advertisement


Anyone for a Sandwich ?

madmike

madmike

I feel much better now, I really do...
Pair of Leak Sandwich speakers near me...look very heavy and nice from the outside...are they any good ?
Its the ones with the aluminium trim round the edges and the front cover sits inside.
 
Last heard a set when I was about 16. They were in the music room at school. Sounded great to me, but then my reference at the time was either the home Dansette or the pair of baffle-less Richard Allen 12" full-range that were hanging on threads on my tiny bedroom wall. I did put a big square of fibreglass attic insulation behind them.
 
Based on the above I think I have been looking at a pair of 2060s...
 
I had a pair of Leak 600 sandwich speakers in my very first system back in about 1970/71 Sounded great with my Armstrong 521 and Lenco GL75 with Goldring 800E cart

I passed them on to my father in law when I went to work abroad in the late 70's and when he died some 10 years back and I had some house clearing to do I gave them and the Lenco to a current neighbour

I still hear them on occasion when I visit and they still sound pretty good. Perhaps not as dynamic as they were. Let's face it they are 50 yrs old but still singing

eddie
 
madmike said:
Based on the above I think I have been looking at a pair of 2060s...
Click to expand...

In that case, they are lovely things and well worth grabbing. Just beware, though as, if you like them, you'll start hankering after 2075s, and that's a slippery slope ending up at 3090s... ;)
 
The original Sandwich was bloody awful! I've heard several pairs and with Leak St20 as well as other amps. Screechy, coloured and bass light for such a big speaker.

I owned a set of 2060's for about a year a long time ago. Much better than original Sandwich but still no great shakes IMHO. The 2075 and 3090 are the one's to have but massive.

I have a pair of Mini-Sandwich in the middle of my living room which I dragged out of a cupboard to give 'em another go about a year ago... they seem to have acquired a pile of books and CD's on top of them nowo_O:rolleyes:

I used them in a retro radio system about 12 years ago in another life... Stereo 70 amp and Stereofetic tuner in teak sleeve with the Mini-Sandwich speakers each side and all plonked on top of a period G-Plan sideboard. They sounded promising in terms of a quite clear crisp mids of reasonably low colouration but had bugger all bass (bay window behind meant not up against wall)... I had to use the bass control on the amp at quite a lot of boost just to make them listenable type bass light! I suspect that they really do need to be on bookshelves/right against a wall to sound OK in this respect.... which I remembered only after dragging them out again this time! I don't have a suitable wall location for them in this room and already have Mordaunt Short Festivals doing sterling against wall duty in the workshop.
 
madmike said:
Noted Jez.....I'm just a sucker for big heavy teak boxes !
Click to expand...

If you can get them cheap enough (£50) then worth trying "for a laugh" and you can move them on for what you paid for them:)

2060 mini review based on having owned a pair 35 years ago: Bass quite tight, overdamped almost. Doesn't go as low as you may expect for cabinet size but OK-ish. Mids actually not bad from the Rank/Wharfedale white bextrene with rows of holes (look like holes but transparent backing layer present) stylee midrange drivers. Top end well it's extended enough etc but uses that purple dome Rank/Wharfedale tweeter which can sound a tad aggressive and spiky. Overall not awful or anything but sounds a bit "dead" and you keep wanting to turn it up louder to inject some "life" and "zest" to the sound. All IMHO and YMMV! I considered that I was "giving it a retro vibe" by having these 35 years ago! They were certainly from an earlier era and old fashioned when new but they would actually have only been about 10-12 years old at the time (1985 ish) I guess.
 
Aw man that sounds like the large goodmans I had with 12 inch cones, you think these are going to rock, but they limped had to keep pushing the volume for not much return
 
To be fair, the purple dome tweeters on the 2060 and 2075 are indeed a bit edgy, as Jez says, but respond very well to some new capacitors in the treble section of the crossover - more so than any other speaker I've ever encountered in fact.
 
I simply replaced them with better more modern tweeters in a few instances with other Leak/Wharfedale speakers.
Dovedale SP's come to mind... Any modern tweeter will be a huge upgrade. A few crossover tweaks may be required to get things "just so".
 
Speakers are still hanging around...looked at the back, they are Sandwich 600s...not 2060s
 
Never heard or closely inspected a pair, always wanted to purely from a technology perspective. That picture of Harold Leak standing on the cone suggested it was an incredibly rigid structure, but I’ve no idea what they sound like. I can’t believe they were terrible as there was some good competition back then and they sold a lot of them. I wish I had a proper index for my Gramophone collection (I have a full bound set from 1954-78) so I’m bound to have a review with measurements etc, but it would take an age to find it!

PS Picture of Harold standing on one reproduced here: http://44bx.com/leak/sandwich.html
 
Original sandwich got very good reviews at the time. They are truly awful though. I've heard maybe 6 different pairs, often with Leak amps and a pair of wharfedale diamonds (original cheap ones) would completely thrash them... yes even in the bass end!
 
They're not that bad! Yes, they're soft and warm and woolly thanks to the 3" cone "tweeter" but i can think of many far less pleasant ways to listen to music.

As an aside, the best I've heard a pair sound was on the end of a Marconi 'Unit 4' receiver. The matching Marconi speakers were just a big oval full-range driver in a box, so the receiver was obviously tuned to match this as it is all bass and treble and not much midrange. However, the Leaks are all warm middle and not much at the top or bottom. Put them together and they worked remarkably well!
 
Beobloke said:
They're not that bad! Yes, they're soft and warm and woolly thanks to the 3" cone "tweeter" but i can think of many far less pleasant ways to listen to music.

As an aside, the best I've heard a pair sound was on the end of a Marconi 'Unit 4' receiver. The matching Marconi speakers were just a big oval full-range driver in a box, so the receiver was obviously tuned to match this as it is all bass and treble and not much midrange. However, the Leaks are all warm middle and not much at the top or bottom. Put them together and they worked remarkably well!
Click to expand...

I would describe the sandwich as the exact opposite of your description! Cold, sterile, screechy, bass light and also lacking top end extension but has a noticeable mid suck out where the 13" woofer can't crossover to the huge tweeter. Also inefficient, little dynamics and won't play loud. Think Lowthers without the dynamics or efficiency!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top