Speaker recs to match my Marantz 7, Marantz 8, Thorens 124

T

tommysully

New Member
Hi all,

Thanks in advance for the help! I recently inherited some vintage gear as my first setup; a Marantz 7, Marantz 8, and Thorens 124.

To my best understanding all I need now to complete the setup is a pair of speakers.

Is that the case? And if so, do y’all have any recommendations for something that will work with the setup to preserve the tonal qualities of the gear? I know it’s a tough ask, but I’m looking for bookshelf or slightly bigger size, and ideally <$500 but if that’s not possible that’s good to know too. Definitely happy to go used too.

Thanks again for the help - I definitely want to do the gear justice so appreciate the expertise!
 
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I don’t want to bust your bubble or
Thread crap the inquiry,,
But realize that back in the day when made
They were not cheap but Very high end.
That’s why they are so expensive these days
So using today’s prices, and as a rule of thumb
1/2 for the Speakers and 50% for every thing else
Puts you in between 4-10,000$
Just for Speakers to match those Vintage
Highly Rated pieces
Spend. 500$ on speakers
Would be a shame
Also keep in mind when they were made
High efficiency speakers were common
With the 30-35 watts that the amp puts out
 
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tommysully said:
Hi all,

Thanks in advance for the help! I recently inherited some vintage gear as my first setup; a Marantz 7, Marantz 8, and Thorens 124.

To my best understanding all I need now to complete the setup is a pair of speakers.

Is that the case? And if so, do y’all have any recommendations for something that will work with the setup to preserve the tonal qualities of the gear? I know it’s a tough ask, but I’m looking for bookshelf or slightly bigger size, and ideally <$500 but if that’s not possible that’s good to know too. Definitely happy to go used too.

Thanks again for the help - I definitely want to do the gear justice so appreciate the expertise!
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First things first: welcome to AK and congrats on the new gear. That's some pretty nice stuff you've got there.

For speakers, I would probably look for a pair of Marantz Imperial 6s or some Large Advents. Either of those are in your budget, not too big, will play well with your existing gear and sound very, very good.

Best of luck to you!
 
It's the speakers (and then the room) that will be the primary driver of your tonal qualities.

The best way to assemble something is to first, audition speakers and find a pair of speakers that you love.....and then, figure out what you need to drive them. If you decide you love a pair of Klipschorns, the equipment needs might be different than if you had chosen a pair of (insert a low sensitive speaker brand that sucks up a lot of power)

You have essentially bought a set of new tires and rims.....and are now asking what car best fits what you have. It will work but it's (again, my opinion) a backward way of thinking about it). That said, you do seem to have a nice set of tires & rims! :beerchug:
 
Dudeman7 said:
First things first: welcome to AK and congrats on the new gear. That's some pretty nice stuff you've got there.

For speakers, I would probably look for a pair of Marantz Imperial 6s or some Large Advents. Either of those are in your budget, not too big, will play well with your existing gear and sound very, very good.

Best of luck to you!
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^^this^^ You won't be happy with the Imperial 7 speakers for very long.
They are a purely market driven speaker. Lots of mid bass boom.
Keep them for party speakers if you want. The Imperial 6 speakers sound very good and play everything well. The "Marantz 8" are the Imperial 8 speakers they're on the large side and really need a good sized room to sound good. Also they're known for having the foam surrounds of the woofers rot out. So those would need replacing. Your looking at around $45 or more each to have those surrounds replaced by a speaker repair shop.
Oh, and welcome to AK. :thumbsup:
 
tommysully said:
but I’m looking for bookshelf or slightly bigger size, and ideally <$500 but if that’s not possible that’s good to know too. Definitely happy to go used too.
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Early tube audio amplifiers were designed for speakers that were generally large and efficient, meaning they will play louder than lower efficiency speakers. Generally speaking, larger speakers are more efficient than smaller speakers.

With a $500 budget, I would look for older Jensen, Electro-Voice or something similar from the 1960's.
 
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tommysully said:
I’m looking for bookshelf or slightly bigger size, and ideally <$500 but if that’s not possible that’s good to know too. Definitely happy to go used too.
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Welcome tommysully,

So finding a pair of bookshelf or slightly larger speakers to use with your Marantz 7, Marantz 8, Thorens 124 is possible, but there are some factors that need to be taken into account. The size of the room you are placing the system into, the desired volume of the music you listen to, the style of speaker you desire (modern vs vintage) (industrial vs high-end furniture grade), availability of speakers (local vs shipped) etc.

