

Everything in the room was run through an A/B switching console and we were using Accuphase pre-amps and amps along with two "audiophile" turntables and tonearms but I cannot recall the cartridge, the specific tonearms, or even the turntable brands. If we were listening to C,S,N,& Y and A/Bed them against anything else in the room (and there were some fine speakers in there) whatever else we tried sounded like someone threw a blanket over the vocals.

Ordinarily I would attribute that to "overall brightness" but the Kosses didn't fatigue the ear like most bright speakers.

I remember listening to a Kenny Loggins record over and over and over. . . It was always a pleasure. (we didn't have much to do in February so I just listened a lot) And we had something. . . Pheobe Snow, maybe that would run you out of the room just like live Pheobe Snow.

I'd say you've got a treasure of a speaker system. As far as I know those weren't manufactured very long.

Bret