Radian Monitor Standard Model MM-8

Hello!

I've been reading many others, but this is my first "what the heck do I have here" post... I tried to do a search both here and on Google, and either I am bad at searching or I don't know, but I've not found much.

I was at an estate sale recently and following the general rule: "If it's heavy, it's probably pretty decent," I grabbed these without knowing anything about them. It looks like a good, solid, heavy, black wood. On the front, they say:

Radian Audio Engineering Inc

Monitor Standard

The back says:

Model MM-8 (looks hand-written with a marker)

It looks like there is only one driver? Forgive my complete new-ness fo all of this. But I think they sound pretty good, hooked up to a Pioneer SX 680 I have here at the office.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

-Mac

Picture?

These aren't mine, obviously, but I found this on google. Same thing I think:

http://www.liveauctionworld.com/Radian-Monitor-Model-MM8-Speakers-Pair_i14190582

I think you have something pretty good there. Radians are very high quality and are made in The United States and have their roots in the old "real" Altec Lansing company.

Those monitors appear to have an 8" coaxial driver--a compression driver tweeter is mounted behind the woofer magnet and fires through the woofer's pole piece and the woofer cone acts as the tweeter horn, the dust cover hides the throat of the tweeter and is acoustically transparent. Tannoy makes similar coaxials.

I'm assuming that older Radian products are similar to their current ones; I've been following Radian for about 15 years but I think your speakers are older than that.

I did notice the cone seemed to be mesh/grill-like. There's a definite point where there just isn't any more bass to be had, but above that they really do sound great, to my ears at least. As good, or better, than anything else I have.

I'm no expert but the style of the lettering does seem very late 70's/early 80's to me. Again, thick, solid, heavy wood.

Any more information anyone could wrangle up would be great! I'd like to make sure I use them properly.

Update!

I contacted Radian's email customer service. Got a rather prompt and courteous response. He said Radian no longer makes them, and has passed it on to a company called Bag End, who has made some improvements to the original design Radian is still involved for the coax parts, I think? And Bag End has some crossover improvements.

If I'm reading this right, the modern version of these are around $1,200-$2,300??? What are the chances these are a fraction of that quality?

MacBroeden said:

Update!

I contacted Radian's email customer service. Got a rather prompt and courteous response. He said Radian no longer makes them, and has passed it on to a company called Bag End, who has made some improvements to the original design Radian is still involved for the coax parts, I think? And Bag End has some crossover improvements.

If I'm reading this right, the modern version of these are around $1,200-$2,300??? What are the chances these are a fraction of that quality?

Click to expand...

Last time I paid attention Bag End made very high quality products. I once visited their shop outside Chicago and they were making very fine cabinets loaded with top shelf drivers such as EV and JBL. I recall reading several years ago about a monitor Bag End made using a Radian coax but I didn't it was an outgrowth of a Radian product.

Forgive me if this is a dumb question... but does that mean if I could get my hands on the Bag End crossovers, I'd essentially be able to upgrade this to the current model? Would that be worth doing?

Or is it better to leave them in their original state?

MacBroeden said:

Forgive me if this is a dumb question... but does that mean if I could get my hands on the Bag End crossovers, I'd essentially be able to upgrade this to the current model? Would that be worth doing?

Or is it better to leave them in their original state?

Click to expand...

I don't know Mac. I suggest you call Bag End and see what they think.