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Vintage audio pricing

Tony L said:
I remember the ‘70s well as despite being a kid I was already a geeky audiophile, I just didn’t have any money to buy anything until I came into a few hundred quid via a will when I was 15 (hence my first Quad/JR149 system being rather better than most peoples starting off point!). I remember drooling at shop window displays, picking up brochures, buying magazines etc long before I had any actual spending power.



Ditton 66s would easily cost £6-10k in today’s speaker market, the nearest equivalent would be something like the reissued Tannoy Arden which is £6.5k (and seems cheap at that price given what that money typically buys these days). A whole different thing to the active Kef mini-monitors. I bet the Kefs are great, but they stand zero chance attaining of the scale and ease of a really big speaker. Physics still applies!

The big Celestions were actually the speakers that got me into hi-fi in the first place, a friend’s dad had a pair and I’d never heard anything remotely like them. A huge effortless full-range sound (much as I take for granted these days from my Lockwoods!). I was hooked from the first few seconds of the Moody Blues album he played (A Question Of Balance).
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I was going on the prices quoted in the post, these must have been way off the mark then.
 
Ragaman said:
I was going on the prices quoted in the post, these must have been way off the mark then.
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The market has changed entirely, e.g. when Garrard made the 301 & 401 they sold 7,000 or so a year, over its long lifespan Quad made something like 120,000 33 preamps. I bet no high-end manufacturer sells more than a few hundred of anything these days. What was once commonplace is now a very specialist niche, and sadly one for the comparitively to very wealthy. A whole different thing with no economy of scale anywhere but the real budget end, e.g. Rega and Project can bang decks out in serious quantities, but Michell, Linn, SME etc will be very low-volume these days, pretty much building to order.

The other thing that has changed is everyone seems to want slim speakers with tiny little drivers. Obviously a huge speaker like a Ditton 66, Tannoy or whatever costs a heck of a lot more to ship, and I suspect this is a huge factor given so much audio is now made in China and other low-wage economies. Back in the day of the 66, Arden etc a Ditton 15 was a “small speaker”, and that has two 8” drivers (one passive) and a tweeter! The 66 was a three way with two 12” bass units (one passive), a dome mid and a tweeter. They were a very good loudspeaker with no real equivalent in today’s marketplace. Things have changed rather a lot.
 
China is not a low wage economy anymore. The low prices of ten years ago that killed off UK manufacturers are gone
 
Tony L. mentions slim speakers with tiny drivers. I noticed they were going this way a while ago. I've never been a fan of this type of floorstanding loudspeaker, on sound quality or aesthetic grounds.
 
I see more retro style speakers with a big bass driver these days than ten years ago.
Speakers like the Devore Orangutan have become fashionable. Some of these are quite flawed with a big bass driver crossing way too high, they should have been three ways.
People might well be buying them for the coloured presentation.
 
Tony L said:
I bet no high-end manufacturer sells more than a few hundred of anything these days. What was once commonplace is now a very specialist niche, and sadly one for the comparitively to very wealthy. A whole different thing with no economy of scale anywhere but the real budget end, e.g. Rega and Project can bang decks out in serious quantities, but Michell, Linn, SME etc will be very low-volume these days, pretty much building to order.
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I was amazed watching a video tour of the Wilson Audio factory. They must be doing some decent quantities, considering the amount of resources they have under one roof. I would have expected them to be much smaller, more "cottage industry".

 
I’ll watch it later. I’d still be surprised if there was that much of a market at that price range, though Wilsn speakers are so astonishingly expensive you’d not have to sell that many to buy some pretty serious tooling, plus they are a company that have been around a long time so likely invested a lot when there was more of an audio market to serve.

PS Very disappinted to see Michael Fremer posting a portrait format iPhone video, he really should know better!
 
Tony L said:
PS Very disappinted to see Michael Fremer posting a portrait format iPhone video, he really should know better!
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I don’t like them either, but with Fremer the funny voices irritate me more. Oh, and the failed attempts at humour.
 
