In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

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29mile
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In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by 29mile »

Having just tweaked my system several times recently including adding LS6 to the mix I have never ceased to be amazed by the performance of my diminutive Royd RR1’s. They have stepped up to the plate everytime never overawed at having to match up to any increase in performance further down the chain. They simply keep up in a very unforced way never struggling or running out of steam or worried about being outclassed. They might not do loud but they do all the hi-fi’y things in bucketloads and most importantly never flinch in just being ultimately purely musical or ‘Lets dance’ as the Royd literature proclaims. A real tribute to their designer Joe Ackroyd. Nuff said.

Anyone else’s speakers do a similar thing ?

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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

And in his time he was sneared at with faint praise by the flat earth dealers who *had* to sell Linn and Naim speakers. So his consummate skill was largely unrecognised.

Seriously if any of you think I am a cantankerous old git you should have met Joe Ackroyd, he out did me by a wide margin.

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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by familyguy »

29mile wrote:Having just tweaked my system several times recently including adding LS6 to the mix I have never ceased to be amazed by the performance of my diminutive Royd RR1’s. They have stepped up to the plate everytime never overawed at having to match up to any increase in performance further down the chain. They simply keep up in a very unforced way never struggling or running out of steam or worried about being outclassed. They might not do loud but they do all the hi-fi’y things in bucketloads and most importantly never flinch in just being ultimately purely musical or ‘Lets dance’ as the Royd literature proclaims. A real tribute to their designer Joe Ackroyd. Nuff said.

Anyone else’s speakers do a similar thing ?
Yup . I'm using an AP20 amp with LS6s and a pair of Royd A7s . My experience of this combination has been very similar to yours .

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southall-1998
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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by southall-1998 »

Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote:And in his time he was sneared at with faint praise by the flat earth dealers who *had* to sell Linn and Naim speakers. So his consummate skill was largely unrecognised.

Seriously if any of you think I am a cantankerous old git you should have met Joe Ackroyd, he out did me by a wide margin.
LOL! Was he a bad tempered guy?
Shane Lonergan.

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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

He was completely pissed off with the ignorance, bullshit, non paying dealers, bent reviewers, advertising dominated magazines etc and all the other crap that polluted our industry and still tries to.

He knew more about loudspeaker design than the rest of the industry put together yet he had to sell through dealers who told him Linn Kans were better :violence-hammer: :violence-smack:

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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by southall-1998 »

He must be your long lost brother :lol: The pair of you are very similar!
Shane Lonergan.

Alan Sircom
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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Alan Sircom »

Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote:He was completely pissed off with the ignorance, bullshit, non paying dealers, bent reviewers, advertising dominated magazines etc and all the other crap that polluted our industry and still tries to.

He knew more about loudspeaker design than the rest of the industry put together yet he had to sell through dealers who told him Linn Kans were better :violence-hammer: :violence-smack:
The other side of this was - as a grunt in the Flattest of Flat Earth retailers at the time - we were selling as many of Joe's speakers as we could get. We sold a lot of A7s, Coniston/Coniston R and Minstrels, some Edens and Sintras and hardly any Apex. We would have sold a lot more of all of these if he'd been able to supply.

I was fairly typical of the 'reluctant-Kan' owner at the time. I ordered a pair of Sintras for home use. Four months later, when I was told there will be an additional six to eight weeks to complete the order, I bought a pair of Kans instead. We'd always get a steady stream of Conistons and reasonably good flow of Edens, but anything above that would just be almost a wasted order. They came through in Joe time.

The other regular Royd issue was no matter how much you'd tell people not to play loud, they'd come back because people overdrove them. I think one pair in three of the A7 and Minstrels would come back with the voice coil slightly out of true. It got to be such a trend that the first week of the year became known as Royd Rage week. Of course no-one played them too loud, there were just a lot of power surges around New Year! It was also why I didn't settle for Edens, because I'd be fixing them every few weeks, especially at that time. Shame really, otherwise a truly great speaker.

Popping the former back was a relatively easy fix and didn't often need replacement drivers, but you also knew that the next time they came back would be the last. Fortunately there was a brisk trade in s/h Royd A7 and especially Minstrels, because the reviews were generally very positive.

I don't remember Royd being outside the Flat Earth at all. If you remember Hi-Fi Review's road-map of products, Royd was one of the few non-Linn/non-Naim loudspeakers to get a mention. It was like buying an Onix or Nytech, or a Rega Planar 3; it was not the One True Path, but it was on the Path.

Joe's speakers were superb. He was an excellent designer. Unfortunately, as is often the way in this business, he was more design engineer than production engineer. Everything he made was well built... there just was never enough built to meet demand. Today, he'd have thrived, because demand is smaller and the specialist buyer is more prepared to wait than the mainstream hoards of the 1980s.

I'm sure he had his fair share of bad craziness (and bad payment) from dealers, but the truth as always lies somewhere between the two poles. But with Joe's passing, the truth of the situation is subject to a lot of idle speculation and rumour.

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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

Well I had a long chat with him when I visited his works in about 1997, and I am relaying what he conveyed to me.

We had a good laugh as we both had the same poor opinion about the industry, especially dealers. If he could have sold direct I am certain he would have, as would I, but you couldn't at the time without committing commercial suicide.

Regarding the drive units if what you say was a general problem then you would find comment from current users, and no one I know has displaced a driver and there is no comment on the forums about it. The only current problem being commented on is the gunk he used around the voice coils drying out.

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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Alan Sircom »

Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote:Well I had a long chat with him when I visited his works in about 1997, and I am relaying what he conveyed to me.

We had a good laugh as we both had the same poor opinion about the industry, especially dealers. If he could have sold direct I am certain he would have, as would I, but you couldn't at the time without committing commercial suicide.

Regarding the drive units if what you say was a general problem then you would find comment from current users, and no one I know has displaced a driver and there is no comment on the forums about it. The only current problem being commented on is the gunk he used around the voice coils drying out.
I dare say there are few displaced drivers today because the knuckle-dragging end of the buying marketplace of 25+ years ago has moved on to bigger and louder things. We could spot the speaker-breakers from about 10 paces, but if they came in with copies of Hi-Fi Review under their arm, they had a very narrow view of what they could own. It would be a Rega, a Creek and a pair of Royds (which did sound very good, but needed to be set in context). But as we all know, unfortunately people tend to believe what someone tells them more than they believe their ears. I say 'unfortunately' but it's the difference between working and busking for me.

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Re: In tribute to Joe Ackroyd

Unread post by Sovereign »

RIP Joe
I have yet to try his speakers

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