George J
Herefordshire member
Over the last four decades of having my own radio and replay, I have never had a set-up that I disliked. Indeed each was an incremental improvement over the previous one. I started with a Sony set based on a PS LX5 direct drive turntable, through a forty Watt Sony amp and three way Sony speakers made in Germany that were far better than any previous Sony speakers I had heard, and stayed with me for seventeen years like the amp. That set got a huge amount of use, many stylus [removable] tip replacements and eventually it was fairly clapped out. Next part of the journey was with Naim, after ascertaining that the Sony amp and speakers were long since not supported for service. No doubt that these days they could be refreshed, but having given great service and pleasure I did not seriously explore refurbishing the set. The three head tape cassette recorder was running slightly slow, and the tuner had developed a slight hum. The part that survived was one of those ES series CD players, which I actually sold for money after a good ten years of heavy use, particularly after I gave up on LP replay as the main recorded music source in 1993. I did briefly have a [bought new] Rega P3 with Super Elys cartridge, which I got to make very good LP transfers of a few remaining records that had not made it onto CD. I used a Philips CD recording machine for this process, and some of the transfers still sound well in iTunes even now ...
Well that is the context. The Sony speakers were sterling for their time, but after a false start at replacing them [no I am not going to denigrate a speaker set in public because I eventually fell out with its peculiarities ...] I ended up with a pre-issue set of SBLs [serial number 0013, both of them, that were later converted to the later mark 2 bass drivers at Salisbury and eventually sold by the company through a Bristol dealership. These were rather fine speakers that were historically significant in the development and improvement of the SBL series at the time. I imagine that they were a fine example of what SBLs should be.
The next speaker set I got [due to somewhat straightened circumstances] was a pair Royd Minstrel SEs. Now this should have been a serious downgrade from the SBLs, at least on paper. It was not in terms of engagement and pleasure in listening. In one respect they were an an improvement on the SBLs in truth. They possessed that rare thing in dual driver speaker, seamless integration. The only other speakers I have heard that were as good as the Minstrel set is a pair of Falcon BBC Monitor types. They operate in a similar scale, and do not need to be pushed to sound beautiful, fantastically neutral [and natural]. Of course neither the Falcons nor Minstrels had the same ability to thunder at high levels such as may be desired [not by me] for Rock and Pop and the SBLs could manage so well.
I have ended up with a singular ESL made in 1957, and still [after last being serviced in 2016 at Huntingdon] sounding as fresh as a daisy.
Why post this in a context of the season? Simply because there are some recordings that get played only at this time of year, not the least being a NRK CD recording with Elizabeth Norberg-Schultz [soprano] with a crack Norwegian chamber group, including Rolf Lisveland on Lute playing continuo, recorded in Austria with a very fine parish church organ. Nothing grand. This is intimate Juletide music making such as you might be lucky to hear in hundreds of local Parish Churches during Advent.
This recording comes out once a year and I have had it since before the SBLs. They made it not just intimate but also very immediate, as if placing the listener in the front pew of the Church. The organ had almost too much power at the front of the congregation, but that can a be real enough in real life as organs tend to be "voiced" to fill the space they are installed in as a bespoke process. So the forward presentation was not un-natural in the context of sitting further forward than I would have chosen to in real life.
The Minstrels were less in your face yet still beautifully focussed.
However - and I am guessing you already ready for this! The single ESL sounds perfectly intimate - the Church is a 200 seater not 2000 - and yet one gets, with the ESL, the sense of distance and performing space that eluded the SBL and to some extent the Minstrels. Strangely the ESL gets the organ rather well - fully deep and absolutely focussed and pitched, but also perfectly in musical balance and obviously further from the listener than the soloist and Lutenist.
So the old speaker now in its seventh decade is still my favourite. I listened to the Nine Readings and Carols from Kings yesterday. Really as good being there, but in the comfort of my own home. The old mono Trough-Line radio is still able to give as much pleasure as any other radio I have ever heard, if one prefers or can simply accept mono as the medium of replay ...
Best wishes and greetings of the season to all here. George
Well that is the context. The Sony speakers were sterling for their time, but after a false start at replacing them [no I am not going to denigrate a speaker set in public because I eventually fell out with its peculiarities ...] I ended up with a pre-issue set of SBLs [serial number 0013, both of them, that were later converted to the later mark 2 bass drivers at Salisbury and eventually sold by the company through a Bristol dealership. These were rather fine speakers that were historically significant in the development and improvement of the SBL series at the time. I imagine that they were a fine example of what SBLs should be.
The next speaker set I got [due to somewhat straightened circumstances] was a pair Royd Minstrel SEs. Now this should have been a serious downgrade from the SBLs, at least on paper. It was not in terms of engagement and pleasure in listening. In one respect they were an an improvement on the SBLs in truth. They possessed that rare thing in dual driver speaker, seamless integration. The only other speakers I have heard that were as good as the Minstrel set is a pair of Falcon BBC Monitor types. They operate in a similar scale, and do not need to be pushed to sound beautiful, fantastically neutral [and natural]. Of course neither the Falcons nor Minstrels had the same ability to thunder at high levels such as may be desired [not by me] for Rock and Pop and the SBLs could manage so well.
I have ended up with a singular ESL made in 1957, and still [after last being serviced in 2016 at Huntingdon] sounding as fresh as a daisy.
Why post this in a context of the season? Simply because there are some recordings that get played only at this time of year, not the least being a NRK CD recording with Elizabeth Norberg-Schultz [soprano] with a crack Norwegian chamber group, including Rolf Lisveland on Lute playing continuo, recorded in Austria with a very fine parish church organ. Nothing grand. This is intimate Juletide music making such as you might be lucky to hear in hundreds of local Parish Churches during Advent.
This recording comes out once a year and I have had it since before the SBLs. They made it not just intimate but also very immediate, as if placing the listener in the front pew of the Church. The organ had almost too much power at the front of the congregation, but that can a be real enough in real life as organs tend to be "voiced" to fill the space they are installed in as a bespoke process. So the forward presentation was not un-natural in the context of sitting further forward than I would have chosen to in real life.
The Minstrels were less in your face yet still beautifully focussed.
However - and I am guessing you already ready for this! The single ESL sounds perfectly intimate - the Church is a 200 seater not 2000 - and yet one gets, with the ESL, the sense of distance and performing space that eluded the SBL and to some extent the Minstrels. Strangely the ESL gets the organ rather well - fully deep and absolutely focussed and pitched, but also perfectly in musical balance and obviously further from the listener than the soloist and Lutenist.
So the old speaker now in its seventh decade is still my favourite. I listened to the Nine Readings and Carols from Kings yesterday. Really as good being there, but in the comfort of my own home. The old mono Trough-Line radio is still able to give as much pleasure as any other radio I have ever heard, if one prefers or can simply accept mono as the medium of replay ...
Best wishes and greetings of the season to all here. George
Last edited:
