70's Technics Speakers

Picked up a pair of Technics SB-R3’s – quite an unusual find these days, surrounds in good nick.

I like the sound [though there is a bit of crossover influence] they are quite complicated with variable levels for the tweeter and squawker and even protection for those drivers.

The 8″ driver and sealed cab given them a nice punchy sound, the the bass is a little more tuneful than my AE’s, and that tiny bullet tweeter is pretty neat. They are going in bookshelves in the new flat and the real system will be in my “study” with the Rega.

Anyone heard these before?

I’m going to take the bass and mid drivers out and have a look….

This’ll have the purists in a grump

Tiny little horn tweeter 🙂

Aaaah – this may explain the low sensitivity!

The mid gets a tiny enclosure.

The crossover – no deterioration evident from here, in an of the parts actually. Actually there’s a tiny breakout board with the level controls on, but both that and the tweeter are less straightforward to get to, so not tonight or I might break something by mistake.

I guess “Made in Japan” really did mean quality then 🙂

Here’s to retro bargains!

Looks niiiice… I love the look of 70’s HiFi kit! 🙂

But they don’t go up to 11! 😡

I had a set of 80’s ones that were with my parents old amp, great kit sounded amazing, the amp finally dies a few years ago and too bulky to ship to Oz but this has reminded me to look for some old bargains for the office downstairs

Mahoosive yawn.70s Wharfdales FTW.. .

I do like 70s speakers. For complete bonkersness nothing beats 90s Jamo speakers.

How is the crossover distortion evident and why is the efficiency low?

Which AEs are you comparing to – modern £100 ones or pre-brand-buy-out?

I had a pair of NS1000’s for a long while and they were and still are some of my favorites, you do need a very good amp to drive them properly. Japan made and still make some excellent kit.

My personal favorite retrotastic item is the Sanusi TUX1

zzzzz -z-z-z- … Yawwwnnn

Mornin’ all 🙂

Al – what i said about the crossover might have been a little misleading – what I meant was the sound is a little lumpy – the characters of the drivers or perhaps the complexity of the crossover means the sound changes as it moves through the frequency range. Nonetheless it’s a pleasant enough to listen-to.

The efficiency is pretty easy to ballpark low:

I tried them with my spare amp. With either my AEs or the tinytiny Mordaunt shorts, turning the Sony up to 11 [o-clock on the volume control] would be fairly deafening. With these it’s practically required. Yesterday I had it at about 2pm which is unprecedented. I’m attributing this to the sealed cabs, the small magnet on the woofer and all that crossover – it’s like spaghetti junction in there.

My AEs are a pair of refoamed AE109’s, which I do like a lot. However in comparison you can hear they use the port and enclosure to do the deeper notes, with these big woofers on the Technics you can feel the air tremble a bit more tunefully.

These Technics seem to have been in production 79-81.

Does anyone know what sort of horn that is? It’s quite pretty. Interestingly the underneath of the horn protrusion is fitted with a thick layer of foam so as not to reflect the mid driver’s output straight off it. They do seem to have been thoughtfully engineered…

Personally I’d replace the electrolytic caps in the cross-over network as they deteriorate over time.

I was considering that, and on the AEs. I am being distracted by an ill GF or I would have remembered to ask it.

What type are cheap and as-good as the originals? I’m not buying Black Gates for them 😉

You’d have to do some resaerch on what type. It’s been about 20 years since I last bought any!

That Sansui looks mint.

WTF – SOLD your NS-1000’s??? I thought they were regarded by many as the bestist thing evar?

EDIT: OK ‘flaps, cheers. Good idea.

HiFi was a lot more fun back then…I’d love listening to that Sansui amp even if it sounded rubbish…it just looks so cool.

As an aside, can anyone recommend an online resource for the absolute novice speaker builder, with zero electronics/cabinet making experience? Some of the DIY audio forums appear a bit daunting at first glance. I’m looking to build a cheap set of speakers for my computer, so desk friendly in size.

