Big, highly sensitive vintage speakers - oh and cheap

HiFi
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I’ve been chatting with the guys from Brothers of Ale (https://www.facebook.com/brothersofale/) about the idea of putting together a nice room filling hifi system to help draw music lovers who like ale into their tap house once the sunshine has gone away and we return to miserable weather. They open Friday and Saturdays and quite fancy a classic album slot plus some assorted tunes afterwards.

They like the idea of a vinyl and tubes set up which I can help them with by using my Gate Audio 300B monos (push- pull so about 16w) and the Techie SL Q15 turntable that @octh has just sold to me.

What I’m now looking for is a pair of fairly decent sounding, room filling speakers that will work with the amps I’ve got, whilst looking suitably vintage cool.

I like these but ideally would want to spend half that if possible -

Suggestions very welome :+1:

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Vintage large efficient domestic speakers tend to be expensive and sought after. I wonder if second hand pro audio disco type speakers might be something easy to find to start with?

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Build something to go into a corner?

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These appear to be just in budget. It’d be interesting to hear what they’d do running from a low-ish powered valve amp.

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That’s a possibility I guess. Depends on how much space I can get from them and where they’re willing to let the speakers be placed.

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:grin::grin::grin:

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Coming to a house party near you.

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I reckon a few pieces of wood to make a baffle with a top for putting beer on, angled into a corner, and some 2" compression drivers with DIY conical horns would look fun and work well. Multicell would look much cooler, but budget…

Does it really make sense to get random old or new PA speakers? Hardly seems the vibe to me.

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But £250.

You aren’t really likely to find vintage high efficiency speakers that work for that price or suitable 15"s & compression drivers.

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Might be negotiable, I’m going to have a drink with the brothers this week and chat about it so having ideas and particularly pictures to explain and help see what impresses them.

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In my experience those multi driver 70’s Japanese speakers are shit and easily trounced by something like a pair of Epos ES14.

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Maybe not in a largeish room in a pub & with a 16W valve amp driving them

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Only 90 dB/W though (JBL’s)

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:frowning_face:

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Just sold Wharfdale H2, they would have fitted the bill. The dreamers on eBay are £300+, mine sold for £90🤦‍♂️

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^^^This^^^ (although I’m not sure I’d consider ES14s an improvement on them either, but still…)

Personally I’d go with the biggest Cerwin Vegas you can afford, or try and track down a pair of Goodmans High Impact Monitor 880s.

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Why not convince the ‘ale men’ to host an audio weekender bakeoff type thing? They get a decent system and a taste of their potential ‘new’ clientèle along with a car park full of BBQ’s and a 100m Brownie exclusion zone.
I’m confident after sufficient ale a few conversions to Kiki Dee could be made.

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