What the best Kabuki speakers you have heard

FluxT said:
It was a cheap 'n dirty way to increase output and power-handling from small, fragile mids and tweeters of the day. High efficiency was the name of the game here, in order to extract as much sound as possible from the average 25wpc tube and early solid-state amps of the 1960s without making speakers that were the size of a small fridge*. It also meant that you could build a full lineup from the same parts bin, adding extra drivers to make the next model up the chain (drastically reducing R&D and manufacturing costs). However, there are a lot of drawbacks to just adding extra mids and tweeters and supertweeters. Sound waves radiate outward from a speaker cone (both forwards and backwards), so if you have two speakers playing the exact same signal, you have two "bubbles" of energy coming towards you. Remember the movie "Ghostbusters", where they warned about not crossing the streams? That's what happens here, and so these "bubbles" start overlapping. Depending on the exact frequency, they can cause constructive interference (the signal becomes louder), or destructive interference (the signal becomes quieter, or even cancelled out). These leads to a jagged response called "comb filtering", which is further aggravated by the fact that these two identical soundwaves will arrive at your ears at different times, as they're emanating from at least two different points. If you're listening in the ideal "sweet spot", then none of this will matter and the speaker sounds excellent, but the sound will change dramatically if you move a muscle. Having a many-way crossover also introduces it's own issues, as each crossover can induce a phase shift, and provide more opportunities for drivers to overlap at the crossover points. All speakers suffer from these issues from one extent or another, and you can skirt around it with extremely careful designs (ie: line arrays) or mitigate it by listening further away from the speakers, but generally it gets worse and worse the more drivers you add. Hence why you rarely see anything more than a 3-way speaker these days, and some audiophiles swear by full-range drivers or coaxial/point-source speakers. And truth be told, there is something magical and cohesive about a really good full-ranger, even if they don't come close to reproducing the full spectrum of sound. Give a pair of KEF Q150's, or even a nice clock radio, a listen, and you'll see what I mean.

*There's a traditional rule in the loudspeaker business, known as Hoffman's Iron Law, which states: "Bass Extension, Efficiency, and Size. Pick two." You can create a small speaker with lots of bass, but it'll be need gobs of power. You can create a small speaker that screams on one watt, but it won't make any bass. You can create a speaker that will peel paint from the walls and damage your foundation, but it'll be absolutely ginormous. Modern technology's made this less of an issue, but the rules still apply to one extent or another. The Hoffman in question was the "H" in KLH, who built their reputation on the KLH Model Six, a reasonably-sized and reasonably-priced two-way acoustic suspension loudspeaker that was wildly popular in the late 1950s and 1960s. It was flat from 40Hz through 16kHz, which was more than competitive with the gigantic corner horns and full-rangers that dominated the HiFi market of the 1950's, and played a big role in helping make stereo practical and affordable to the average person (I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Acoustic Research AR3A and Dynaco A25 here). However, while those corner horns can sing on just 3 watts of tube power, the KLH's need at least 20. Those acoustic suspension "bookshelf" speakers sparked the demand for higher power amps and really used them to their highest potential as they can soak up power like a sponge, whereas the screaming 'suis tend to compress audibly if you start packing on the power.
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Ok. That is quite a detailed explanation. Thank you. I follow you and agree on most of that. I still however can't wrap my brain around you saying they weren't trying to make the best sounding speakers. It just doesn't make sense to me. At that time they were still making the receivers bigger and better. To me they just went too far. Thinking more is better. And in this case more wasn't better. Either way we know how it all ended up. They should have wither built bigger boxes or just kept less drivers and made even better boxes. Funny but I still want to try out a pair of some crazy Kabuki speakers. One day a pair will come along at the right price. Or else someone will have a set I can hear.
 
A lot of people tried making the best speakers and wound up creating stuff that sounds like crap. Hindsight's always 20/20, especially in 2022.
 