Hmm.

You might be better using a kit speakers are relatively easy to get ‘OK’ but quite hard to get as good as anything you can buy from a respected manufacturer.
Wilmslow have been around for a long time, quite respected.

The World Audio kits were probably good, but there’s something going-on with their site now.

Audio Karma comes up a lot as an active forum. But I can’t link you to another forum, it feels like introducing people for the purposes of an affair…!

Yes, I’ve looked at kits, but feel it misses the point somewhat. I have a perfectly serviceable pair of speakers ATM, but I want a project. I don’t think assembling a kit will be half as satisfying, despite inevitably being better sounding.

Wilmslow looks like a good resource nonetheless.

Ask this guy.

I’d buy a cheap kit, and use those as donors. That way you get a decent starting point, and because they are cheap and easy you won’t feel too bad about hacking them up! You could easily modify / re-cabinet the kit parts, changing one thing at a time and listening to the differences as you do so.

I was hoping CGG might chime in. Donor gear is a possibility, I’ve been scouring Gumtree for ideas. I currently have a pair of boxy sounding Sonys from an old mini system. I’ve EQd the hell out of them and they are now just about tolerable. My main active system has ruined me.

Just to report: they’re really rather good. The clarity of the vocals is quite a revelation, actually. They sound at their best a moderate or low volumes, or it gets a little muddled, and the off axis response of the tweeter is nice. I don’t have to sit he-X-re to enjoy them 🙂

Remarkable engineering. I think I will treat them to a new set of caps.

EDIT: vorlich – check this page for an interesting article and a multitude of links. I owe this chap a lot.

Cheers for that, just bought a book based on some of his links.

This might be useful vorlich

gofasterstripes – Member
However in comparison you can hear they use the port and enclosure to do the deeper notes,

That’s how bass reflex works!

Vorlich – I dunno your cabinet-size limitations but you may struggle to find drivers to work well in small ones. Also if you are doing pure DIY and calculating the box tuning, be aware that some mfrs data is well out – I’ve seen 50% errors on measuring, which means cabinet design is almost a waste of time.

Kits are relatively safe – although some are utter crap (yes, even Wilmslow).

A good VFM upgrade is to buy decent PC speaker and make a nice solid cabinet for them.

Poor vorlich – sounds as-if he’s building kit speakers whether he likes it or not!

WRT bass quality:
In this case the extended frequencies are more coloured, the signal is “boxy”, but because it’s a deeper note, it’s a bit unusual to use that term to describe it. Basically the 109’s sound a bit more stuck to one note in the bass dept, and you can hear they go deeper – but presumably it at the cost of some distortion of the signal due to the boxes’ resonance.

As I said in another thread, they’re currently hooked up to a few thousand quids-worth of front end at my mates flat, which is interesting.

Was listening to classical yesterday,through the Technics/Sony combo – just not as involving. It sounds nice, but just doesn’t capture your attention or sound so involving- no idea how to quantify that.

He also lent me a £150 and a £50 pair of interconnects [VdH and Audioquest] and I am REALLY curious to hear if there is any difference… I am not going to look up their supposed sonic characteristics – just see if we can hear them ourselves first.

Having finished my degree – finally got time to change the caps over. As you can see, I had to make a few values up from networks, but I haven’t heard anywhere that this is a problem.

The caps I took out were well out of spec, only one was still OK. Some of the values had drifted UP by 25%! the 4.7uF reads about 6 now. When I’ve finished I’ll be reporting any findings.

That’s it, I’m selling my Wilsons 😛

Why? Age?

They sound better, more controlled around the midband.

I added a little extra wadding, bass is tighter too, and they now hold it together at higher volumes.

Good for me, less good for the neighbours 🙂

Aaah. ’70’s hifi, eh?

My first amp:

How times change:

I had a pair of Kef Coda 2’s BITD.

I remember them sounding good 8)

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ot-technics-sb-r3-loudspeakers-circa-1979-40#post-6624869

Now for sale!