Nicely done! The vintage stuff has so much nostalgia and brings back many memories. As soon as you swap them out for something newer, you realize a lot of those memories are heavily rose colored.
0:58 its a cool speaker and nice to listen to the speakers made from the era of music the musicians created it for! especially when looking at concert speakers or studio monitors
Wow, this is an amazing transformation. Well done, Danny! Your knowledge, expertise and ability to transform even the most challenging speakers amazes me.
Also highly recommended for all speakers with rubber beading: Change them after more than 15 years of usage!!!!!! There are quite a lot of companies to change them. They not only get flaws, the softener slowly evaporates, the beading gets stiffer and the speaker beginn to work far outside its mechanic parameters. Distortion rises extremely, lower registers vanish. Sadly, this also happens to tweeter-beadings.
You did an amazing job because the frequency response is very even until 7 kilohertz, that Tweeter is a problem, I would change it with the JBL 4311 tweeter that is smother and they look almost the same
Ill put it to you this way. A 50 year old Heresy with GR Research crossovers is probably going to sound better than a new Heresy off the shelf in 2024. I think most of us are into vintage because its a little more thrifty and Its easier to get your foot in the door. Then we can chip away at our systems over time and do the upgrades.
I remember back in the day that european speakers did sound much cleaner than japanesse ones. First japanesse I could say sounded good was yamaha's... I'm always learning from your videos, thank you.
In the 1970's, ADS was considered the best even with the crossover parts of that day. Many people think that they still sound the best, especially with new crossover parts. Yet there is little or nothing on the market like them which should be easier with modern materials and manufacturing methods.
i would like to see an example of the new crossover, hope you can add that in future videos. and now i am in the mood to buy vintage speakers and make them sing again :) with your kits.
My '68' Dodge Challenger had a 318CI (5.2L) V8 that produced 186HP. My Audi A5 has a 2.0L 4 cylinder, less than half the displacement, that produces 240HP!
@@thomasmleahy6218 I could smoke the 318's tires w/an auto tranny. But w/ Quattro all wheel drive and very wide rubber all around, nothing happens till the turbo kicks in after around 2K.
@@JR-ho5qm you are correct, my bad, Technically a '70, came out late '69. So I think of it as a '69. It replaced my '68 Torino GT. I get their years confused.
I think the availabilty and demand of decent quality consumer grade hifi was a lot better in the 70s. Yeah these modern boutique manufacturers are pretty amazing but.... Think of the average system in the 70s vs what is average today. Today average is a bluetooth speaker the size of a beer can.
Impressive work! You made a silk purse out of a sow's ear! I took one look at this and thought, "Kabuki Resonance Hell". I was right! Normally I am not fond of speakers that are not two ways or concentric drivers. In some cases I am OK with a three way, but not a four way. Just too much going on with phasing issues and power losses in the crossover. While you did a great job on the speaker, I am wondering if it would have been better to nix the midrange, since it was mostly useless anyway, and move the tweeter in it's spot (and cover the hole where the tweeter was). I am wondering if that would have improved the off-axis response with having the drivers more in line. I am curious if that could have been done.
My first serious speakers were HPM 40's. If i still had them, i think i would put the drivers into a new "box". I think a vertical configuration of drivers in a tube would solve a lot of the problems, and then work on a new crossover.
I had hpm-40 in college. Burned out a tweeter once. Fixed them, gave them to my dad. They are still in his house held hostage by an evil step-mother. The surrounds rotted away years ago. Upgrading them might make emotional sense but they were never much more than nice dorm room speakers. Money guy down the hall had hpm-100s and an sx-1250 receiver.
@@E.Williams-z9y That's amazing. I burned out a super-tweeter. Sparks were actually flying out of it. I was pumping way too much power thru those speakers. And the guy down the hall from me in the university dorm also had HPM 100's!
Great video. It's amazing what you can do with such and old speaker. It is nostalgia that people want and will pay anything to get that back, plus to have them sound better than ever is even better. Danny, have you ever had a BBC Ls35a in your shop? I'd love to see you simplify that crazy crossover and super cheap parts.
Greetings Danny. I’m in Houston, Tx. Is it safe to assume that Pioneer HPM-40 cannot be “fixed” because it uses the same drivers as HPM-60 minus a midrange? Great job on your videos. I look forward to watching all of them.
Cool video, I think we have come a long way with speakers but there are still some vintage speakers that I think perform very well even against modern speakers such as ADS. Speakers def came a long way more than say 2ch audio amp/preamps, A vintage set of separates restored still sounds really good + you can rebuild them over and over and over again. Would love to see a video on the new x-over built and installed inside the HPM60 and hear the A/B, On the website there is zero pictures of the kit, the kit installed, the parts nothing. Im sure it sounds better I would just love to see it.
Although personally, I don't have $700-$800 bucks worth of love for my old pioneers. I think I would buy one of Danny's kits where all specs hit the mark much better.
Bought a pair of those in pristine condition from a builder super never collected them in like 3 years he give them away i didnt had no where to put them i already have a system at my house
Never fully understould why these vintage speakers were so often built into short boxy cabinets? Not only do they look ugly, they seem to create a bunch of audio problems. They also take up more floor space than do the tall narrow profiles and they place the tweeters too low in the room. I do remember a lot of folk being impressed by huge woofers, so I guess that was part of it.
These things used to be placed on the floor against the wall or on cabinets against the wall. Seemed to be the style back in the day, so they made speakers like this. Also fitting everything in while using the least material possible I guess
I have seen you doing many upgrades on speakers.On paper it looks great.But i have never seen a video of you where you can hear the difference before and after the upgrade.Why is that.I think thats the most important thing of all this upgrading.
