Unidentified Speakers.....Can Anyone Shed Some Light?

[toxcrusadr]

Lavane's pic is aka an impedance compensating speaker selector. Helpful if you want to run multiple pairs at once.

 

[Atom Drop]

I have a few speaker selectors. They are in very good condition. I will PM you and let you know what I have and see if you have interest.

Okay Speedbump71. Thanks a bunch. I will see what you have. I appreciate you.

 

[Atom Drop]

I use this. You can run 4 ohm speakers, but only one set at a time. However, you can run four sets of 8 ohm speakers at the same time. The box will keep a constant 4 ohm or better load out. Solid switches, metal box. My only gripe is the speaker wire connectors. Spring loaded and wont take anytjing bigger than 16 ga. Wire, not a problem for me as the wire runs aren't that long, around 10'. Lots of options out there. Some with multiple amp inputs as well. View attachment 949693

Cool. So under ten foot runs of wire should be fine with a 16 gauge wire? With my setup the wires are not much longer than four feet a piece.

 

[Atom Drop]

That one with individual volume controls will be much more expensive than a simple switch selector that turns them on and off. Depends on what you want to do.

BTW you could lay your speakers on their sides, at least maybe the upper part of the stack, to get them closer to ear level.

As for the driver quality, generally speaking: heavier, larger magnets, that sort of thing. But for every rule there are exceptions. Some fabulous speakers have been made with ho-hum looking drivers.

Thanks. I'm not too sure what I want to venture into just yet. I barely created this stack two days ago only to have a holding place for the speakers on top. I am now considering a selector to make something happen, but I will definitely need to lay the Realistic Nova 6 cabs sideways. I don't think I want to lay the AR 8b cabs on their sides. Cosmetically speaking. What I do like about the photo of the selector I posted is the individual volume controls. That's got me thinking about maybe making something happen here. The price for that one is $190. Pricey!

 

[GlenGC]

judging by the design and what i can see of the drivers, i'd agree with those who say part with them and find another.. i could be wrong who knows.. but the odds of that is a lot less than right

if you think you don't have a clear perspective as to what is good sound and what makes a speaker good, the best way to go is find a few recommended and commonly praised speakers (in this forum at least) "and these don't have to be expensive super duper stuff" and train your ear listening to these and compare to other stuff you have or find.. gradually natural selection will leave you with better sounding stuff..
you have a good amp already so the rest is just time, and some hunting

if we could see the inside of cabinets, crossover and behind the drivers, we could give you a lot more solid predictions as to what they may sound like or be

 

[Atom Drop]

judging by the design and what i can see of the drivers, i'd agree with those who say part with them and find another.. i could be wrong who knows.. but the odds of that is a lot less than right

if you think you don't have a clear perspective as to what is good sound and what makes a speaker good, the best way to go is find a few recommended and commonly praised speakers (in this forum at least) "and these don't have to be expensive super duper stuff" and train your ear listening to these and compare to other stuff you have or find.. gradually natural selection will leave you with better sounding stuff..
you have a good amp already so the rest is just time, and some hunting

if we could see the inside of cabinets, crossover and behind the drivers, we could give you a lot more solid predictions as to what they may sound like or be

Thank you, GlenGC, for your advice. I will share info about what's inside the cabs as soon as I get inside of them.

 

[Atom Drop]

Alright so here it is. I have finally decided to remove a driver and here are the numbers stamped on it.

 

[Atom Drop]

Here is what the the tweeters look like and the numbers stamped on them. It says PT8160.

 

[Atom Drop]

And interestingly enough these cabs don't have a single cap inside of them. Now I may need help to cap these speakers to get some better modified sound from them. What do I need to do first to test each driver and tweeter for their respective capabilities? Thank you everyone for any advice and help. I appreciate you.

 

[Gazdatronik]

And interestingly enough these cabs don't have a single cap inside of them. Now I may need help to cap these speakers to get some better modified sound from them. What do I need to do first to test each driver and tweeter for their respective capabilities? Thank you everyone for any advice and help. I appreciate you.

Yep Carbonneau woofers. 30th week of 1974, probably. I'm sure there is a capacitor in there somewhere, else those tweeters would be long dead. It doesn't take much to fry an unprotected tweeter.

 

[toxcrusadr]

If you only removed one tweeter, there could be a cap attached to the other tweeter. Or the other woofer actually.

