GruntPuppy
pfm Member
I shall find out on Saturday, when the Goodmans get picked up
Poor drive units in poor boxes with poor crossovers... boom, tizz and screech generally. "never mind the quality, look at the 15" woofers!"
Their last hoorah with the see through polypropylene woofers looked more interesting but I never got to hear them. Achromat etc.
Hmm.
My experience with Ministers and Goodwoods has been with them placed hard against the wall (within 5cm anyway) and they’ve both given a warm, engaging, musical performance. Far better than i expected to achieve in an office system.
The Goodwoods in particular can sound nicely spacious and alive even in this position, and work really nicely with all sorts of music.
Perhaps the choice of drivers took near-wall placement into account?
I certainly wouldn’t discourage anyone from checking these speakers out given the prices they go for.
I think my (mint) Goodwoods cost me £200 and they’ve properly refurbished crossovers.
That’s a lot of speaker for the money if you ask me and I’d rather have these than £200 of shiny Richer Sounds fodder.
Magnum, Magister, K2 amongst the worst speakers ever offered for sale! Avoid.
I've heard most of them! Generally speaking the Mezzo/Magnums of all types I would class as pleasant enough but unremarkable. Certainly worth grabbing for, say, less than three digits, but I never found any of them really worth getting excited about. I was hugely disappointed by the Magisters - when I bought mine, the tweeters were blown but I thought they sounded promising. However, when the correct pair of DT3s were sourced and fitted, I was taken aback - hard, splashy treble; shouty, strident midrange and the bass was biggish but an awful mess - the archetypal 'cardboard box' bass drum effect. As a friend of mine commented - "They sounded better with non-working tweeters"!
As to the ones I have liked, the RB65s were very good, as were the 1990s series of smaller bookshelf models that re-used the Mezzo and Magnum name. The 1990s Magnums are standmounters with an 8" bass driver and a 1" metal dome tweeter and really are very good indeed. As you rightly say, I liked the Imagios despite their flaws but the one pair that really blew me away were the Achromat Sigmas - I really wish I'd kept these as they were superb.
I've still yet to hear a pair of Goodwoods and would be keen to try the Achromat 400s as these seem highly regarded. Sadly the cheap pair that were given to me had a blown bass driver and non original midranges, so I parted them out. The ones I'd really like to hear, though, are the Graduates, however I'm not sure these even made it to production!
P.S. - 1990s Maxim/Mezzo/Magnum family shot below!
The Dimension 8's were an interesting design and had a fun, punchy bass but I always thought they lacked sparkle when positioned conventionally, - hardly surprising really given that the tweeters are aiming significantly off-axis!