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Radio People Ltd. speakers

M

mxdsa

New Member
Hi, I found these speakers at a thrift store in the middle of nowhere. They hadn't been tested but looked cool so I talked the clerk down to $10 for the pair. (I think regardless of their quality it is a pretty good deal.)

The label on the back says "Radio People Ltd." The cabinets are heavy. The connection jack is one I've never seen before but I stuck one wire into the hole and one to the outer rim and - they work! And, in my opinion, sound amazing! None of my equipment is very good, except perhaps my speakers now :) My receiver is a Yamaha HTR-5920. I'm just now getting into the technical side of listening to music.

Does anyone know about these? I haven't opened them up yet to see what the components are, but probably will later on this afternoon.

I have photos here:
http://thewaron.org/spkr/
 
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Those are strange indeed. From the looks of the rear label it seems they were meant to be made and sold in Hong Kong or China. I don't know what that connector is, but I don't suggest just sticking wires in it. There is a large chance that one will come out and cause a short. Looks like the only way into the speakers is from the rear. It'd be interesting to know what is inside them. Speakers that old will likely need the capacitors in them replaced.
 
My guess is the connection is a 2 pin DIN. There have been some posts about these here - try the search functions.
 
I have posted photos of the insides of the speakers. http://thewaron.org/spkr/inside.html I don't see any manufacturer names on the speakers. How can one tell? What is Acousta-Coil 25MH?

The pot/knob on the back isn't connected to anything. I wonder what it was for? As for the connection, why would loose wires cause a short? Would it work to solder wires to the connector? If so, what kind of wire should I use, is there a specific gauge? If the speakers still play should the caps be replaced?

As you can see the small speaker (is that a tweeter?) is in it's own wooden enclosure. Is there any reason to open those up for inspection?

As I stated earlier, I'm new to this. Thanks for any input.

Caleb
 
I can tell you a little bit about the Radio People. You can glean some info on their history if you Google them. I have seen and heard a couple of their knockoffs that uncannily resemble Dynacos. Same tweeters and woofers. The sound was very good, a little lean in the bass. They also made an LS3 5A knock-off that is reputed to be quite good. It is the spitting image of the genuine article. I hear another Asian company is now making the same speakers.
 
The key to the mystery is inside the wooden box in the upper half of the cabinet. Is it a Lowther PM2A? A Hartley 220? Maybe a Coral Flat 10?

The Radio People made very high quality knock-offs of mostly 50's-60's British hi-end loudspeakers. The ones I have seen were copies of Lowther TP1's and Wharfedale open baffles. In both cases, the drivers were the real deal. I guess that the Brits in HK wanted the "home" sound and took advantage of high quality, probably inexpensive local cabinet making and avoided the high cost of shipping (and maybe the import duty of) complete loudspeakers from England.
 
That acousticoil is an inductor to roll off the woofer. It looks later than the vintage of the cabinet, and I suspect the woofer is a later replacement also. Because of the input panel, my guess is that these were Wharfedale clones and the original woofer either was blown or the foam decayed (Warfedale was an early (if not actually the earliest) foam adopter, and the flat isocyanate foam they used decayed quite rapidly) and someone replaced the woofer. They seem to have also gotten rid of the original crossover, since the tweeter control is unconnected, and both the coil and cap seem newish. I'm curious what the tweeter is.
 
I have a set of Wharfdale 70's that have the same label on them as well as the peculier cable socket. I removed that jack and installed a conventional spring-loaded speaker connection on it. I opened mine up and all the drivers were marked Wharfdale. Even the woofers had the handwritten dates on the woofer cone. Mine were 1964. The Radio People Ltd imported wharfdale speakers for sale in the far east. I had read somewhere that they did some mods to the cabinets to stand up to the higher temps and humidity. The wharfdale tag was removed on the front. I have had mine now for about 8 years, and like you, got them in a thrift shop. I play then with a marantz 1060 or with a small 9 watt tube amp. They are pretty effecient and don't need alot of power.
 
The connector is called a Motorola plug and most usually found on car radios for the antenna connector. You may be able to find them at RS or an auto audio store.

The company was the far east distributor for Wharfedale and it seems most of the units foundin N.A. from them were W-70s. The shape of your cabinet suggests it is not a W-70s but, with the tweeter boxed like it is, it is likely it originally a Wharfedale system. You may still have the oriignal Wharfedale tweeters if lucky. The woofers I'd suggest were replacements for the original Wharfesdales and someone ripped out the original crossover and did a Rube Goldberg as a substitute.

It may pay to see if you can get one of the W-60 owners to work with you to see if it may have been a W-60 or the smaller W-40, I think that was the other model in the line.
 
Here are pictures of what's inside the upper box: http://thewaron.org/spkr/tweet.html

It looks like the original tweeter has been replaced as well. Any way to find out what those numbers mean? "35-030"

On one of the woofers the inductor isn't taped on as it is on the other. Should I tape it? Does that matter?
 
Looks like you bought a truly buthered DIY set of speakers. There is a database of speaker manufacturers woth the manufacturer code someplace on the web. I've never looked for it myself but others here have.

I don't care for the inductors to be mounted on the speaker. I'd imagine the magnetic flux of the speaker could affect the inductance of the the inductor.

It appears the person who did the job pulled the original crossover from the back of the speaker and then made a mess of it. My suggestion, 1st determine how the speakers sound to you before doing anything. If good then diagram out the circuit and build the crossovers on a proper board, eliminate the Motorola jack (it actually is one of the better jacks for a speaker connection due to the large surface area that can be far more than the spring terminals and even a number of the banana jacks but just is not common in N.A. for the purpose) and mount the crossover to the back panel as it should be. The wiring looks to be cheap plastic covered so I'd also get rid of it. There is a lot of differing opinion as to what wire should be used internally. I have a preference for mylar covered silver as I started using it years ago and it always seemed to do well.

If the system sounds other than acceptable, the cabinets looks good so you have the chance to have a DIY project. The cabinet is not a acoustic suspension design from the looks of it and possibly the basis for a small infinite baffle or ported design would be easy to do using them. The DIY and speaker forum guys should be able to lend a hand and a decent system could be put together possibly for far less than going out to purchase on the market depending on how far you want to go.
 
Radio People ltd

mxdsa said:
Hi, I found these speakers at a thrift store in the middle of nowhere. They hadn't been tested but looked cool so I talked the clerk down to $10 for the pair. (I think regardless of their quality it is a pretty good deal.)

The label on the back says "Radio People Ltd." The cabinets are heavy. The connection jack is one I've never seen before but I stuck one wire into the hole and one to the outer rim and - they work! And, in my opinion, sound amazing! None of my equipment is very good, except perhaps my speakers now :) My receiver is a Yamaha HTR-5920. I'm just now getting into the technical side of listening to music.

Does anyone know about these? I haven't opened them up yet to see what the components are, but probably will later on this afternoon.

I have photos here:
http://thewaron.org/spkr/
Click to expand...

Did you ever find out much about "Radio People Ltd" I Have a pair too and know very little about them. Would like to find originaton of them. Thank you
 
The Radio People Limited IIRC were,in fact, the Asian dist. for Wharfedale and I think they did some assembly work for Wharfedale as well. I do know that they were the go to compnay for anything Wharfedale when I was in VN in 1970-72. My W70e's came through them. Many large European companies had warehouses in Hong Kong at that time to handle Asian distribution.
 
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