The following are only some of my recommendations mostly based on physical size, and even with that there are pretty much endless possibilities not listed.

Vintage JBL (L96, L112, L20T, L20T3, L40T/T3, L60T/T3, L110, L1, L18ti, 4312, 4406 ,4408 ,4410, etc.)
Vintage Klipsch (Heresy, Forte, Chorus, etc.)
Vintage or modern Kef (101 reference,102 reference, 103 reference, L50 etc.)
Vintage or modern Paradigm (Mini Monitor 2 or 3 or Studio 20 v2,v3,v4 etc.)

Some of these are harder to find than others especially for $500 but they are not impossible to locate because I own a fair number of these of which I paid less than $500 a pair. You will need to audition the speakers in person to decide the sound quality you are looking for, without getting too detailed some play softer but more accurate, while others play louder but are less accurate.

Speakers are like wine, ultimately everyone will have different tastes and recommendations, but in the end the choice is yours.
 
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You want, Big efficient JBL, Altec, EV, semi efficient Bozak. or efficient Klipsch. You want at least speakers that are rated 96 db/ 4 ft 1 watt. Today that would be about 97.3 db 1 watt 1 meter 8 ohms. 4 ohm speakers would have to be 100 .3 db/ i meter 1 watt . Thats it, everything else is to inefficient. JBL you want a three way just as would expect from Klipsch and EV. Altec is always 2 way and you want a model 19 if you want extended highs. Bozak with the vertical linear array of tweeters will have the best clarity and a more pleasant non horn sound, but stay away from those older models with paper mids and tweeters. You want the metal mids with the rubber coatings to prevent resonances. Normally they come with Y tweeters but if you wanted extende highs to match the JBL with 2405 tweeter for instance you want the Bozaks with B-200 Z tweeters. Horn loaded speakers are they only way to get satisfactory levels with your small 30 watt per channel amp. Bozaks with out the horns will have better more realistic bass and midrange, but you will have to sit a bit closer to the speakers. I would recommend Symphonys. Harts field JBL's are quite large but they made some low boy models that will suffice. EV-6 model 6 or a Klipsch Cornwall would be my first picks after the Symphony. You always want 6 to 10 db in reserve for peaks so for normal sound passages you want to stay around 1 to 3 watts. The EV-6 and Cornwall of later designs will keep you under 1 watt for the vast majority of the time. I stay around 2 watts with my Bozaks listening at at 17 feet with 20 watt peaks. Symphonies will allow you to sit closer as they only have one midrange driver. I started out with a MC 240 and a C-22 with my Symphonys back in 63.. I will include a photo of the system I had while in college, in the 60's. I did remote recordings for a sound company and a radio station and used my Bozaks as monitor speakers while editing tapes and making master tapes for production runs of LP's. So thats why I had over 100 watts each for the Symphonies and a 60 watt Mac amp for the center channel 302 Bozak speaker behind the the TV grill cloth. My Professional Ampex studio recorder was at the other end of the room where I edited the tapes and made the masters. Image3-68 2.jpgImage7-68.jpg
 
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Look into University speakers made in the early 60's. Good quality and well below the radar. Electrovoice models are a bit bigger but high quality for the money. Do your research and you should be able to find something that will work very cheap.
 
tommysully said:
Hi all,

Thanks in advance for the help! I recently inherited some vintage gear as my first setup; a Marantz 7, Marantz 8, and Thorens 124.

To my best understanding all I need now to complete the setup is a pair of speakers.

Is that the case? And if so, do y’all have any recommendations for something that will work with the setup to preserve the tonal qualities of the gear? I know it’s a tough ask, but I’m looking for bookshelf or slightly bigger size, and ideally <$500 but if that’s not possible that’s good to know too. Definitely happy to go used too.

Thanks again for the help - I definitely want to do the gear justice so appreciate the expertise!
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welcome to Ak.

As for your Q, may be a bit tough for under 500. If you can stretch it a bit you may be able to get into some earlier Sonus Faber bookshelf types for around 600 to 650. Look for a first order cross over such as the Minuetto model or similar. Another great sounding option would be a pair of Quads, but likely will not be able to grab those for 500.
 
