Cerwin Vega D3 Digital Series Speakers

UKBrad

UKBrad

New Member
At the consignment shop I work at, we have this set of vintage Cerwin Vega D3 Digital Series speakers. I think they may need to be re-foamed. They are in the original box. My question is, does anyone have experience with these things? Are they decent speakers? Are they worth investing in? Thanks a lot!
 
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UKBrad said:
At the consignment shop I work at, we have this set of vintage Cerwin Vega D3 Digital Series speakers. I think they may need to be re-foamed. They are in the original box. My question is, does anyone have experience with these things? Are they decent speakers? Are they worth investing in? Thanks a lot!
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Depends upon what your wants and needs are. They're certainly well-known, and many people like them quite a lot. Let us say that in my experience, the people who like them also like rock-n-roll played at ear-bleeding levels, with enough bass to generate eviction notices and police visits in any decent neighborhood. If that's what you like, then you will probably like these quite a lot.

I'm not saying they are bad speakers, mind you. Just saying they appeal to a certain demographic.
 
Wigwam Jones said:
Depends upon what your wants and needs are. They're certainly well-known, and many people like them quite a lot. Let us say that in my experience, the people who like them also like rock-n-roll played at ear-bleeding levels, with enough bass to generate eviction notices and police visits in any decent neighborhood. If that's what you like, then you will probably like these quite a lot.

I'm not saying they are bad speakers, mind you. Just saying they appeal to a certain demographic.
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Hahaha. Okay, I don't want it that loud. Good vibrant sound is what I am looking for, not really bass. I am trying to work out a deal with my boss to let me get a good price on a McIntosh 1700, so if I offer to get rid of these speakers that have been sitting around it may sweeten the deal. I have zero equipment so I need a little of everything. Are they okay starter speakers? Thanks for your input Wigwam!
 
UKBrad said:
Hahaha. Okay, I don't want it that loud. Good vibrant sound is what I am looking for, not really bass. I am trying to work out a deal with my boss to let me get a good price on a McIntosh 1700, so if I offer to get rid of these speakers that have been sitting around it may sweeten the deal. I have zero equipment so I need a little of everything. Are they okay starter speakers? Thanks for your input Wigwam!
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Sure, nothing really wrong with them. Odd pairing with McIntosh, but if I came by them cheaply enough, I'd certainly not pass them by. You can always upgrade to something else later, and it's not like you have to play them loud.
 
I passed up a pair for twenty bucks last weekend. So worthy of investment? no.

Yes they need to be refoamed, unless they were recently done.

I believe you can do better.
 
I've owned CV D-3's in the past. Not a bad starter speaker. Just don't have anything else that you can A/B test against and they're not so bad.

But to drive them with a Mac? Only until you can get something better, or you'll be holding the Mac back.
 
D-1's sound great. If you want to learn to refoam, go for it. The boxes are really stout, built to play strong and loud and low. I'd go for it.
 
Wow thanks all, this is a ton of good information. Any other recommendations for vintage well priced speakers that would work well with the Mac ?
 
I had D-3s and they sounded fine. Jazz and vocals left a little to be desired and the peizo tweeters on those D-3s seem to be love/hate. I am in the hate camp. All things considered, IMO they are worth the effort. I payed $35 for them in very good condition minus the shredded surrounds. I refoamed them and sold them for $150 in a heartbeat. Thats more than double what I invested.

I say GO FOR IT!
 
UKBrad said:
Any other recommendations for vintage well priced speakers that would work well with the Mac ?
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There are so many...mostly what you're going to get will be a rote recitation of everyone's favorite speakers. Seriously - I'd love to be helpful, but the list of very good vintage speakers available at reasonable cost is long.
 
I bought a pair of CV D3's at a garage sale 2 weeks ago for $10 and refoamed the 10" speakers last weekend. It was very easy to do and they sound great on my Marantz 2270. Are there better speakers? Sure. But I'm happy for now.
 
jack0 said:
I bought a pair of CV D3's at a garage sale 2 weeks ago for $10 and refoamed the 10" speakers last weekend. It was very easy to do and they sound great on my Marantz 2270. Are there better speakers? Sure. But I'm happy for now.
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That's all that matters. Good work!
 
D3's planted the audio geek seed for me. They were the first pair of speakers I bought (brand spankin' new) back at the ripe age of 17. I had them up until my junior year of college when Greyhound destroyed them transporting them from Florida (school) to Texas (home). I loved them back then for all the things mentioned above and the speakers I replaced them with, Bose 301's, sounded great (back then, at least) but couldn't blow your hair back...which I always missed about the CV's. That seed laid dormant until about two years ago when, fed up with my Axiom M3ti bookshelf speaker's inability to dismantle the room, I went on a hunt for some old D-series CV's. What I found was the world of vintage audio. Now I'm about $5k (or that's where I stopped counting) poorer.

What those can do is provide you a speaker that's good enough to be a lot of fun, but not so great that it won't be difficult to improve upon. So if you intend to make audio a hobby (it might happen whether or not you intend for it to), it's a good place to start as you work your way up through better and better stuff. And they're usually not hard to sell once you're ready to unload them.

-Michael
 
Decent starters and a good pair to practice refoaming on. Sound decent with rock at moderate volumes. For critical listening look elsewhere.

CV_1.jpg
 
You will be hard pressed to find a better sounding pair of speakers, for Rock, critical listening, or whatever else you like. You could spend a lot more, but you wont get a lot more. Of course that's just my opinion, which is all that any one can offer especially on the sound of a pair of speakers. Go for it - you'll be solidly in hi fidelity land once they're re-foamed.
 
jack0 said:
I bought a pair of CV D3's at a garage sale 2 weeks ago for $10 and refoamed the 10" speakers last weekend. It was very easy to do and they sound great on my Marantz 2270. Are there better speakers? Sure. But I'm happy for now.
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CV's and Marantz are a 70's marriage made in heaven. I could rock forever with a rig like that. I'm no jazzbo.:banana:
 
A neighbor saw me carrying my D7's into the house. He offered to by them on the spot, and told me how awesome they are (his opinion as a non audio hobbyist). I am not ready to sell, as I want to listen to them with a recap. They do sound good loud. I have never owned a speaker that goes as low without a sub, and fills a room nicely with low distortion. Imaging is nice. There is something off with them, and not sure if it's capacitors or just the speaker :D Without any measuring equipment, I am not going to speculate since they are 28 years old. I don't know how close a full recone is to original speaker...
I will buy just about any speaker that is really cheap at a yard sale (swap meet or goodwill), if I know the brand and they are in good shape, or fixable...
 
I just picked up a pair of D-3's last week and refoamed them. Started the listening with a variety of music to hear them out. It took some doing to get them setup correctly in regards to sound stage. They actually have surprised me. I am driving them with a proficent M2 power amp and HK 20II reciever as the preamp. I actually think the tweeter is quite good and the mid could be better but the bass is tight and very quick in response. The reciever is set flat and the tweeter set at the center position on the pad on the rear of the speaker. For vocal, jazz, and pop they do well. I have been running them at 10 o'clock on the volume knob. I have thought about disconnecting the midrange and evaluating them as a 2 way. The refoam was easy and I did not use any special technique. I glued the inside of the surround first taking my time to insure that the cone was centered. Then glued the surround to the basket. Took a couple hours total.
 
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