 

[Atom Drop]

Okay I finally found the cap tucked tightly on one of the connecting wires. I didn't want to disconnect the wires from the woofer posts because it was very snug and I didn't want to damage them. But after peeking very closely into the cab, I found that cap. I'm sure them caps need to be replaced. I will probably do that in the future some time. To me, the speakers sound great paired in four channel matrix mode. Testing out a stereo receiver that I acquired last week with the unidentified speakers right now. The speakers in question are hooked up as the front which are controlled by the JVC SEA tone control. And the Realistic Nova 6 speakers are hooked up to the rear connectors with the crossover control set to low on them. They also have a rear bass/treble tone control from the JVC receiver. The electronic music being played with this test setup right now sounds incredibly amazing. My audio adventures continue.

 

[Gazdatronik]

Okay I finally found the cap tucked tightly on one of the connecting wires. I didn't want to disconnect the wires from the woofer posts because it was very snug and I didn't want to damage them. But after peeking very closely into the cab, I found that cap. I'm sure them caps need to be replaced. I will probably do that in the future some time. To me, the speakers sound great paired in four channel matrix mode. Testing out a stereo receiver that I acquired last week with the unidentified speakers right now. The speakers in question are hooked up as the front which are controlled by the JVC SEA tone control. And the Realistic Nova 6 speakers are hooked up to the rear connectors with the crossover control set to low on them. They also have a rear bass/treble tone control from the JVC receiver. The electronic music being played with this test setup right now sounds incredibly amazing. My audio adventures continue. View attachment 957141 View attachment 957142 View attachment 957143 View attachment 957144

Haha! I had that same receiver!

 

[janikphoto]

Ignore nolasally. You got some fun speakers for twenty bucks! Sure, they aren't award-winners, but they look cool and probably play well enough. I picked up a pair of JW Davis speakers that probably sound similar to what you have and are worth about the same. I couldn't help it, because they were a local company. You may find these were a regional company to your area... many small companies used Utah, Lafayette, and other brand drivers to make their own design. Many of those regional and/or house brands are hard to find info on, so you may never identify these. They may even be designed for small room organ or PA reinforcement, and not hi-fi.

 

[Atom Drop]

Haha! I had that same receiver!

Cool. This one was a $5 storage unit rescue. Needs work. Puts out sound great, but with the slightest bit of a hiss coming out from the right channel. It will need to be serviced if I choose to keep it. All I did to it was open it up and clean all the potentiometers. The contacts on them were black from oxidation. It's a nice receiver though.

 

[Atom Drop]

Ignore nolasally. You got some fun speakers for twenty bucks! Sure, they aren't award-winners, but they look cool and probably play well enough. I picked up a pair of JW Davis speakers that probably sound similar to what you have and are worth about the same. I couldn't help it, because they were a local company. You may find these were a regional company to your area... many small companies used Utah, Lafayette, and other brand drivers to make their own design. Many of those regional and/or house brands are hard to find info on, so you may never identify these. They may even be designed for small room organ or PA reinforcement, and not hi-fi.

Thank you janikphoto. That is very true. These may have never had a badge of recognition in the mainstream. I was mostly curious for the sake of just being curious. The past couple of days I have been experimenting with them in different small area setups. The acoustics and vocal output sound great to me. And really not a bad small punch of bass too. They are fun and have allowed me to learn a little more about speakers.

 

[gdmoore28]

They are fun and have allowed me to learn a little more about speakers.

Yep. And at your stage in your audio-world learning process (which many of us will attest as being the most fun part of discovering audio), these were perfect as an introduction. I can't tell you how many speakers I've bought with the purpose of tearing them apart just to see how things work.

GeeDeeEmm

 

[toxcrusadr]

I notice the EQ on that receiver has the treble boosted quite a bit. Those old caps are probably eating up the treble with high ESR. New film caps almost always open up the top end on speakers this old.

 

[Gazdatronik]

Cool. This one was a $5 storage unit rescue. Needs work. Puts out sound great, but with the slightest bit of a hiss coming out from the right channel. It will need to be serviced if I choose to keep it. All I did to it was open it up and clean all the potentiometers. The contacts on them were black from oxidation. It's a nice receiver though.

I sold mine off, it was hissy too, and not enough watts for my speakers at the time. The eq section was also incredibly strange sounding, you can make the music wah like a guitar pedal, but JVC used inductors instead of transistors for the EQ section, so thats probably why.

 

[Atom Drop]

Yep. And at your stage in your audio-world learning process (which many of us will attest as being the most fun part of discovering audio), these were perfect as an introduction. I can't tell you how many speakers I've bought with the purpose of tearing them apart just to see how things work.

GeeDeeEmm

Thanks for the boost of confidence in my new adventures. I turned both pairs of speakers on their sides with the tweeters toed inwards and stacked on each other. Experimenting with this type of speaker placement as I have never tried this before. I am truly a newbie. Also tried them out with another receiver I recovered last week. Nobody ever taught me about imaging or phasing. The world of speakers are new to me. I love it.