So we record the sound on our system to then be compressed into a UA-cam file and then you want to hear the difference played back on your computer, headphones, or your system. That will not show off the actual differences.
@@dannyrichie9743hey Danny, love your work, man! I Have a pair of hpm60 and like to make the upgrade. Would love to hear those file samples too. Didnt understood weel tge part of no res braces, can you show us how to make it or have a schematic of this if i buy the upgrade kit? I'm in Rio, Brazil, so have to make tge upgrade from here.
You hit the nail on the head, vintage speakers are all about the music and not so much the technology, that of course does not mean that vintage speakers cannot sound sophisticated and high fidelity. Harley from Pearl Acoustics said something very significant in his last video on his channel. What he said was that during live concerts you cannot really tell where instruments sounds are located on stage and in 3D space. Instead you can visually see where they are on stage and even then all the sounds mesh into a cohesive whole, and no where near the pin point placement with modern "hi end" speakers. So basically modern speakers with 3D pin point soundstage are not really accurate to reality, it's a nice effect but that's all it is, an effect. For this reason I will always prefer vintage audio and speakers for their musical sound as opposed to linear pin point placement of modern speakers. Of course the room also plays a big role, but in any real life situation there will always be reflections, unless you live inside an anechoic chamber.
And as Ron at NRD so eloquently reminds us, the “imaging” over which we enthuse effusively is almost without exception a carefully crafted illusion of multiple highly processed monaural tracks, more frequently than not of instruments not even occupying the same acoustic space or at the same time. Nothing at all wrong with the entertainment that can be created by such methods - Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells comes to mind - but let’s try to keep the artifice of it all in mind.
I often go to small clubs that have no sound reinforcement. I can tell exactly where the guitar amp and the bass amp and the drums are located. I saw the video you refer to, and I have some reservations about what he said.
@@crtgamer2355 Since you cited Harley from Pearl, I’m one of those DIY builders who’d used range drivers by Fostex then Mark Fenlon - mostly metal cone variants - for over 15yrs before hanging up my shop apron. Used within their limits, there’s a lot of enjoyment (I’ll avoid saying “magic”) to be had from point source driver based systems that may not measure wonderfully - but have you ever had a serious audiogram of your hearing?
@@EskWIRED Interesting, always good to have different opinions. Could it be that amplified sound is easier to pin point as it is much louder than acoustic instruments which Harley was referring to. Then again drums are acoustic, maybe its also distance from the stage, as a small club would be much more intimate than a large orchestral hall.
That's the problem with a lot of those Japanese mass market speakers. It's not that they were bad, however they were anything but refined. Case in point, they were not created as a stereo pair, i.e., they weren't mirror image, left to right, and it definitely caused off-axis problems from one side to another.
I love my modern speakers but can't help but feel that older music is made for/on older speakers so they kind of match in that way. I like to listen to vinyl on my old JBLs more than my new studio mons for example.
Nostalgic values are high on anything vintage….occasionally I run across a piece that actually performs to today’s standards (typically power amps that I have restored to a certain degree but that’s rare.
Hi, is it possible to create a folded horn type cabinet which is ported to the front using a dipole driver? The hope is to make a speaker exihibiting an open baffle trait while not being as reliant to wall distance. The volume will be low for nearfield use. The cabinet design for the Tanoy Westminster has my Fitter and Turner brain full of ideas.
I have a pair of these in my basement in storage, I don't plan on using them. I have built much better speakers and I have no connection to the hpm . I was thinking about totally rebuilding the crossover and put a soft dome tweeter, change all the wires etc. But then it's just a plywood box . So I am going to sell them. If I can remember I forget I have them
Thank you for making this videos Danny. Your videos inspired me to rebuild the crossovers in my Polk LSi25 speakers. I am ordering components today and am excited about the build. What software tools do you to measure, model, and generate the responses that you share in these videos? Please keep these coming!
That model had the same upper section as the LSi9 model and it had issues that were unfixable. We use a Clio measuring system. Nothing is modeled. All measured responses are real measured responses.
I paid 400 for a mint set of 60's. How can you charge $900 for the upgrade kit? Does it really make a HUGE difference? And if I wanted the best in speakers, I could buy new ones. The whole idea of vintage sound... is vintage sound. I'm out .
I know you're almost religious about doing these crossover redesigns without changing drivers, almost like it would be cheating to change a driver. I do appreciate that approach very much, as there is a special value in that approach, especially for folks who want to maintain the look of the old speaker.... But; have you thought about dropping one of your drivers into the mid-position on one of these classic speakers and designing the crossover around that instead? I think it would give you more flexibility in the crossover design, opening up the option to run the mid down to a much lower frequency. I wonder if the M130 would fit in that hole... does the mid on this speaker have a separate enclosure?
Oh, I've thought about it. The M130 would not quite a bit of its own air space and the speaker was not designed for that. Then again we did use that driver in the Brute and Bully models.
Danny, Have you ever worked on Kef 104? What’s your opinion on 6:14 them if you’ve had a chance to listen to them as compared to today’s modern speakers.
Anyone who thinks you're trying to mislead when one plot is louder than another is off their rocker and can't read plots! Obviously you have to lower the plot 5db when one frequency is that much louder than everything else!
Danny, have you made any videos showing us how to best brace speaker cabinets? I recently bought upgraded crossover parts and No Rez from you for my old KEF speakers. Despite their cabinets being made of 3/4 inch MDF, KEF included no bracing whatsoever. If you could point me towards a good source to learn about this topic, I would appreciate it.
I think we have to compare a ford to ford also. Is a modern Klipsch Heresy goign to measure that much better than one made 50 years ago? Maybe a little. More resolution from modern drivers.