Stunsworth said:
I don’t like them either, but with Fremer the funny voices irritate me more. Oh, and the failed attempts at humour.
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I think he does a good job find him rather amusing, he’s definitely one of the good guys IMHO. I was just surprised that someone who makes such good videos on the whole would fall into the holding the phone the wrong way up thing!
 
Ragaman said:
Found this on the Celestion Ditton 66
https://audionostalgia.co.uk/celestion-ditton-66-review/

Gives some idea of the price differential too.
1500 seems the going rate second hand these days.

Is there a smaller model in this range which would stand up to the quality of these.
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I've also owned Ditton 15s and Ditton 44s.

I owned the 15s a long time ago whilst I was still quite near the bottom of my 'hifi climb', so memories are sketchy, but I remember them being very pleasant but ultimately limited in scale and too warm and lacking in detail and a bit slow/loose in the lower frequencies. I do know that the HF1300 is only good up to around 15kHz, however I'm not sure if it by itself can be entirely responsible for the 15's warm character as in my experience the most influential frequencies on a loudspeaker's tonal balance are well below 15kHz.

The 44 is quite coloured in the mids / lower mids / upper bass but it's a very musical, engaging and pleasing loudspeaker to listen to. In fact with a little bit of EQ to reduce the bloat in the lower mids / upper bass it can be turned into a decently transparent speaker.

I don't have experience of the 25 but am a bit sceptical about its driver configuration and how well integrated a 12-inch woofer crossing over to a paralleled pair of HF1300s would be.

There's also the 15XR, 22 and 33, but again I don't have experience of these.

I've always wanted to try a pair of 88's but they are rare as hens teeth and hence very pricey when they do come up for sale. Sourcing spare parts for them would also be a great challenge I would suspect!

PS - You may wish to take the audionostalgia with a pinch of salt. Many 66 owners have come to realise that re-capping this loudspeaker in particular is not as straight-forward as it seems. It's not just a case of buying the best quality polyprops you can afford. Indeed many owners have been disappointed with the results post-recapping. You have to be especially careful of the MF circuit and maintain the same ESR etc otherwise the tonal presentation and distortion profile can change markedly. A chap over on AoS spent several months experimenting with dozens of caps before finally settling on the best combination that most faithfully preserved the 66's original sound. He very helpfully documented his project on his website (www.jkwynn.co.uk/66_HTML/66_Thumbs.html) and also through an exchange of emails instructed on the exact caps to use. I was very happy with the end result.

PPS - I just noticed audionostalgia also has a review of the Ditton 15s and concludes that they are an unnaturally bright sounding speakers. I don't think you'd find many 15 owners who will agree with that!
 
Ragaman said:
Is there a smaller model in this range which would stand up to the quality of these.
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The 66 was the best of the range by far as it had a superb dome mid as well as really good bass and top. It was a very good speaker by any standard. The next down was the 44, a really nice 3-way, but lacks a little clarity compared to the 66. The 33 and 22 were bass-compromised versions of the 44 and rather less successful. The 15 was kind of the default speaker of the 1970s, very affordable and very well thought-out. It could sound a bit woolly and loose in the context it was sold due to the limitations of cheap record decks, but with a good source it is really rather good. Not the last word in detail or speed, but very easy to listen to across genres. The oddity of the range was the Ditton 25 which is kind of a giant 15, i.e. a two way but with 12” bass drivers rather than 8” and a reputation for not much mid-band!

The sleeper here is there is a B&O speaker that is basically Ditton 66 parts in a smaller cab, i.e. it has the superb dome mid. I can’t remember the model number, but they go for about half the price or less of a pair of 66. Adam (Beobloke) will know it for sure.

Basically I’d rate them 66, B&O, 44, and I do have a soft spot for the 15 as it was just everywhere at one time, I knew a lot of people with say a PL12D, little Marantz or Pioneer receiver and a pair. They just remind me of growing up in the ‘70s!
 
