Cheap But Good Speakers.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Goodmans Magnum K - astonishing for their age and price.

[_D_S_J_R_]

HB1s were one of my earliest speakers. I loved their clarity but their hardness on vocals was unbearable. And that was with vinyl. I traded them in after a fortnight for ES14s. To this date ive never had another speaker as uncomfortable to listen to, but they always sounded like the designer was close to something special.

They WERE special, if the system allowed it!

HB1's made everything sound the same, but earlier ones could be quite sweet toned as I remember. Later ones spat viciously, at least when new.

[Andrew]

Of course. Any difference between my views and yours are always down to a poor system or an inability to hear rather than different tastes. I give up. I'm off. I Honestly find HFS to be anything but subjectivist these days and as such there's not enough here for me.

[Daniel Quinn]

Calm down Andrew , its only dave and he still as AOS in his system , just tease him or ignore him .

[southall-1998]

Of course. Any difference between my views and yours are always down to a poor system or an inability to hear rather than different tastes. I give up. I'm off. I Honestly find HFS to be anything but subjectivist these days and as such there's not enough here for me.

Would be great if you returned to AOS and resurrect your hifi journey thread. The one with the pics.

S.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Of course. Any difference between my views and yours are always down to a poor system or an inability to hear rather than different tastes. I give up. I'm off. I Honestly find HFS to be anything but subjectivist these days and as such there's not enough here for me.

Please don't Andrew. If I felt that was the case then I would be down on it like a ton of bricks. All I have seen so far is opinion. If you see a post breaking our subjectivist rules as in our statement on the top of the portal page then report it to me and I will deal with it.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Calm down Andrew , its only dave and he still as AOS in his system , just tease him or ignore him .

Well I think Dave is being a bit daft at the moment, but it is because he being caught between a rock and a hard place. His eyes have been seriously opened by doing NVA assembly work and hearing lots of the gear, BUT he is under severe pressure from AoS owner and management because of it . So being Dave he is trying to be all things to all men and sitting on two stools and in the process IMO falling on his arse between them. Note he no longer mentions NVA at AoS.

This is always the cross that is borne by trying to be the peacemaker.

[Daniel Quinn]

He needs a bit of practice on h/s as a Peacemaker as they dont always insist they are right ,thats why i never volunter for the role

[_D_S_J_R_]

Of course. Any difference between my views and yours are always down to a poor system or an inability to hear rather than different tastes. I give up. I'm off. I Honestly find HFS to be anything but subjectivist these days and as such there's not enough here for me.

Andrew - I have a problem here, but NOT with you sir!!! I was a professional (or so I thought) in this industry for over thirty years. KJ in the 70's was one of the two or three top end dealers at this time and we knew EVERYBODY who was worth knowing back then and carried some serious agencies. One of these people was Robin Marshall, who used to hand calibrate EVERY LS3/5A Audiomaster (a KJ owned brand) ever made (and what a bloody headache these were). He went on the found Epos in the mid 80's and he and I shared many many chats about the ES14, the original design concepts which Chris Frankland (Flat response/Hifi Review) totally dismissed. We also sold Heybrook and KJ were for a couple of years their biggest dealer. We had very regular visits from Peter Comeau and his business partner Stuart Mee and again, shot the breeze about Heybrook's designs on a regular basis.

I SOLD both speakers Andrew, HB1's from the very beginning when they had wooden strips along the bottom and Epos from before the major change to the bass driver. HB1's were incredibly self effacing I found, and to their endearing credit could be used with almost anything without sounding horrible - THAT was one reason why they were so popular. Against this was the fact that equipment upgrades weren't so easily noticed when compared to some other speakers (MS 20's came to mind just now). When the cabs were updated in the mid (ish) 80's, the bass driver had changed slightly and the already spitty-tendency tweeter (that Vifa was used with better front plate in ATC's for years and could sound exactly like this in some active models) became subjectively even more so we found...

As for ES14's, a longer answer to the supposed 'accusation' of system suitability is this one, if you'll take the trouble to read it please originally, the ES14, with brown metal face plates to the drivers, was designed to be used away from the back wall and the balance was very 'fruity BBC' and with a restrained treble on Linn vinyl sources at any rate (Robin used a Krell KSA50 at home back then). Plugging the port fixed the bass but killed the midrange I recall from my own pair. Frankland dismissed the proposed three-wire connection (+bass, +tweeter and third wire as common return) and since Linn/Naim dealers had a good thing going and liked the look of the ES14 in '87 or so, the ES14 had the bass magnet decreased in flux, which loosened up the mids when the port bung was fitted to further improve the bass. The now extra perceived output from the tweeter was welcomed by Linn/Naim sheeple too! Robin then went further and fitted the 'phase plug' to the front of the magnet pole-piece, altered the tweeter cap value to sort of match it and the ES14 as all Naimies knew and love was born. However, to get the bass unit rolloff to this level (with the 'phase' plug), the driver lost around 2 to 3db of sensitivity, badly exposing the now slightly raw sounding tweeter. Changing the cap brought the tweeter in later, but the previous flattish tweeter response now became a very audible sparkle, which sounded very 'Naim/Rega speakerish.' Robin had also bought a Naim amp system by now and catered purely for these dealers. Hence my comment about them being special with the right gear driving them!

I used mine with a Nakamichi CA7/PA5mk2, ARC SP14/Tube Technology Genesis mono's, Croft 4PP/OTL and AVI until I finally switched to ATC 20's in late 91 or so. Robin was in the process of being head-hunted and absorbed into the group that owned M-S and the rest is history.

I still regard the ES14 as a serious classic and wish Robin could have taken the tweeter further, as this was the next thing to look at, but it never happened and he was unable to claim the brand back when he finally left M-S.

Look, I'm sorry if my so called pronouncements don't always fit, but I come to some of these vintage products with a lot of pragmatic user and technical expertise and I won't let people shrug this off as Marco has done in the past, sorry!!!!! 'Just' listening to them was never enough for me and I always wanted to chat to the designers if I could, so I could get a better handle on the products and why they came to market in the ways they did. Sadly, I never got to visit Quad in their heyday, as the one chance of a visit coincided with my giving notice at KJ and the opportunity never arose at Studio 99, where I was never popular because I knew too many people in the industry for a mere numpty oily rag, wasn't that good a salesman (enthusiasm and product knowledge sold the gear for me) and never blindly followed the Linn/Naim ethos to destruction as so many of my compatriots did and possibly still do!

Do you want me to pack up? Gawd, I'm being patronised by the men themselves on the AVI and Harbeth User Groups because I'm TOO subjective FFS. I can't win

P.S. I hardly post on AOS at all now, but NVA in this case has nothing to do with it. I've told Marco in a PM why, so he is aware of the reason!

[southall-1998]

DSJR, I have a pair of Mordaunt Short MS-10i speakers in the basement. They look very ''Epos like''

S.