How is audio signal degraded by oxidized copper when the oxidation is only on the surface of the wire? Wouldn't the signal still flow through the core of the wire efficiently?
I believe jbl made the drivers for those.amd i had hpm 100 and loved the sound..the problem i have with some of these videos especially the classic gear is most people dont want to change the sound or memories that these speakers hold..and the people that want to upgrade these are 1% of owners at best!
You loved the hpm100...dude it's a scream box no wonder you're so salty here making 5 comments on the channel. Can't handle fact , confusing subjective for objective (what Danny does) he never used his petty little feelings like you and many her seem to do. To determine if something is good or bad. He's just acting his findings and those aren't that great. He never shares in in his videos how they sound. He's not REVIEWING it's not hard to comprehend what he's doing. Enjoy your scream boxes (I reviewed them myself and restored them) albeit a nice speaker. It's in no realm or world or universe a great speaker. Lol
Again memories far out way the audio experience.Your subjective opionion is tainted from your own ears and your view of the speaker is based on what?.opinions are like A holes and 5 comments..Get a life!
so danny how do you rate tad exclusive speaker model 2 and s5 back in the 70, 80, those design are still used by rey audio profesional speaker design for studios
IINM, the entire 901 series was based on small “fullrange” drivers with external active electronic equalization and tons of power. I was in the audio retail business off and on for over a cumulative decade from the mid ‘70s to early ‘90s and the 901 were one of those speakers I couldn’t wait to get away from in the demo room; but should one want to “upgrade” a pair, and if the suspensions on original drivers haven’t stiffened significantly, no doubt a dose of REW /miniDSP could go a long way.
@@fonkenful I’ve always wanted the challenge of completely modifying the 901. But a new crossover and tube connectors would be like banging your head against the wall.
@@philipketchum1407 Pretty sure that 901s have never used the type of passive crossover that Danny would enjoy the challenge of “upgrading”. The model series was in continuous production and refinement for over 48 years, and at the risk of comment deletion, I’d opine had probably the most notable love/hate relationship among audiophiles. That said, the original model had an amazing capacity to handle the power of the monster solid state amps coming on stream in the mid ‘70s .
The 901 are better suited for DSP use; the original EQ unit basically does what you'd try to do with a passive crossover but without needing to cut 10dB of efficiency due to the large bass and treble boost. They actually ended up being somewhat consistent overall in-room.
The main problem with vintage speakers sounding just loud and not musical has nothing to do with the speaker(provided it's built reasonably well), but more to do with the input signal to the amp from the source and how hard you push the output. Finding the balance is an art form in of itself. Some amps and speaker combos just cannot go very loud while holding that sweet spot. It's up to you to figure out where that sweet spot is for your system.
No, then the drivers that they are in line with would be way too loud, and there was no plan to ever reuse them anyway. They are one of the worst things to have in the signal path.
I’m 68 a child of the Mid 1960’s and 1970’s! I never thought those speakers were cool. Yeah we used to blast our music! loud rock ‘n’ roll and psychedelic music.. it was loud and never really sounded good compared to today and anybody who thinks they were is delusional. They were ugly to me then and they’re uglier to me now! There’s an old expression you can put lipstick on a pig, but you can’t make it look any prettier ! A pig is still a pig!
I don't know what GM put in the Grand Prix . But when I took them out for the first time at a 125K some of them had a 3× gap .I could not believe the GTP was still running. Man getting the boots off the rear cylinder bank was a challenge. Even with the top engine mounts disconnected and the engine rotated as far forward as possible. It turned out the accelerator pedal was the main problem. Drive by wire...not a great thing in the rust belt...keeping a pair of potentiometers in agreement down where the wet salty boots go in winter ...living in the car for half a decade probably didn't help either. But really a 3800 with drive by wire it doesn't make much sense considering how old the design was. Fuel injection yes good...supercharger well good and bad. The thing would start with 10.5 volts on the battery and then drink heavily. The new plugs didn't change that heavy drinking problem either.
You don't need to justify the excellent work that you do on those old, crap mi-fi dreck speakers. The fact is that what you're doing is bringing them to their fullest potential. End of discussion - full stop.
I can understand crossover parts and no res as improvements and the quality of the wire used but surely on and off axis response is a useless measurement most audiophile setups i've seen have a dedicated listening position and you set up it up for the best sound as ps audio have hammered in to me set up is everything its kind of like buying a new golf club and saying when I hit it with the shaft it goes to the left?
Hello there, Two subjects. First, about on/off axis. Perhaps it's only a specific type of audiophile or I am not an audiophile? To make a point, allow me to say I'm currently designing & building my own pair of 3-way loudspeakers. It has not been a haphazard endeavor. A fair amount of time has been consumed researching and this 'aint my 1st rodeo. Ok fine. Knowing what I want on/off axis has led me to a sealed domed tweeter, somewhat protruding from its face plate, with no front baffle mounted as close to the midrange as possible. A cone midrange flush mounted in a small, faceted convex front baffle slot ported cabinet. 12" sealed bass cabinet of similar construction and being more deep dimensionally to achieve cubed volume. The result should be a loudspeaker that, while I'm walking around the room playing air guitar and dancing like no one's watching, it should sound pretty good because I should get a big round off-axis field. Exactly the opposite of an audiophile's statuesque positioning. I've learned this because of the useless on/off axis measurements. Now, am I not an audiophile? lol? And second................... Remaking the front baffle on these HPM's. Because you seem interested in this subject, I thought I'd ask about remaking the front baffle too. It seems there's enough room and enough fair drivers to try it. Wonder if it would be worth it? Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
You're not entirely wrong, and placement of the speaker within your room (as well as the placement of your listening position) are important factors to consider, and measurements can help you determine how a speaker is going to sound and can also help with placement as well as things like toe-in or toe-out, without having to do nearly as much guess work. On-axis measurements give you an idea how the speaker will sound in the nearfield, off-axis measurements help tell you how a speaker is going to interact within a room, especially above ~500Hz. If a speaker peaks in the off-axis, more energy is playing out into the room at thar frequency, and if you you're going to be in a small or a long/narrow room, or have the speakers close to the wall, you're likely going to find that they sound "bright," or harsh. But in a near-field setup, in a larger room, or a wide/shallow room, the walls are going to be less of an issue, as they are far enough away that the reflections are delayed and down in output vs in a small or narrow room. Room treatment can also help in those cases by absorbing some of those direct reflections. Plus, the best spot for one speaker, may be different for another speaker, some speakers are designed to be close to the walls, and would sound thin if pulled into the room, others need to be further away, and the bass will sound boomy or bloated if pushed too close to the walls. Some speakers are designed to be listened to in the nearfield, and others will sound better when you sit further away, and having accurate, reliable measurements ahead of time can help with that.
