Who has the oldest speakers?

My oldest son is using a set of floorstanding Pioneers that my father brought back from a tour of duty in Korea-1965.

Gosh mine are about 6 months old and I am told that is a long time for an audiophile to keep a pair of speakers ;)

Hey Jwrobin....are they the CS-66's??? My first pair!!!!

My grandfather bought a Fisher cabinet system in the early 1960's. It's in his basement hooked up to a plain vanilla receiver and disk player.(The front end has been dead for years.) The speakers function perfectly;even by today's standards,they are not half bad.

23 years. JBL 4350A Studio Monitors I bought in 1980. Can't seem to part with them.

I love vintage gear...until you turn it on!

I have a pair of DCM Time Windows from the late '70's. I don't use them any longer, and basically they're just taking up room, but I can't seem to put them out to pasture.

When I was in Viet Nam in 1968-69, I bought a pair of Pioneer CS-88s, a Pioneer receiver, a Teac reel-to-reel tape deck, and a Pioneer PL-41 turntable. I am loaning the speakers to a neighbor and they still work fine. A still have the turntable although it no longer works. Joel

Ever hear of Hartley's? 16 ohm / 18" woofers. Not mine though.

My Quad ESL 57's have 4-digit serial numbers and date from the early sixties.

My LaScala's are from 77' and are using all the original drivers and sound fantastic. Swapped out the wiring harness with DH Lab silver wiring, and the horns are coated with Dynamat. Other than that they're bone stock. Wouldn't trade them for anything else I've heard when paired with my SETs! Not bad for 26 year-old boxes! That Paul W. Klipsch sure knew what he was doing!

PS Crossover is original too, but I'll give the AlK version a shot when I get a chance sometime.

I have a pair of Rectilinear III's which I bought in 1969. These still function well although some of the surround foam on the midrange drivers is crumbling off.

Other than the frequency extremes, no one has bettered the QUAD 57s. Not even QUAD. In many ways, I wish I still had mine.

My brother still has the first speakers I bought in the mid 70s. Frasier Concertos. 10' woofer, horn mid/high, piezo super. Still works fine but they are in storage. My dad still has his original home built speakers stored away somewhere. Large reflex cabinets designed by our nieghbor to be used as end tables. WAF about 40 years ago. They use a single white 10" with "wizzer cone" made I think by Phillips. Powered by a kit built tube amp and using a turntable I have never seen before or since, they were very convincing. Unusually natural bass on everything from classical to jazz and rock including "Dark Side of the Moon" ( I remember the first time I heard it at home and how amazing it was from the very first heatbeat). As I remember they have a "free" sound you get from high efficiency speakers that made them very easy to listen to. I would like to hear them again but if they make it to my house I will have nowhere to keep them, they are pretty big.

In 1975 I purchased my first real set of speakers - Infinity QB. They're no longer my primary set of speakers (Paradigm Studio 100's are) but I still have em. I just can't seem to throw anything away - anybody for a SuperScope amp?

Dan

25 years & counting on my 1978 vintage Belles

AR-4ax's bought in 1969. Still sound good as ambiance speakers.

Stephens Tru-Sonic 80FR's (8" full range 16 ohm drivers). Efficiency is somewhere in the upper 90's and they use large/heavy alnico magnets.

Probably around 40 years old and someday I will build quality contemporary cabinets for them (the sooner the better as their vintage cabinets are butt ugly:-).

E.V. aristocrats. Got to be 40 yrs old.
Amazing with a small tube amp!

My friend's dad has some huge floor standing Infinitys that he says are from the early-mid 70's. He's had them since new and they've always been his mains. I can see (hear) why...they are amazing.

JBL L-100, circa 1977...used to have the nice blue foam grill covers that turned to mush in the 80's. These still look new and will undoubtedly out-live me.

I am still the original owner of a pair of vintage 1978 JBL L65 speakers. I had the bass units re-foamed / coned about eight years ago (foam rot got to them). The speakers are alive and happy in my basement as a second system. I hope to pass them on to one of my children someday....if they promise to enjoy the music!

About six years ago a great local somewhat funky high-end stereo store was going out of business and all he had left was a four-foot tall pair of self-powered electrostatic speakers circa 1980 that he had taken in on trade. He had them connected to a Yamaha CD player that had a volumn control and the would take $750.00 for the speakers which included delivery if I wouldn't mind helping him lift them into his van.

It turns out that these are a pair of Acoustat X speakers with each speaker having its own fully balanced tube amplifier. They are mounted on their sides and provide the front end for my two-channel system and music for that room which is also my office.

I will be doing an addition and re-locating my home theatre but I think I will be keeping these speakers, although probably not for use in my new home theatre. I recently bought all new tubes for them and I am using better cables.

The hardest question is this: Will the many-thousands of dollars I could(should?) be spending on new speakers really make things sound so many thousand-dollars better?

1961 Jensen TF-3s. Excellent sounding without any problem with EL84 amps I own.

I have a set of Infinity Column II speakers which I bought new in 1974. I just had the woofers and sub-woofers reconed. They sound great!

Dahlquist DQ-10's, made in '74 I think, very competitve today with good amplification.

Anyone have a "working" pair of Infinity Servo Static 1-A's????