Tony L said:
The 66 was the best of the range by far as it had a superb dome mid as well as really good bass and top. It was a very good speaker by any standard. The next down was the 44, a really nice 3-way, but lacks a little clarity compared to the 66. The 33 and 22 were bass-compromised versions of the 44 and rather less successful. The 15 was kind of the default speaker of the 1970s, very affordable and very well thought-out. It could sound a bit woolly and loose in the context it was sold due to the limitations of cheap record decks, but with a good source it is really rather good. Not the last word in detail or speed, but very easy to listen to across genres. The oddity of the range was the Ditton 25 which is kind of a giant 15, i.e. a two way but with 12” bass drivers rather than 8” and a reputation for not much mid-band!

The sleeper here is there is a B&O speaker that is basically Ditton 66 parts in a smaller cab, i.e. it has the superb dome mid. I can’t remember the model number, but they go for about half the price or less of a pair of 66. Adam (Beobloke) will know it for sure.

Basically I’d rate them 66, B&O, 44, and I do have a soft spot for the 15 as it was just everywhere at one time, I knew a lot of people with say a PL12D, little Marantz or Pioneer receiver and a pair. They just remind me of growing up in the ‘70s!
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Ah yes, the B&O 5700 and 5702, I also owned both, and as much as it pains me to say it, I also stripped both out and took the cabs to landfill! The 5702 was binned because I needed one pair of MF500s and HF2000s for a pair of minty empty 66 cabinets I acquired, and the 5700 was binned because I couldn't sell it for what I thought it was worth (the pitfalls of living north of Hadrian's wall and stipulating collection only!). I therefore decided to keep the other MF500s and HF2000s as backups and trash the cabs. Great sounding speakers the 5700 and 5702, but rather cosmetically challenged and unwieldy (i.e. extremely large and heavy for a standmount!) compared to 66s IMO.
 
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ToTo Man said:
I've also owned Ditton 15s and Ditton 44s.

PPS - I just noticed audionostalgia also has a review of the Ditton 15s and concludes that they are an unnaturally bright sounding speakers. I don't think you'd find many 15 owners who will agree with that!
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I have heard two pairs over the last decade and on both occasions they underwhelmed me. They were a speaker I aspired to when I had my first stereo with humble Wharfdale Denton's. When I finally heard some they sounded thin (bright perhaps) and not warm but definitely woolly. I really wanted to like them but the last pair I heard (this was two weeks ago) were trashed by a pair of humble Arcam 20's which are now residing in a friends system; his Ditton 15's are awaiting their fate.
 
Ragaman said:
Local guy selling a pair of Ditton 15xr.

Edit, tweeters look dodgy.
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I think the XR's use HF1001 tweeters instead of HF1300. The HF1001 apparently has better extension than the HF1300, though having never heard one I can't comment on how it compares in terms of its quality below 15kHz. The HF1300 may run out of steam at 14kHz but there's a good reason why it was used in many three- or four-way top of the line models of that era (e.g. Rogers and IMFs), and that is it's a very good sounding unit when used appropriately.
 
Those interested in a loudspeaker from the same era and that shares a similar footprint to the Ditton 15 should check out the Goodmans Minister or Goodmans Havant, either the original or the SL models. Both are very good bookshelf speakers (for their time) and outperform the 15's IMO and can probably be had for less money too. I picked up a pair of Ministers a few years ago for £5 and it was the best £5 I've spent!
 
ToTo Man said:
Those interested in a loudspeaker from the same era and that shares a similar footprint to the Ditton 15 should check out the Goodmans Minister or Goodmans Havant, either the original or the SL models. Both are very good bookshelf speakers (for their time) and outperform the 15's IMO and can probably be had for less money too. I picked up a pair of Ministers a few years ago for £5 and it was the best £5 I've spent!
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I’ll second the Goodmans Ministers. They were my first ‘proper’ speakers, back in the early ‘70s.
If I recall correctly I sold them to buy some Havants.
I bought another pair of Ministers a year or so ago and was very surprised how good they sounded on a modern system.
Now owned by the drummer in Radiohead.
 
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