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[Ken T]

Its interesting what Sir Craig was saying about speaker voice coils distorting over time. The price of old speakers is amazing, people paying stupid amounts for vintage 1968, 1970 Celestions etc. I would imaging they must be shot by now.

Ken

[Kevin Wood]

Its interesting what Sir Craig was saying about speaker voice coils distorting over time. The price of old speakers is amazing, people paying stupid amounts for vintage 1968, 1970 Celestions etc. I would imaging they must be shot by now.

Ken

This is very true. One teenager's party and the tweeters will never be the same again, especially on older speakers that weren't designed with huge power handling.

Kevin

[Ken T]

I am always amazed by the power ratings of todays speakers. A few (30!) years ago, I had a Clestion 18" 100W speaker, fed by a Marshall 50W which was very loud (we got plenty complaints so it must have been!) . Nowadays you can get 1250W RMS speakers for not a lot. When and where can they wind them up ?. The SPL must be deafening.

Ken

[Craig_R]

I have had a pair of celestions ditton 44 which my got smashed up when i left home by my father, I went mad at him the idoit they were in spanking condition. i bough a pair of Celestion ditton 15's mainly because the have the highly sort after HF1300 unit in them, over all the speaker is rubbish.

The Spendor BC1 i have which were FREE sell on ebay for around the 300 to 400 mark and new in 1969 they sold for around the 400 mark i think so they were expensive speakers back then wonder what that is in todays money.

The problem with older speaker even though they are as good if not better than todays speakers is getting the parts they are getting very rare and fetch high prices second hand

[Ken T]

I don't know if the Celestion Ditton 44 driver is any good to you, but there are a couple on auction at pres http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CELESTION-12-BASS-UNIT-IDEAL-DITTON-66-or-44-SUPERB_W0QQitemZ170182932597QQihZ007QQcategoryZ112517QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Ken

[Craig_R]

I have two of those sitting in the loft they are 12inch drivers, they are not really that good speaker drivers they are very Boomy.

But thanks For the thought and link  

Craig

[Kevin Wood]

I am always amazed by the power ratings of todays speakers. A few (30!) years ago, I had a Clestion 18" 100W speaker, fed by a Marshall 50W which was very loud (we got plenty complaints so it must have been!) . Nowadays you can get 1250W RMS speakers for not a lot. When and where can they wind them up ?. The SPL must be deafening.

Ken

It's always worth checking the sensitivity too, though. 30 years ago amplifier output was at a premium so speakers had to be efficient. Nowadays, sensitivity can be sacrificed in the design of speakers.

Kevin

[Pitchfork]

Take a look at these:
http://www.award-session.com/pdfs/Speaker_Upgrade.pdf
http://www.award-session.com/pdfs/GEAR_TALK_1.pdf
 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Valve amps sound soft but, thats no surprise as they are full of harmonics.

I managed to create a valve sound by adding a single stage valve amp to the pre-amp stage of a good linear discrete amp, this could be bypassed at will (depending on what mood you were in) and was quite effective.

At the end of the day, valve amps have problems.

They are mega heavy, very expensive to make these days (try buying an output transfomer!) and do produce quite a heavily 'modified' output so wont re-produce the sound the artist intended you to hear (which in some cases might be a good thing).

Of course, valve amps dont age as well and require a few minutes to get upto optimum operating temp.

Its horses for courses and very dependent on what you like.

Me, I am not a massive fan of valve amps, I prefer to create a good low noise, low distortion linear amp as a starting block and build on it.

As for simplicity, a Mosfet amp is equaly as simple....

[Marks DTM Calib]

I am always amazed by the power ratings of todays speakers. A few (30!) years ago, I had a Clestion 18" 100W speaker, fed by a Marshall 50W which was very loud (we got plenty complaints so it must have been!) . Nowadays you can get 1250W RMS speakers for not a lot. When and where can they wind them up ?. The SPL must be deafening.

Ken

They operate very differently though, a high power unit like that will be quite stiff unlike old units where......this adds a lot of extra control and realy tightnes the bass up so you dont get masses of extra output. This is at the price of efficiency though

Remember that when you consider basic power, to double the output of a 30W amp you need to go to 300W......4 times the output would be 3000W!.