@@hoth2112 . I'm addressing audiophile objectives. Quote, "...audiophile setups...dedicated... position...for the best sound". My objective is the opposite of that. Am I an audiophile? Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
@@veroman007 JBLs ... nice, luxury! '82 dorm room, my roomie had Panasonic Thrusters(!), I had my diy cabinets/rig. Fagan's Nightfly, Men at Work, The Wall, Sabbath Mob Rules, John Cougar, The Who It's Hard, Toto IV, Pretenders. We played Swingin' on the bar jukebox, we didn't have the record. Damn, we had so much fun!
@@sudd3660 Joke, dude. I owned a pair back in the day, long before the availability of the type of home user acoustic measurement systems we take for granted today. Jon was a very smart guy, and considering his rumoured goal for the system, and the quality of drivers he had to work with for the budget, I felt they worked very well.
A $700 to $900 parts upgrade for a speaker that's currently $350 and $400 on Marketplace for the two closest clean pairs. I don't doubt the results but this makes zero economic sense to me. I'm a fan but jeez.
I don't understand that argument, and I've heard it said many times. Surely, them being cheap in the marketplace is an argument FOR buying them and/or upgrading them? I mean, if they're listed at $10k, or could fetch $10k then no, probably better to sell.
@@toby9999 you not understanding a basic financial principle isn't a strong argument for it not being valid. I'm an appraiser and this is a classic example of overimprovment. This is the person putting marble floors in a starter home. A quick tour of sold eBay listings and sold HifiShark listings will tell you that the cost of this upgrade far exceeds the market value of the speaker. If you have sentimental value for your pair then fine. That's different. But spending $450 on a clean pair and then dumping $700-$900 puts you at $1150 to $1350 in on a pair of speakers that's worth $550 tops. If they were your dad's and you love them then fine. But overall this makes no financial sense. No amount of guts will change that this is a vinyl-wrapped speaker that was built to a price point.
I dunno, but for me it's always been about sound quality. Thinking something sounds good when you're young dumb and full of, when you're old an finally know a thing or two, why does it sound so different than what you think you remember?..... Or just not at all the way we remember it! I have no nostalgia regarding any speaker, but apparently I do have some false memories! Just sayin. Cheers 🍻
Nicely done! The vintage stuff has so much nostalgia and brings back many memories. As soon as you swap them out for something newer, you realize a lot of those memories are heavily rose colored.
Keep up the vintage speakers ! Just cool to hot rod these things!
Oh how I would love to see what Danny could do with the Dahlquist DQ-10!
I don't think I could fix those.
@@dannyrichie9743Yes you could !! just keep the frame & grill & replace everything else - they look cool and are open baffle RetroMod
Thank you Danny, love your videos and speakers!
0:58 its a cool speaker and nice to listen to the speakers made from the era of music the musicians created it for! especially when looking at concert speakers or studio monitors
Wow, this is an amazing transformation. Well done, Danny! Your knowledge, expertise and ability to transform even the most challenging speakers amazes me.
Also highly recommended for all speakers with rubber beading: Change them after more than 15 years of usage!!!!!! There are quite a lot of companies to change them.
They not only get flaws, the softener slowly evaporates, the beading gets stiffer and the speaker beginn to work far outside its mechanic parameters. Distortion rises extremely, lower registers vanish. Sadly, this also happens to tweeter-beadings.
You did an amazing job because the frequency response is very even until 7 kilohertz, that Tweeter is a problem, I would change it with the JBL 4311 tweeter that is smother and they look almost the same
I love this channel but really wish to hear the BEFORE & AFTER effects. That would make it absolutely addictive.
Ill put it to you this way. A 50 year old Heresy with GR Research crossovers is probably going to sound better than a new Heresy off the shelf in 2024. I think most of us are into vintage because its a little more thrifty and Its easier to get your foot in the door. Then we can chip away at our systems over time and do the upgrades.
I remember back in the day that european speakers did sound much cleaner than japanesse ones. First japanesse I could say sounded good was yamaha's... I'm always learning from your videos, thank you.
In the 1970's, ADS was considered the best even with the crossover parts of that day. Many people think that they still sound the best, especially with new crossover parts. Yet there is little or nothing on the market like them which should be easier with modern materials and manufacturing methods.
i would like to see an example of the new crossover, hope you can add that in future videos.
and now i am in the mood to buy vintage speakers and make them sing again :) with your kits.
Well, he can’t show too much of the crossover or people would bypass Danny, but I agree
My '68' Dodge Challenger had a 318CI (5.2L) V8 that produced 186HP. My Audi A5 has a 2.0L 4 cylinder, less than half the displacement, that produces 240HP!
speaker is a simple machine
Much less torque.