For me, the best sounding "Kabuki" speakers are the ones I haven't heard. :D

As a Viet Nam era veteran, I've heard many of the more popular Kabuki speakers. I've always thought they sounded dreadful. But then, I've never been a slave to "fashion". While others had a Japanese receiver and Kabuki speakers, I had a Fisher integrated and AR-4 speakers.:)
 
Dave N. said:
Ok. That is quite a detailed explanation. Thank you. I follow you and agree on most of that. I still however can't wrap my brain around you saying they weren't trying to make the best sounding speakers. It just doesn't make sense to me. At that time they were still making the receivers bigger and better. To me they just went too far. Thinking more is better. And in this case more wasn't better. Either way we know how it all ended up. They should have wither built bigger boxes or just kept less drivers and made even better boxes. Funny but I still want to try out a pair of some crazy Kabuki speakers. One day a pair will come along at the right price. Or else someone will have a set I can hear.
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"Best Sounding" is subjective. One size fits all is simply not applicable to speakers.
Ultimately the only way to find out if they're for you is to try them.

One thing you should realize though is that ALL speakers are designed with one goal in mind - to sell and make profit! Sounding best means nothing if a company is insolvent. The overall goal is, was, and always will be sales. Even when there's a unique principal, someone has to have said "hey, we could sell this!".
 
maxhifi said:
"Best Sounding" is subjective. One size fits all is simply not applicable to speakers.
Ultimately the only way to find out if they're for you is to try them.

One thing you should realize though is that ALL speakers are designed with one goal in mind - to sell and make profit! Sounding best means nothing if a company is insolvent. The overall goal is, was, and always will be sales. Even when there's a unique principal, someone has to have said "hey, we could sell this!".
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Yes. Always true. But I'm just having fun here more than anything. I will find some and hear some someday. Until then I've got this thread. Lol
 
JamVal said:
I've had: (In order of worst to best)
Pioneer CS-99
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Pioneer CS-99A
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Maybe these next two sets don't qualify as true Kabuki
Pioneer CS-77 (better bass)
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Pioneer CS-A500 (the only set I kept, they sound quite good)
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Ok. Thank you for your opinion on these. I would have thought the CS-99 would have been the best of those 3. I'm not familiar with the CSA500. I think mostly those 3 would be, maybe mild Kabuki. But I like to hear about all speakers.
 
gizzyman47 said:
I owned a pair of Pioneer cs-99a that I actually liked. Not for critical listening mind you but man would they play Loud and Clear. They get bad rap for light bass though. I felt that the bass came alive when powered by a quality higher powered amp. I thought the bass was tight and tuneful when played at moderate to higher volumes. They have skyrocketed in price the last few years though. If you run across a pair cheap, and in decent shape get them.
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I found a beautiful pair at a thrift a few years ago.They even had the Pioneer tag that hangs from the grill peg behind the grill.I didn't like their sound at all. Paid $120 and sold very quickly at $500.These were so clean I am sure I could have got $1000 on ebay but didn't want to go through the hassle of packing and shipping such heavy speakers.Very well built and heavy speakers but they sounded overly bright to me IIRC.
 
Twinsig said:
My 200s are doing a nice job for most of my listening. Got pair of 4x sitting on top for more subdued sound about half the time.
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Recently picked up a pair of 200s at an estate sale. All original crossovers. They sound a lot better than I expected. Seems to work well with different types of music.
 
I don't have a lot of experience with Kabuki speakers. I own a pair of Sansui SP 2500's. They actually sounded better than I thought they would. Was running them with my Fisher 500b receiver and a subwoofer. Large woofer, but cabinet too small to put out any meaningful bass. Heavy buggers...lol. They were pretty efficient if I recall.

Grabbed a pair of minty Kenwood Kl 9090X's today from Goodwill.

A bit newer than the SP2500's. Same Kubuki design....5 driver with a huge woofer. Again, running them for now with my Fisher 500b and a sub. I can play with the settings on the speaker and the receiver and sub so that actually sound quite decent.

These are super efficient speakers ....they get loud in a hurry...even with the low powered Fisher. I think Kenwood used quality components in these speakers.

Lower bass...not good...cabinet far too small and woofer far to rigid. Again, this can be remedied with a decent sub.

These will not be for everyone, but they are far from junk imo.
 
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