advertisement


The Spendor BC1

A very, very different speaker being a sealed box three-way with a glued cab! I’ve never heard a pair, but I’d have thought they’d have had more in common with Ditton 44s or AR 3As. I recognise the tweeter from elsewhere (Seas or Audax?), but not the other drivers.
 
Tony L said:
A very, very different speaker being a sealed box three-way with a glued cab! I’ve never heard a pair, but I’d have thought they’d have had more in common with Ditton 44s or AR 3As. I recognise the tweeter from elsewhere (Seas or Audax?), but not the other drivers.
Click to expand...

Don't know what they were but here are some close-ups of the drive units:-
SMC AS40 Tweeter by Fatt Burger, on Flickr

SMC AS40 Mid-range by Fatt Burger, on Flickr

SMC AS40 Woofer by Fatt Burger, on Flickr
 
I’m pretty sure that tweeter is the one used in the Heybrook HB2 (which were superb IMO) and others, no idea about the rest. I’ve never seen a red mid unit before!
 
I'd actually forgotten that the original BC1s were front ported as opposed to the sealed-box AS40s.
I've just had an idle Google moment while listening to the recently-departed Tony Joe White and discovered that the bass unit was Peerless and the mid-range and tweeter from Audax. Well done Tony!
All other info is now lost in the mists of pre-internet time . . .
 
Tony L said:
I’m pretty sure that tweeter is the one used in the Heybrook HB2 (which were superb IMO) and others, no idea about the rest. I’ve never seen a red mid unit before!
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, Spendor used it in the Prelude and original SA1 speakers.
The Audax and Peerless tweeters looked similar.
 
Martyn Miles said:
If I recall correctly, Spendor used it in the Prelude and original SA1 speakers.
The Audax and Peerless tweeters looked similar.
Click to expand...


IIRC you could get the Audax with both a rectangular and round mounting plate, it was a very widely used tweeter at the time and a very good one IMO.
 
I'm actually wondering how these (or similar) would sound if there would be a mid bass unit made of paper or similar more musical material instead of bextrene/plastic.... IMHO this material (bextrene or similar) doesn't belong to fine music reproducing machines. I recently spent some hours at friend's place with his Chartwell PM400, great expectation but same wool all over. I even heard its sonic stamp on one of the recent Spendors from classic range, 2 way...
 
Last edited:
Martyn Miles said:
The Peerless appeared to have the thin foam strip around the tweeter dome.
Click to expand...

That Peerless says it's made in W Germany, weren't Peerless drivers usually from Denmark? This unit isn't the same as the more common Peerless KO 10 DT tweeter from the same time period:

IMG_1159.JPG


The sticky dome with the foam strip appears to be similar to other W German domes of the '70s as seen in Braun, ADS, Canton, MB, and other such Teutonic speakers.
 
anubisgrau said:
I'm actually wondering how these (or similar) would sound if there would be a mid bass unit made of paper or similar more musical material instead of bextrene/plastic.... IMHO this material (bextrene or similar) doesn't belong to fine music reproducing machines. I recently spent some hours at friend's place with his Chartwell PM400, great expectation but same wool all over. I even heard its sonic stamp on one of the recent Spendors from classic range, 2 way...
Click to expand...

I say the exact opposite. Give me bextrene or polypropylene etc any day! If paper was adequate they wouldn't have gone to such lengths to improve on it...
 
anubisgrau said:
I'm actually wondering how these (or similar) would sound if there would be a mid bass unit made of paper or similar more musical material instead of bextrene/plastic.... IMHO this material (bextrene or similar) doesn't belong to fine music reproducing machines. I recently spent some hours at friend's place with his Chartwell PM400, great expectation but same wool all over. I even heard its sonic stamp on one of the recent Spendors from classic range, 2 way...
Click to expand...

The only paper I found was musical had music written on it...
 
Bextrene is a great material IMO but the amplifier needs to be matched well. If it is, then it can sound truly excellent.
 
give me saba green cone mid or fostex wide range unit over anything ever made of bextrene or other plastic, let alone treated paper etc. that said i am fine with anyone preferring anything else. plastic drivers are less prone to cone breakups so no modulation peaks and smoother but at cost of resolution (and IMHO excitement). some people do prefer that, fine.
 
anubisgrau said:
give me saba green cone mid or fostex wide range unit over anything ever made of bextrene or other plastic, let alone treated paper etc. that said i am fine with anyone preferring anything else. plastic drivers are less prone to cone breakups so no modulation peaks and smoother but at cost of resolution (and IMHO excitement). some people do prefer that, fine.
Click to expand...

You want vast amounts of distortion and extreme low fi then... each to their own...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top