@@thomasmleahy6218 I could smoke the 318's tires w/an auto tranny. But w/ Quattro all wheel drive and very wide rubber all around, nothing happens till the turbo kicks in after around 2K.
They never made a Dodge Challenger in 68
@@JR-ho5qm you are correct, my bad, Technically a '70, came out late '69. So I think of it as a '69. It replaced my '68 Torino GT. I get their years confused.
I think the availabilty and demand of decent quality consumer grade hifi was a lot better in the 70s. Yeah these modern boutique manufacturers are pretty amazing but.... Think of the average system in the 70s vs what is average today. Today average is a bluetooth speaker the size of a beer can.
I like choosing different speakers for different music and moods. I like a speaker that would have been “the standard” when the music was new.
Cool t-shirt. Would never have thought you were a fan of Aussie Doorslammer drag racing legend John Zappia 👍
I love drag racing. A customer of mine in Australia sent it to me.
Very nicely done!
Impressive work! You made a silk purse out of a sow's ear! I took one look at this and thought, "Kabuki Resonance Hell". I was right! Normally I am not fond of speakers that are not two ways or concentric drivers. In some cases I am OK with a three way, but not a four way. Just too much going on with phasing issues and power losses in the crossover. While you did a great job on the speaker, I am wondering if it would have been better to nix the midrange, since it was mostly useless anyway, and move the tweeter in it's spot (and cover the hole where the tweeter was). I am wondering if that would have improved the off-axis response with having the drivers more in line. I am curious if that could have been done.
My first serious speakers were HPM 40's. If i still had them, i think i would put the drivers into a new "box". I think a vertical configuration of drivers in a tube would solve a lot of the problems, and then work on a new crossover.
I had hpm-40 in college. Burned out a tweeter once. Fixed them, gave them to my dad. They are still in his house held hostage by an evil step-mother. The surrounds rotted away years ago. Upgrading them might make emotional sense but they were never much more than nice dorm room speakers. Money guy down the hall had hpm-100s and an sx-1250 receiver.
@@E.Williams-z9y That's amazing. I burned out a super-tweeter. Sparks were actually flying out of it. I was pumping way too much power thru those speakers. And the guy down the hall from me in the university dorm also had HPM 100's!
Great video. It's amazing what you can do with such and old speaker.
It is nostalgia that people want and will pay anything to get that back, plus to have them sound better than ever is even better.
Danny, have you ever had a BBC Ls35a in your shop? I'd love to see you simplify that crazy crossover and super cheap parts.
Greetings Danny. I’m in Houston, Tx. Is it safe to assume that Pioneer HPM-40 cannot be “fixed” because it uses the same drivers as HPM-60 minus a midrange? Great job on your videos. I look forward to watching all of them.
Cool video, I think we have come a long way with speakers but there are still some vintage speakers that I think perform very well even against modern speakers such as ADS.
Speakers def came a long way more than say 2ch audio amp/preamps, A vintage set of separates restored still sounds really good + you can rebuild them over and over and over again. Would love to see a video on the new x-over built and installed inside the HPM60 and hear the A/B, On the website there is zero pictures of the kit, the kit installed, the parts nothing. Im sure it sounds better I would just love to see it.
Although personally, I don't have $700-$800 bucks worth of love for my old pioneers. I think I would buy one of Danny's kits where all specs hit the mark much better.
Bought a pair of those in pristine condition from a builder super never collected them in like 3 years he give them away i didnt had no where to put them i already have a system at my house
He should like spring terminals - they are low mass :)
Never fully understould why these vintage speakers were so often built into short boxy cabinets? Not only do they look ugly, they seem to create a bunch of audio problems. They also take up more floor space than do the tall narrow profiles and they place the tweeters too low in the room. I do remember a lot of folk being impressed by huge woofers, so I guess that was part of it.
These things used to be placed on the floor against the wall or on cabinets against the wall. Seemed to be the style back in the day, so they made speakers like this.
Also fitting everything in while using the least material possible I guess
I had these back in like 78 or so
I have seen you doing many upgrades on speakers.On paper it looks great.But i have never seen a video of you where you can hear the difference before and after the upgrade.Why is that.I think thats the most important thing of all this upgrading.
So we record the sound on our system to then be compressed into a UA-cam file and then you want to hear the difference played back on your computer, headphones, or your system. That will not show off the actual differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 I understand that.Maybe it is possible to make a music file we can download en hear it on our system.
@@johnkerkhof1952 We are working on that.
@@dannyrichie9743hey Danny, love your work, man! I Have a pair of hpm60 and like to make the upgrade. Would love to hear those file samples too. Didnt understood weel tge part of no res braces, can you show us how to make it or have a schematic of this if i buy the upgrade kit? I'm in Rio, Brazil, so have to make tge upgrade from here.
@@alexandre.romano We have an upgrade for that one right here. gr-research.com/product/pioneer-hpm-60-upgrade-kit/
You hit the nail on the head, vintage speakers are all about the music and not so much the technology, that of course does not mean that vintage speakers cannot sound sophisticated and high fidelity.
Harley from Pearl Acoustics said something very significant in his last video on his channel. What he said was that during live concerts you cannot really tell where instruments sounds are located on stage and in 3D space.
Instead you can visually see where they are on stage and even then all the sounds mesh into a cohesive whole, and no where near the pin point placement with modern "hi end" speakers.
So basically modern speakers with 3D pin point soundstage are not really accurate to reality, it's a nice effect but that's all it is, an effect.
For this reason I will always prefer vintage audio and speakers for their musical sound as opposed to linear pin point placement of modern speakers.
