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Goodmans Axiom 201

H

Hoopsontoast

pfm Member
I picked a pair of these up at the weekend....


System by RSdesignUK, on Flickr


System by RSdesignUK, on Flickr


System by RSdesignUK, on Flickr

Its a pair of Goodmans Axiom 201 12" wide range drivers in a ~80Litre ported cabinet.

They certainly need some sort of tweeter on top, I have my Fountek JP2 ribbons running from ~7.5kHz and up (12dB/Octave) with the 201s running without a filter.

They have that same relaxed presentation that a lot of older speakers have while still retaining good dynamics and bass punch (at the expense of bass depth) with the Zen, I prefer them to the Hersey II I played around with before.
They seem to integrate into the room well, and the sound-stage is very well defined with the ribbons helping in this respect.

I plan to try them open backed as well, as the 201s are apparently quite good in OB.
 
They look great! Are they original Goodmans cabs or a (apparently very nicely made) DIY job? I don't know anything much about the Axiom driver, but if it's anything similar to a Tannoy dual concentric you'll need to toe them in if you want the treble!
 
Well its a similar age to the Tannoy Golds (Late '60s) but its a wide range driver with a small whizzer cone rather than the Dual Concentric arrangement on the Tannoys.
I have had some 12" HPDs in Cheviots before, and these do have a similar style, even if it was a good few years back I had the Tannoys.
I have them toed in at the moment, after I took those photos, with the Ribbons firing forward parallel to the wall.

As far as I can tell they are a DIY effort, but not original age, they are a ~18mm/25mm Chipboard construction with a ~6mm layer of MDF on the outside then veneered.

The Axiom 201 driver is a 15 Ohm unit, so not perfect for the 6Ohm O/T in the Zen but they seem to match well together.

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Mine are the later (I belive) version with the thinner 3x 3-prong cast chassis. I will post some pics later of the driver.

I will try them in the corners of the room too, at some point.
 
I'll save you the effort, they're a bugger to undo !


DSC_3170 by levs the diver, on Flickr

DSC_3171 by levs the diver, on Flickr
DSC_3172 by levs the diver, on Flickr

I would've said they are period, 1966 like the rest of the gear they came with. What looks like veneered MDF on the outside throws this idea, maybe high grade hardboard?

They certainly have a small sweet spot, but this was alleviated with additional tweets.

They're not the desirable early ones, or the 301, but they're as new condition.
 
Just love the sticker 'For amplifiers up to 15 watts [30 watts USA]'.

Always wanted to try a pair of these drive units. I just don't have the room to house the cabinets.
 
Are the cabs ported or do they have the aperiodic ARU in them? It's tough to tell from the shadow on the grill cloth, but the ports do look large.

I have two pairs of 201s, the newer ones like Mark posted, and the older ones with the two thick struts and cloth surround. I've been meaning to try them out, but I really don't have the space for speaker experimentation. I also have a few of the Goodmans horn tweeters and the crossover units, but have no idea if they work.
 
I've got a pair of these and plans for an Onken enclosure for them if/when I ever get round to building them...
 
98cm high x 44cm wide x 40cm deep. They are plans from the official designer and he asked me to send him measurements when they are done. F6 is 45Hz
 
Rubber. It's thinner and not formed like you'd see on something like the Tannoy 12" golds that had rubber surrounds. The earlier model of the 201 had pleated paper surrounds.
 
Tony L said:
They look great! Are they original Goodmans cabs or a (apparently very nicely made) DIY job? I don't know anything much about the Axiom driver, but if it's anything similar to a Tannoy dual concentric you'll need to toe them in if you want the treble!
Click to expand...

The Goodmans Axiom goes back a long way - I bought one in the pre-stereo mid 'fifties. They were an excellent speaker in their day and held their own with Bakers, Vox, Stentorian, Hartley et al in an appropriate cabinet. I have not heard one for many years but for the music they were intended to reproduce, I should be surprised if anything modern would do much better. The voice coil cone was intended as a diffuser but, frankly, I could never detect whether it made much difference to the sound and suspect it might have been more a marketing device than a contribution to enhanced fidelity.

The Axiom had nothing in common with the contemporary Tannoy in design or manufacture but for an appreciable time, Tannoy did buy-in the Goodmans 12 inch paper cone to supplement their own production after West Norwood's supplier's factory was destroyed by fire.

Richard C.
 
As an experiment, and on recommendations, I tried the 201s 'Open Backed' and they certainly do work very well in that configuration.
I have had quite a few Open Baffle speakers before and these were all I was expecting, and not a massive reduction in bass. The Mid-range is a fair more open and the imaging a bit better too. This may well be the configuration for Scalford I think.

The 201 drivers have a Qts of around 0.6/0.7 IIRC so should be well suited to OB use.
 
I've seen a couple of things about their use OB, but I don't have the links handy. I thought of doing it myself with my own 201s, but space doesn't allow it.
 
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