I'm still using my JBL L100 Centuries. Wish I had my old marble topped JBLs

I have a pair of "Realistic Omni-400"'s

Im not sure how old they are, but they seem to be old. I see alot of stuff on EBAY from Realistic, and it suggests they are from the 70's

Anybody know anything about these?????????

A buddy of mine bought them for me for 10 bucks at my neighbors garage sale. They sounded suprisingly good with thier ribbon tweeters. Good enough at least that i plan to re-venieer them with some high gloss bright cherry vineer.

I asked my neighbor about them, but he said that they somehow came into his posession, and he thought they sounded pretty lousy.
Must have been his power soource.

I still am using a pair of JBL L-50's that I bought used around 1978. I would guess they were about 5 years old at that time. Been using them almost continuously ever since. Soon to be sent to the old speaker retirement home when I upgrade to a new system, but they have served me well

I just picked up a set of Bozak symphonies that were made in'65.Awesome speakers.

IMF TLS 80's Bought them new in 1975, still sound awesome...might sell them.

Bought new, Fisher XP-7's in 1964. Had them in layaway for 3 months till I paid them off. Still sound good with flat bass...presently parked in the effects field of my HT setup.

1950's 10 inch Jensen in a same era Danelectro blond tolex 6V6s powered guitar amp with vibrato. Friend gave it to me free for repairing his midi pedal board and for me being his guitar tech and the stage manager at his 1998 Wamboozy Long Island Music Festival (350 miles from LI) at Snow Ridge Ski Resort in Turin, NY.
1975 Acoustic Research AR-11 with AR replacement woofers, tweeters and foam grills. Waiting for intergrated amp for this bedroom system. Served me well with a 1974 Pioneer SX-1250 receiver until I came across this site 2 years ago. You know the rest... upgrade!

My parents still have their AR-1's. I am not sure how old they are (the speakers, I mean, not my parents.)

I have a pair of AR-11s that sound really good despite the fact that the foam in the drivers is deteriorating. Anyone know if replacement drivers comperable to the originals?

Thanks

I have a pair of Wharfedale W45's - vintage 1971 - I'm the original owner - my first speakers (they sounded horrible, but great cabinets, so I rebuilt them with better drivers, crossover 3 years ago). I also still have my second pair of Speakers - 1976 Infinity Monitor IIA's. I hade the woofers refoamed 2 years ago - they are mint, original, and sound great.

my smaller advents have followed me from house to house since i got my first job in 1974, i bought them used for 75 bucks. i drag 'em out to the deck when weather permits. the bong water stain still adorns one of the grills. oh to be young again!

Chartwell LS3/5a's 15 Ohm version in Rosewood veneer circa 1978. In service along with Paradigm Studio 40 v2. Keep switching bach and forth amd am always amazed at the quality of its midrange.

I've got a mid-sixties pair of AR's, I think they are 3a's. Dad bought 'em new, and I've had them for 20 years. Shit, now I'll have to dig them out and see how they sound!

My father bought a pair of Scott 3-way "bookshelf" speakers in 1966, along with a Garrard idler wheel-driven changer and a Scott 15 watt transistor receiver. The Garrard has been dead for at least 25 years, the receiver for 10, but the speakers are still going strong in my 2-channel home theater system. They are an acoustic suspension design with a 12" woofer, so while inefficient they go quite low and quite loud with sufficient power. They can scream in fact. Actually much more than adequate for this application.

I have a single Wharfedale speaker made who knows when. It's definitely old--I'm guessing the sixties or early seventies. I don't think it dates to the mono era--I have the feeling that it was part of a stereo pair, with the other speaker having blown up or something. I got it at a charity yard sale because I was curious how good it was. My finding? Let's put it this way--I'd give it One Star. (And, as a character on _Are_You_Being_Served?_ commented, when talking about a one star hotel, "There is no such thing as a no-star hotel." The same thing applies to my rating.)

My Father's JBLs.
I have 1959 JBLs with D-131 coaxial drivers and fitted with the 075 aluminum bullet tweeters. They are still working however they are not what I usually listen to. They came in a number of configurations. I believe they called them JBL Signatures model C-32. I also have circa 1960-4 JBL D-32s working just fine. The history of the line is hard to find. If anyone knows more about them please let know. The JBL historical site ignores everything but the driver.

I assume this is the JBL historical site .

I have JBL Lancer 101's, Adriatic marble tops. I bought them new in 1968. LE 175 horn/lens with 14 inch woofers.
They have been disconnected for the past 20 years. Going to be hooking them up again soon.I never see a reference to these speakers on the web, must not be a lot of them around. Cost was about $1000 for the pair when purchased.

Humidity kills speakers in 20-- 25 years or less. Play them loud and they'll blow. I had a pair of B & O s for 25, simply because I'd neglected replacing them.

1977 Klipsch La Scala's, which will go into a second system once we get our 1978 Klipschorns delivered in the next couple months. We've spent far more, and had much newer, but not found anything we like more.

1962 Warfedale W90...Sand filled oak cabinets; still in the basement, still work fine. What they sound like and what i listen to now are miles and miles and miles apart.

If anybody wants them, you may come out and get them.

I still use a pair of AR-9's..they do the trick

We own a 1926 Victor "Electrola", the first amplified and motorized Victorola. It has a 8" driver, probably a Western Electric. The Electrola sold for $752 in 1926. You could buy a new Model T for $495.