Of course the room also plays a big role, but in any real life situation there will always be reflections, unless you live inside an anechoic chamber.
And as Ron at NRD so eloquently reminds us, the “imaging” over which we enthuse effusively is almost without exception a carefully crafted illusion of multiple highly processed monaural tracks, more frequently than not of instruments not even occupying the same acoustic space or at the same time. Nothing at all wrong with the entertainment that can be created by such methods - Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells comes to mind - but let’s try to keep the artifice of it all in mind.
@@fonkenful Well said Sir.
I often go to small clubs that have no sound reinforcement. I can tell exactly where the guitar amp and the bass amp and the drums are located. I saw the video you refer to, and I have some reservations about what he said.
@@crtgamer2355 Since you cited Harley from Pearl, I’m one of those DIY builders who’d used range drivers by Fostex then Mark Fenlon - mostly metal cone variants - for over 15yrs before hanging up my shop apron. Used within their limits, there’s a lot of enjoyment (I’ll avoid saying “magic”) to be had from point source driver based systems that may not measure wonderfully - but have you ever had a serious audiogram of your hearing?
@@EskWIRED Interesting, always good to have different opinions. Could it be that amplified sound is easier to pin point as it is much louder than acoustic instruments which Harley was referring to. Then again drums are acoustic, maybe its also distance from the stage, as a small club would be much more intimate than a large orchestral hall.
Now that is a cool shirt!
That's the problem with a lot of those Japanese mass market speakers. It's not that they were bad, however they were anything but refined. Case in point, they were not created as a stereo pair, i.e., they weren't mirror image, left to right, and it definitely caused off-axis problems from one side to another.
Super
I love my modern speakers but can't help but feel that older music is made for/on older speakers so they kind of match in that way. I like to listen to vinyl on my old JBLs more than my new studio mons for example.
There is no comparison to modern speakers. Commercial speakers from Polk, Klipsch and other models today under $1k sound so much better.
Nostalgic values are high on anything vintage….occasionally I run across a piece that actually performs to today’s standards (typically power amps that I have restored to a certain degree but that’s rare.
Hi, is it possible to create a folded horn type cabinet which is ported to the front using a dipole driver? The hope is to make a speaker exihibiting an open baffle trait while not being as reliant to wall distance. The volume will be low for nearfield use. The cabinet design for the Tanoy Westminster has my Fitter and Turner brain full of ideas.
I have a pair of these in my basement in storage, I don't plan on using them. I have built much better speakers and I have no connection to the hpm . I was thinking about totally rebuilding the crossover and put a soft dome tweeter, change all the wires etc. But then it's just a plywood box . So I am going to sell them. If I can remember I forget I have them
Thank you for waking up all the 70s guys that swore the stuff was the best, now hopefully I won’t hear how JBL and pioneer speakers are the cats ass🥂
Thanks😊
Thank you for making this videos Danny. Your videos inspired me to rebuild the crossovers in my Polk LSi25 speakers. I am ordering components today and am excited about the build. What software tools do you to measure, model, and generate the responses that you share in these videos? Please keep these coming!
That model had the same upper section as the LSi9 model and it had issues that were unfixable.
We use a Clio measuring system. Nothing is modeled. All measured responses are real measured responses.
I paid 400 for a mint set of 60's. How can you charge $900 for the upgrade kit? Does it really make a HUGE difference? And if I wanted the best in speakers, I could buy new ones. The whole idea of vintage sound... is vintage sound. I'm out .
I know you're almost religious about doing these crossover redesigns without changing drivers, almost like it would be cheating to change a driver. I do appreciate that approach very much, as there is a special value in that approach, especially for folks who want to maintain the look of the old speaker.... But; have you thought about dropping one of your drivers into the mid-position on one of these classic speakers and designing the crossover around that instead? I think it would give you more flexibility in the crossover design, opening up the option to run the mid down to a much lower frequency. I wonder if the M130 would fit in that hole... does the mid on this speaker have a separate enclosure?
Oh, I've thought about it. The M130 would not quite a bit of its own air space and the speaker was not designed for that. Then again we did use that driver in the Brute and Bully models.
Excellent
I would buy one of dannys kits instead but I get the vintage appeal.
I dont understand why they would have put the super tweeter instead of the tweeter in line with the mid and the inside of the woofer.
Danny, Have you ever worked on Kef 104?
What’s your opinion on 6:14 them if you’ve had a chance to listen to them as compared to today’s modern speakers.
There are two different models of these pioneer hpm 60 speakers. How are these different from each other? Mine are different than in the video.
Anyone who thinks you're trying to mislead when one plot is louder than another is off their rocker and can't read plots!
Obviously you have to lower the plot 5db when one frequency is that much louder than everything else!
Great video Danny! The best box is no box, OB for the win!
Danny, have you made any videos showing us how to best brace speaker cabinets? I recently bought upgraded crossover parts and No Rez from you for my old KEF speakers. Despite their cabinets being made of 3/4 inch MDF, KEF included no bracing whatsoever. If you could point me towards a good source to learn about this topic, I would appreciate it.
I might have to do a video on that.
@@dannyrichie9743 It would be great if you could. I hesitate to install the no rez until I figure out what to do about bracing.
@@EskWIRED See this thread: www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=166996.msg1773331#msg1773331
@@dannyrichie9743 Danny went over it in his one Klipsh video when he upgraded Tyson’s big box Klipsh speakers. It was a while back. Great video
I think we have to compare a ford to ford also. Is a modern Klipsch Heresy goign to measure that much better than one made 50 years ago? Maybe a little. More resolution from modern drivers.
How is audio signal degraded by oxidized copper when the oxidation is only on the surface of the wire? Wouldn't the signal still flow through the core of the wire efficiently?
