music quality of speakers in the 70's vs now

[FastLane]

I think today's stuff is way better. No comparison. I picked up a Denon AVR-X3600H 6 months ago. Destroys anything I've owned in the pass.

I think I have 6 receivers sitting in the basement now... mostly Marantz.

 

[4WD]

I have a Denon with some Boston Acoustic speakers … but I'm not into ruining my ears at this stage so it does not get romped on like my old stuff.

 

[MrHorspwer]

Originally Posted by PimTac
It was a piece of furniture.


I think that has a lot to do with it.

Over the years, people became less accepting of audio equipment that was furniture.

Compare bookshelf speakers of today to bookshelf speakers in the 1970s. Oh wait, you can't because there were no bookshelf speakers in the 1970s! Look at something like a JBL L100. Back in the day, it was considered a "bookshelf" speaker. They're 2 feet tall! They also cost $275 each in the mid-70s. That's about $1,200 today.

There are a lot of really nice speaker options for $2,400/pair today.

That's the second part. People were willing to pay more for audio equipment 40 years ago. You almost had to. The whole idea of mid-fi hadn't been invented yet. My home stereo is made up of B&W 684s and a modern Marantz integrated amp, which together, amp and speakers, clocks in at far less than $2,400.

Finally, the music was different. Speakers with paper-cone woofers, mids, and tweeters sound great playing The Moody Blues and other instrument-based music. Daft Punk may be a different story.

On top of that, so many manufacturers have re-launched their old products. Klipsch still sells Klipschorns and JBL relaunched the L100 as the L100 Classic. You can buy the speakers you loved back then, brand new today. I think manufacturers have read threads like this though and are totally ready to capitalize on the rose-colored glasses of yesterday's equipment. Those JBL L100 Classics are $2,000/each. They're still not bookshelf speakers either.

 

[86cutlass307]

I don't want to start a badge warfare battle but, Pioneer had 3 standout floor speaker sets form that time. HPM-150, HPM-1500, HPM-1100. Finding quality preserved/maintained sets today is very hard...not impossible though. They did take a bit of power to sound their best though; 100 - 200 or so watts. They had great frequency response range, clear on the low end and not harsh on the top end. The 150's were always my favorite. All 3 weighed in the range of 80 - 95 lbs. each. You had to be young to move them by yourself. Personally, I have yet to hear anything modern that compares to either of these 3 titans of the stereo war years.

 

[4WD]

There is no speaker that can make Daft Punk sound good, 🎧

And yes, everyone has an angle to get some boomer money … nice retro stereo components and a Plum Crazy Challenger parked out front ...Ž

 

[MrHorspwer]

We can also get into the typical use-case for speakers today too.

It's not listening to music.

Most speakers today go into some type of audio system for watching television or movies. In that role, mid-range detail for dialog and general on-screen happenings take precedence. That and giant explosions, but considering a powered sub is also part of the equation, bass response is typically non-existent from the primary monitors.

Making equipment less like furniture and more integrated (hidden) into decor, compounded by less need for bass output because of the subwoofer, makes for speakers that just aren't very musical. Given their intended use is for producing on-screen audio and not music reproduction, I guess they're fine?

I'm sure there are plenty of very musical speakers out there that fit what I'm describing, but the trend has generally been the opposite. Personally, I don't like any speakers paired with a discrete powered sub for music. No matter how much fiddling with levels and crossovers, or whatever DSP is incorporated, it just sounds unnatural in a home environment (car audio is a completely different story with a completely different set of circumstances).

Originally Posted by 4WD
nice retro stereo components and a Plum Crazy Challenger parked out front ...Ž


Yup.

I just did an internet walk-around on the JBL L100 Classic re-issues. They switched the paper tweeter to a dome and it looks like they switched to a woofer with a rolled surround instead of pleated paper for better excursion. Modern designs for modern music.

 

[ET16]

I remember a good number of speakers that I saw from the 70s having very primitive crossovers, sometimes only a capacitor.

I think a lot of new gear, though, is of poor quality. When you look at specs for amplifiers, sometimes, for example, you'll see laughable distortion ratings.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted by ET16
I remember a good number of speakers that I saw from the 70s having very primitive crossovers, sometimes only a capacitor.

I think a lot of new gear, though, is of poor quality. When you look at specs for amplifiers, sometimes, for example, you'll see laughable distortion ratings.


That's true today on minimal crossover components in inexpensive OR in mechanically well designed speakers

You don't want that phase rotation if you can help it. That can be avoided with material design and out of band power handling of the tweeter

Here is a late 70's crossover in my 8" 2 way monitors. The bextrene woofers act up out of band so they need taming.

 

[sloinker]

The music itself has become marginalized in the process to make everything smaller including the data file size. The way to make sound is in moving air. The need for large cabinets and drivers or multiple drivers was to move a lot of air. To precisely move those drivers you needed a lot of power to control the movement of the speaker. Good amplifiers had large transformers and capacitors to be stable driving loads at high volumes without damaging themselves or the speakers. Good amplifiers weighed a ton until switching power supplies and class d amps became the norm . In order to make the sound lifelike you need to be able to move a lot of air. I do see where a bookshelf system in close proximity or headphones negate the need for large home hi-fi systems. Otherwise, I have heard many new systems, multichannel surround, THX, Atmos etc...I own one. For music playback there aren't any I have heard that can get close to a top notch system back in the day. For surround sound action movies they are great but not high fidelity as I understand it at all. I'm not addressing car systems as I don't consider them Hi-fi. I will say that car interiors are much quieter and insulated to road noise and that helps a heap with listening in cars. Having 150db+ of subwoofers in a car is lost on me. If you ever have the privilege to sit in the audience at an orchestral concert or listen to a jazz combo in a small club or whatever music floats your boat, you would be hard pressed to re-create it anywhere near faithfully from anything you can purchase off the shelf at best buy. Sadly, I have pretty much retired my old hifi gear. My hearing is not what it used to be. I also think we have a generation of people now that really never heard high fidelity like back in the day. They don't know what they missed.

