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Voicing of the original Goodmans Maxim mini-monitor

I’m learning a fair bit here! I had no idea about the ugly story behind the Leak solid state stuff, nor that Ted Jordan designed the Maxims!
 
RJohan said:
Wasn't they designed by Joe Akroyd?
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According to Joe Akroyd's Wikipedia page, he had a hand in designing the Maxim, the popular Audiom and Axiom drivers, as well as a number of early '70s Wharfedale models...

"Prior to starting Royd Audio, Joe Akroyd worked for Goodmans in the early 1960s, where he contributed to the Maxim mini monitor and the Audiom and Axiom bass drivers. In 1970, Joe Akroyd joined Wharfedale, where he was involved in the manufacture and design of the Denton, Linton, Melton, Triton, Doredale loudspeakers. During the mid-1970s Joe Akroyd joined Decca, in their newly reorganized Speaker department.[2] However in 1979, Racal bought Decca,[3] at which point Joe Akroyd left to set up Royd Audio." Wikipedia
 
Often speakers have more than one person’s design input.
The LS3/5a had input from Technicial staff as well as Senior staff, but they weren’t always given credit.
I designed apparatus at Oxford University’s Chemistry Laboratory, but wasn’t given credit for it.
It was often mentioned on the annual report and that was all.
 
Ted was pretty senior at Goodman's, so I am sure there was plenty of input from Joe and several more lost in history
 
I have Goodmans 2 Maxims. The first bought in early 1960's, (I would have thought 1963 but a comment above suggest it was not available until 1965) the second about 4 years later. The earlier one has a GOODMANS label on the front, teminal connections and 'Goodmans Industries' as the manufacturer on the back. The later one has a G Logo on the front, socket connection and 'Goodmans Loudspeakers Ltd' as the manufacturer.
I have always known that the earlier one is less sensitive than the later one, but when balanced with the amp they sound the same to my ears.
Now I come to try to sell them and check the weight for postage purposes I find that the older one weighs 3.9 kilos, the newer, 2.9 kilos, an huge difference.
Has anyone a plausible explanation for this? Alnico springs to mind, but surely suitable Alnico speakers would have been available by 1963 and a difference of a kilo in the weight of the speakers sounds improbable.
It would also be interesting to know which model was being used by the BBC for their comparisons.
 
From what I can gather, the original Maxims had very deep (and thus heavy!) Alnico magnets, but the later version had smaller magnets:

Original Maxim:
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mRO23mdQbFgr2it8qoDzc5t4N6eiH1dgSUul6YkPrdLrlIioUgoO3yV7e_Kgbp9ZfHfgcpz5hQLrySfUvE9Qb_A9ErygtskLbEXq2ErcppB2oDUge5m6FZU_ZaH8pyHj


Later 'M-Range' Maxim:
images
maxim_1885758.jpg
 
When I was at Falcon Acoustics some years ago, I noticed a pair of Maxims on Jerry Bloomfield’s shelf of
small speakers, next to some prototype LS3/5as.
I mentioned I’d bought a pair for someone back in the late ‘60s and asked Jerry what he thought of them.
All he said was ‘interesting.’
I decided to leave it at that...
 
Snufkin said:
What intrigues me is that these Goodman's mini monitors use metal as the baffle material. I recently acquired some Radford monitors (not mini at all) which are a three way design using Goddman's drivers. The baffle for the two smaller units, which is in a separated section of the cabinet, also use metal as a baffle material and I had not come across that before. Was this quite common back in the 60's or was it a technique favoured by some manufactures/designers?
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Radford Electronics used the same Goodmans Maxim Mid / Bass drive unit in their first 3 way monitor loudspeakers and their first Transmission Line loudspeaker.

I have a pair of original Maxims boxed like new bought for the princely sum of 3 squid at a boot sale.

One broken tweeter inside, the magnet broken away from the chassis. :(
 
The maxamp was a turd of a thing, after i gave up trying to build a sinclair 2000 i ended up with a maxamp.

It had those short lived early transistors in it...are they Germanium?
and it had trembler fuses which were forever blowing into my
Wharfdale Dovedales ( rank era ) I still have some trembler fuses and even sent some off to a fishy maxamp owner ages back.

When working it had a valvey sound to it which mayhave been intentionally as the maxamp was a first generation big seller for transisitors.

Unless Im confusing the Sony ST Range tuner here ...?

There was a matching tuner was and remains the next design jewel after the speakers which were too expensive for The student I was
 
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Bit of thread gravedigging. I have a pair of the Videoton Minimax
I know they were made in hungry,but they have a very similar look to the Goldman’s

From what I can make out,the Goldman’s were released before the Videoton. Has anyone heard both pairs?

I use mine with one those all in one denon things. They sound very good,especially on speech
 
I acquired a pair of Maxims at trade price, in ‘69 I think it was.
My father had an account with a wholesaler.
Fitted to a long mantelpiece in a friend’s house ( with built-in connectors in the wall ) they sounded quite good.
There were there for decades.
As for Videoton Minimaxes, a friend bought a pair in the early ‘70s.
I really didn’t rate them.
 
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calorgas said:
Of course you should, we need to know!
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Do you ALL really want to know?

I would need a green light from the Administrator who owns this forum (his living) to share with you this personal opinion as the answer would / could be very upsetting for many Leak and Quad owners / users here and on-line elsewhere imv.

Just think first, why is it that Radford valve amps are / were in a different league than all of the competition at that time. ;)
 
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Well I can't speak for anyone else especially Mr L, but I'd have thought that this is all sufficiently in the past for one designer/manufacturer's view of the others to be aired, as sales numbers and many years of owners opinions can also be taken into account. I've owned vintage Leak and Quad but never a Radford yet so just interested as it sounds like it could be controversial 😂
 
calorgas said:
Well I can't speak for anyone else especially Mr L, but I'd have thought that this is all sufficiently in the past for one designer/manufacturer's view of the others to be aired, as sales numbers and many years of owners opinions can also be taken into account. I've owned vintage Leak and Quad but never a Radford yet so just interested as it sounds like it could be controversial 😂
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Arthur H Radford was a hi-fi designer and polymath, he evaluated his competitive products
in his laboratory and discovered their shortcomings.

These shortcomings have been displayed here with several very interesting restorations re Leak and Quad valve amplifiers and their deficiencies were eliminated.

Arthur made a very disparaging comment to his design team way back in the 60's whilst he was evaluating these foresaid products. :eek:

Until TL gives me a green light, this is as far as I can share here on pfm. ;)
 
Yeah OK fair enough. It would be interesting to hear exactly what he said as it must have been quite damning if you feel it still needs to be handled carefully 60 years later!
 
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