I think it is a mistake to go for the final speakers when you actually don't know what you like. And especially if you don't know if your absolutely first rate, but old, equipment may need expensive work - it would be a pity to exhaust your budget only to find you need to repair something.
Think of whatever speakers you get as a temporary expedient - something to enjoy listening to until you know what your really want (which, if you are lucky, will be the speakers you already have). Were I you, I would look for speakers from the 60s - Bozaks, Wharfedales, ARs, or maybe KLH 6s or, even better, 23s.
 
I just saw a pair of Tannoy Saturn S8LR large-bookshelf speakers for sale on eBay, for less than $400 a pair. Yes, they'll be more than $500 including shipping- but not a LOT more.

I have personal experience with those sounding excellent on a Marantz 8B, years ago, when the Saturn S8LRs were new.

It would be hard for me to imagine something that would work significantly better on that amp, than those speakers, unless one were to spend many times that much money.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
I don’t know what those guys are saying, I didn’t read it all

Lets start with the basics
What kind of music
How loud do you want it to play
Get the amp and preamp serviced by someone that knows tube gear before there is a problem. A few hundred to make them right and worth the multiple thousands they are worth, it is a tube 7 isn’t it? would be money well spent. I did see your Nov 2023 thread about getting this gear so know what you have, now.

Tell us where you are. With the hundreds of used speakers available picking the fictional Model C from the ΩΘΔ Speaker Company for example, isn’t the way to find a good match cause those may never show up. With your location folks might browse the used outlets in your area and clue you up to a good deal on something that shows up on CL, FBMP, Offer-Up, eBay, local used stores and such. I got a hell of a tt based on an aker pointing it out.

Have you read much about the different sounding speakers, east coast, west coast, horns, A/D/S/ and others?

Do you have room to allow the speakers into the room or are they gonna have to live in the corners? Speaker placement is Extremely important to best sound. Are you looking for best sound?

Tell us more and folks will help you out, get you a nice set of speakers that you can put into a second system or move on without loosing much if you decide to upgrade. Remember someone up there says your electronics should have speakers worth a few grand or more. You can get there in steps if you like the ride.

And of course, there is $25 per year to subscribe which opens up Barter Town, the buy, sell, trade, ask for forums you can’t see right now. Who knows what great speakers someone within a few hundred miles has that they would sell for five bills or less. Probably let you sit and listen to em while cooling off with a nice beverage while deciding if you like em.

ok your other thread says you are gonna have the gear checked out. Has it happened, did you find someone?

it also states you’re in The City which should be a target rich area, maybe someone in Marin County wants to dump some nice Dynaudios for cheap just to get them outta the house. Should be some akers in the San Francisco area that might help out getting you some nice speakers. Something to get started or something good enough to be a keeper speaker for your rig.
 
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I suspect that Gordon's advice, since it is based on actual experience and the actual availability of a specific pair of speakers, is worth listening to.
There are so many possible alternatives out there, and taste is so personal, that general advice, particularly hypothetical advice - look for this, that, or the other speaker, which may be available, but who knows if they are (and I include my own suggestions in this category) - isn't very useful, and can be overwhelming.
 
Nat said:
I suspect that Gordon's advice, since it is based on actual experience and the actual availability of a specific pair of speakers, is worth listening to.
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That might be a great way to get started. Have something known to be decent to listen to and enjoy while considering other options. Could be easy to move the Tannoys to a different room when a different set of main speakers shows up.
 
GordonW said:
I just saw a pair of Tannoy Saturn S8LR large-bookshelf speakers for sale on eBay, for less than $400 a pair. Yes, they'll be more than $500 including shipping- but not a LOT more.

I have personal experience with those sounding excellent on a Marantz 8B, years ago, when the Saturn S8LRs were new.

It would be hard for me to imagine something that would work significantly better on that amp, than those speakers, unless one were to spend many times that much money.

Regards,
Gordon.
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Hey Gordon,

Just purchased a pair of these on eBay and they sound great - really appreciate the advice and everybody else’s suggestions!! Don’t see myself upgrading anytime soon.

Helped a whole lot :)

Cheers
Tommy
 
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