Nope, the higher frequencies tend to travel on the surface of the wire. The sound is degraded quite a bit.
I wonder what they're going to say in the future, like in 50 years about today's technology how bad it was.
Yes
Old technology wasn't bad within the context of the times. It's just that technology improved. No doubt improvements will continue.
They might, but who cares.
I believe jbl made the drivers for those.amd i had hpm 100 and loved the sound..the problem i have with some of these videos especially the classic gear is most people dont want to change the sound or memories that these speakers hold..and the people that want to upgrade these are 1% of owners at best!
JBL didnt make the drivers for Pioneer, They did however poach Bart Locanthi, the former Vice President of Engineering at JBL.
You loved the hpm100...dude it's a scream box no wonder you're so salty here making 5 comments on the channel.
Can't handle fact , confusing subjective for objective (what Danny does) he never used his petty little feelings like you and many her seem to do. To determine if something is good or bad.
He's just acting his findings and those aren't that great. He never shares in in his videos how they sound. He's not REVIEWING it's not hard to comprehend what he's doing.
Enjoy your scream boxes (I reviewed them myself and restored them) albeit a nice speaker. It's in no realm or world or universe a great speaker. Lol
Again memories far out way the audio experience.Your subjective opionion is tainted from your own ears and your view of the speaker is based on what?.opinions are like A holes and 5 comments..Get a life!
So after the mod these should be listened to rotated 90 degrees on their side like a big studio monitor and just don't stand up....
so danny how do you rate tad exclusive speaker model 2 and s5 back in the 70, 80, those design are still used by rey audio profesional speaker design for studios
Vintage were very cool looking but back breaking to move and were power thirsty.
My dad had a pair of Bose 901 Series 1's. I wish someone would send you a pair of those.
Why do you hate Danny? 🤣
IINM, the entire 901 series was based on small “fullrange” drivers with external active electronic equalization and tons of power. I was in the audio retail business off and on for over a cumulative decade from the mid ‘70s to early ‘90s and the 901 were one of those speakers I couldn’t wait to get away from in the demo room; but should one want to “upgrade” a pair, and if the suspensions on original drivers haven’t stiffened significantly, no doubt a dose of REW /miniDSP could go a long way.
@@fonkenful I’ve always wanted the challenge of completely modifying the 901. But a new crossover and tube connectors would be like banging your head against the wall.
@@philipketchum1407 Pretty sure that 901s have never used the type of passive crossover that Danny would enjoy the challenge of “upgrading”. The model series was in continuous production and refinement for over 48 years, and at the risk of comment deletion, I’d opine had probably the most notable love/hate relationship among audiophiles.
That said, the original model had an amazing capacity to handle the power of the monster solid state amps coming on stream in the mid ‘70s .
The 901 are better suited for DSP use; the original EQ unit basically does what you'd try to do with a passive crossover but without needing to cut 10dB of efficiency due to the large bass and treble boost.
They actually ended up being somewhat consistent overall in-room.
They keep saying next level, is it next level + or next level - ?
This is not, strictly speaking, a 'filler' (phase-link) midrange.
The main problem with vintage speakers sounding just loud and not musical has nothing to do with the speaker(provided it's built reasonably well), but more to do with the input signal to the amp from the source and how hard you push the output. Finding the balance is an art form in of itself. Some amps and speaker combos just cannot go very loud while holding that sweet spot.
It's up to you to figure out where that sweet spot is for your system.
I am not sure you explained how you intagrated the super tweeter?
I should have explained that better. It is playing up there in the 18kHz region and up.
Very linear response - they should sound excellent.
Wouldn't it be best to bypass the pots before testing?
No, then the drivers that they are in line with would be way too loud, and there was no plan to ever reuse them anyway. They are one of the worst things to have in the signal path.
I’m 68 a child of the Mid 1960’s and 1970’s! I never thought those speakers were cool. Yeah we used to blast our music! loud rock ‘n’ roll and psychedelic music.. it was loud and never really sounded good compared to today and anybody who thinks they were is delusional. They were ugly to me then and they’re uglier to me now!
There’s an old expression you can put lipstick on a pig, but you can’t make it look any prettier ! A pig is still a pig!
boy, you put alot of faith in those 100k spark pluggs......................................
I think changing them at 50K miles is the sweet spot.
Most platinum plug are usable for more than 100k
I've had customers go to 200K++ on the original plugs. My own vehicle, have no intentions of changing until at least 150K.
Guys da fak… did u get the point or ya all dumb as f?!
I don't know what GM put in the Grand Prix . But when I took them out for the first time at a 125K some of them had a 3× gap .I could not believe the GTP was still running. Man getting the boots off the rear cylinder bank was a challenge. Even with the top engine mounts disconnected and the engine rotated as far forward as possible. It turned out the accelerator pedal was the main problem. Drive by wire...not a great thing in the rust belt...keeping a pair of potentiometers in agreement down where the wet salty boots go in winter ...living in the car for half a decade probably didn't help either. But really a 3800 with drive by wire it doesn't make much sense considering how old the design was. Fuel injection yes good...supercharger well good and bad. The thing would start with 10.5 volts on the battery and then drink heavily. The new plugs didn't change that heavy drinking problem either.
You don't need to justify the excellent work that you do on those old, crap mi-fi dreck speakers. The fact is that what you're doing is bringing them to their fullest potential. End of discussion - full stop.
Before we blame the gear, we gotta check our levels, input and output. Use a VU meter at -18dB nominal.