 

[MCompact]

I use Klipsch KG4 floor standing sspeakers for the LF and RF channels in my primary HTS and my Denon receiver has a two channel "Pure" mode that I use to listen to music.

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted by sloinker
Anybody that thinks that modern home speakers and modern multi channel electronics sound better than home hi-fi sytems of the 1970's and 1980's don't have a grasp on reality. MP3...really?



That kind of comparison makes no sense. You are comparing the state of the art quality made stuff of the day to today's cheap low-level built to a price point junk. Of course it will be worse, but compared to an actual quality sound system of today? No chance for the 70's stuff.

That's like comparing a 1970s Rolls Royce to a Nissan Versa.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted by raaizin
While listening to some music It just dawned on how much better speakers are today vs when I was growing up in the early 70's. While some had good audio equipment at home it wasnt common(at least in my neck of the woods.) and vurtually nonexistant in cars. I just think of the sound engineers and producers spending countless hours only for us to listen to it on some transistor radio or car radio with that one lousy speaker in the dashboard.
Heck, I remember when my dad got his first car with an FM radio, I thought we were so cool



Its true today. Most people listen to junk on junk equipment. Even some most high priced HT does no justice to a good recording
"Tower speaker" have great inherent flaws and should be avoided.
But there was a lot of Junk sold in the 70's and 80's

Most mid priced "pretty" Yamaha and Sony was terrible. I never knew how much my Yamaha 610ii integrated - then Yamaha A1 was killing the sound of my KEF Corelli or ADS 810 until I purchased an APT Holman AMPLIFIER 1 and a Conrad Johnson PV4 preamp. Then the good interconnect and speaker wire thing came along and inserting those made vast improvements - . Similar to upgrading to pricier components.

I will say that If I could buy a pair of Wharefdale Diamond 10.2 in the mid 70's for $275.oo I'd be in heaven!

We just had Small Advents and Altec 891v compact monitors and AR 4AX in that price range.

I think my first decent speakers in the late 60's were some b&o (!) that Archer- RadioShack were closing out. Beautiful 7" 2 way with large 30mm soft dome tweeter with Burmese teak cabinets. Had to grab them!

Later we had EPI made locally near the seacoast that had great sound.

And I lived near the a/d/s factory on the Wilmington Ballardvale border. And owned many of that line. But NOT good enough.

I could go on and on!

 

[fsdork]

Originally Posted by ET16
I remember a good number of speakers that I saw from the 70s having very primitive crossovers, sometimes only a capacitor.

I think a lot of new gear, though, is of poor quality. When you look at specs for amplifiers, sometimes, for example, you'll see laughable distortion ratings.


When I briefly sold car audio about 20 years ago, I made the mistake of trying to explain things like signal to noise ratio and THD to the general public. It took me a while to realize that most people just want you to affirm that the one they think looks cool is the best one to buy.

 

[aquariuscsm]

The highest end audiophile speakers had actual separate component crossover networks.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
High end home audio loudspeakers from the 70s blow away the mass-fi big box junk made today.


"High end" versus "mass-produced" is rarely a fair comparison. For any given dollar, despite technology having less influence over the challenges (mass, acoustics) manufacturers face than in other industries, I'll take a dollar's worth of a newer speaker today than the equivalent dollar's worth from 40 years ago. This is both from build- and sound-quality perspectives.

I used to run a recording studio and I have several 60-year-old microphones and mic amps and EQ's and such (which will fund my retirement in time) and I am the first guy to preach "They don't make 'em like they used to"; but I am also reminded of an old saying tossed around by audio engineers when some long-forgotten piece of garbage EQ from 1965 is going for $3000 on Ebay:

"There are two kinds of fools. One says 'This is old and therefore good' and the other says 'This is new and therefore better'".

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
The highest end audiophile speakers had actual separate component crossover networks.

If you're passively separating audio into bandwidths at the speaker level, as opposed to at a line level and amplifying discreetly, I'd hesitate to use the word "audiophile".

 

[Inspecktor]

One of the best things about the 70's audio scene was every mall had at least one stereo equipment store you could wander around in, They were usually dark and well carpeted, with lots of systems to play with. Also, record stores abounded, and LP cover art was a genre of its own back then.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Originally Posted by Inspecktor
One of the best things about the 70's audio scene was every mall had at least one stereo equipment store you could wander around in, They were usually dark and well carpeted, with lots of systems to play with. Also, record stores abounded, and LP cover art was a genre of its own back then.


I was like a kid in a candy store in those places!

 

[aquariuscsm]

Originally Posted by uc50ic4more
Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
The highest end audiophile speakers had actual separate component crossover networks.

If you're passively separating audio into bandwidths at the speaker level, as opposed to at a line level and amplifying discreetly, I'd hesitate to use the word "audiophile".


I had always heard component crossovers being called "active crossover networks".

 

[Inked]

In the early 80's I bought a pair of Bose 301 that weren't bad until a buddy bought a pair of 901's which i then soon bought as well. Could handle the volume I was looking for although I recall them being panned by so called experts.

As far as the old car speakers, another buddy had a pair called Mindblowers that were very loud as well. Does anybody recall those?