HPM-60's compaired to HPM-100's

[yosl]

Though not as detailed or dynamically gifted as the '100s, I'd say the '40s were the better sounding speaker aside from the thin sound and could sound good with a subwoofer to take care of the low end.

Interestingly, I compared these against a pair of HPM-40 Series Is that the previous owner had put Radio Shack drivers in place of the woofers when the foam rotted. Though the woofer was much cheaper and had serious issues towards the upper end, the sound was richer and more enjoyable, though a bit bloated in the midbass region.

- JP

I too have a set of HPM-40 (Series 1, I think) with replaced woofers. At the time of replacement, 1997, re-foaming wasn't that common yet at least up here. I don't know the brand of the driver as I had it done but they have butyl rubber surrounds and a non cardboard cone. As a result of this thread, I'm going to pull them to find out what they are. Supposedly they were the closest match my tech could find at the time and it wasn't cheap so they probably are decent quality.

Driven with my original JR S201 (35 wpc) the difference was not that great except that the bass seemed to have improved somewhat. I really paid very little attention until I started driving them with more powerful receiver/amps and then it became apparent that they definitely sounded better than stock, particularly the bottom end.

Their most recent pairing has been with a HK 670 (60 wpc) and for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, it's just one of those killer match ups. The sound is hard to believe, the bass extension is remarkable while the rest of the frequency spectrum stays accurate and clear, considerably richer sounding is a good descriptor. Maybe it has something to do with the room (medium sized bedroom) but whatever it is I'm almost afraid to tamper with anything. Interconnects are nothing special, speaker wire is 14 Ga lamp cord and the CD player is a 20 year old consumer level Pioneer.

Afraid or not, I am going to do some more mixing and matching. I suspect the HK definitely contributes something to the equation but how much, I'll be interested to find out. I still have the original woofers as well and a recently obtained set of surrounds. Doing a stock - non stock comparison might be quite interesting as well.