I can understand crossover parts and no res as improvements and the quality of the wire used but surely on and off axis response is a useless measurement most audiophile setups i've seen have a dedicated listening position and you set up it up for the best sound as ps audio have hammered in to me set up is everything its kind of like buying a new golf club and saying when I hit it with the shaft it goes to the left?
Hello there,
Two subjects. First, about on/off axis. Perhaps it's only a specific type of audiophile or I am not an audiophile? To make a point, allow me to say I'm currently designing & building my own pair of 3-way loudspeakers. It has not been a haphazard endeavor. A fair amount of time has been consumed researching and this 'aint my 1st rodeo. Ok fine.
Knowing what I want on/off axis has led me to a sealed domed tweeter, somewhat protruding from its face plate, with no front baffle mounted as close to the midrange as possible. A cone midrange flush mounted in a small, faceted convex front baffle slot ported cabinet. 12" sealed bass cabinet of similar construction and being more deep dimensionally to achieve cubed volume.
The result should be a loudspeaker that, while I'm walking around the room playing air guitar and dancing like no one's watching, it should sound pretty good because I should get a big round off-axis field. Exactly the opposite of an audiophile's statuesque positioning. I've learned this because of the useless on/off axis measurements.
Now, am I not an audiophile? lol?
And second...................
Remaking the front baffle on these HPM's. Because you seem interested in this subject, I thought I'd ask about remaking the front baffle too. It seems there's enough room and enough fair drivers to try it. Wonder if it would be worth it?
Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
You're not entirely wrong, and placement of the speaker within your room (as well as the placement of your listening position) are important factors to consider, and measurements can help you determine how a speaker is going to sound and can also help with placement as well as things like toe-in or toe-out, without having to do nearly as much guess work.
On-axis measurements give you an idea how the speaker will sound in the nearfield, off-axis measurements help tell you how a speaker is going to interact within a room, especially above ~500Hz. If a speaker peaks in the off-axis, more energy is playing out into the room at thar frequency, and if you you're going to be in a small or a long/narrow room, or have the speakers close to the wall, you're likely going to find that they sound "bright," or harsh. But in a near-field setup, in a larger room, or a wide/shallow room, the walls are going to be less of an issue, as they are far enough away that the reflections are delayed and down in output vs in a small or narrow room. Room treatment can also help in those cases by absorbing some of those direct reflections.
Plus, the best spot for one speaker, may be different for another speaker, some speakers are designed to be close to the walls, and would sound thin if pulled into the room, others need to be further away, and the bass will sound boomy or bloated if pushed too close to the walls. Some speakers are designed to be listened to in the nearfield, and others will sound better when you sit further away, and having accurate, reliable measurements ahead of time can help with that.
@@hoth2112
. I'm addressing audiophile objectives. Quote, "...audiophile setups...dedicated... position...for the best sound". My objective is the opposite of that.
Am I an audiophile?
Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
impressive work. i guess if you still own these its worth 700$ to make them playable.
Not just that, the primary reason would be nostalgia for those with such an affinity.
@@FOH3663 absolutely! I had some two-way JBL’s in my dorm room in the early 80s and I loved them not that I would replace my Maggie LRS plus models
@@veroman007
JBLs ... nice, luxury!
'82 dorm room, my roomie had Panasonic Thrusters(!), I had my diy cabinets/rig.
Fagan's Nightfly, Men at Work, The Wall, Sabbath Mob Rules, John Cougar, The Who It's Hard, Toto IV, Pretenders.
We played Swingin' on the bar jukebox, we didn't have the record.
Damn, we had so much fun!
Dahlquist DQ10, anyone?
i just googles a image of it, and you want to poor Danny to work on that thing :P
@@sudd3660 Joke, dude. I owned a pair back in the day, long before the availability of the type of home user acoustic measurement systems we take for granted today. Jon was a very smart guy, and considering his rumoured goal for the system, and the quality of drivers he had to work with for the budget, I felt they worked very well.
A $700 to $900 parts upgrade for a speaker that's currently $350 and $400 on Marketplace for the two closest clean pairs. I don't doubt the results but this makes zero economic sense to me. I'm a fan but jeez.
A clean pair with good drivers, top level parts, and an accurate response for under $1,200 is a bargain.
@@dannyrichie9743 the HPM 100s? Yes. But not these.
I don't understand that argument, and I've heard it said many times. Surely, them being cheap in the marketplace is an argument FOR buying them and/or upgrading them? I mean, if they're listed at $10k, or could fetch $10k then no, probably better to sell.
@@toby9999 you not understanding a basic financial principle isn't a strong argument for it not being valid. I'm an appraiser and this is a classic example of overimprovment. This is the person putting marble floors in a starter home. A quick tour of sold eBay listings and sold HifiShark listings will tell you that the cost of this upgrade far exceeds the market value of the speaker. If you have sentimental value for your pair then fine. That's different. But spending $450 on a clean pair and then dumping $700-$900 puts you at $1150 to $1350 in on a pair of speakers that's worth $550 tops. If they were your dad's and you love them then fine. But overall this makes no financial sense. No amount of guts will change that this is a vinyl-wrapped speaker that was built to a price point.
@@tmdillon1969 But a fully upgraded pair will bring a lot more than $550. The upgrade adds a lot of value.
I thought the hpm 200 were made
Yeah, we have had one of them in too.
Anything on Genesis II
I dunno, but for me it's always been about sound quality. Thinking something sounds good when you're young dumb and full of, when you're old an finally know a thing or two, why does it sound so different than what you think you remember?..... Or just not at all the way we remember it! I have no nostalgia regarding any speaker, but apparently I do have some false memories! Just sayin.
Cheers 🍻
😮totally overprized. Good crossover parts for 200€/pair. Damping and Terminals +100,€.😅😅😅 800$ . Joking?
I wish that were true.