Ex-demo, as new.
USHER X-719’s
[£850] £625
ex-demo pair in as neww condition, if you want a small-mid
size stand mount that does it all really well and has
musical decent bass then these are for you.
PROAC TABLETTE 2000
£275
In black, excellent little monitor in very good condition.
AEG
EVO 1 speakers,
boxed as new £175
OPERA
mini's
£625
ex-demo in mint condition. Fantastic small speaker, sounds
similar to LS3/5A's but with better bass and a more 3D
soundstage.
B&W DM7's
£325
In stunning condition, perfect working order with front
covers [not pictured].
QUAD ESL63's
£1250
Beautiful pair of electrostatics in perfect cosmetic and
electrical condition. These simply sound amazing and need
to be heard.
3 months guarantee.
VITAVOX S3 compression drivers and 4 cell horns
£750
Magical horns in very good condition.
PROAC RESPONSE 1
£550
standmount speakers in black ash, superb soundstage with
surprising bass control, excellent condition, original
packaging and box
PMC GB1's,
boxed as new [£1145] £550
PMC, or the Professional Monitoring Company as it's known in some circles, built its reputation by supplying speakers to some of the best studios in the country and beyond. It makes some very serious models indeed and if you like your sound powerful yet resolute, it's one of the top brands on the market. PMC's more diminutive speakers therefore are also designed to be capable of delivering power, even when their main drivers are compact. The GB1 is PMC's least substantial floorstander to date and takes its design cues from big brothers such as the FB1 and OB1, models that quite literally tower over the cute little GB1.
ALTEC A5s.
15" horn loaded bass, 10 cell wide dispersion horn £2500.
Outstanding Efficiency. Perfect for the vacuum tube amplification lover or enthusiasts of the latest digital amplification technology. Anyone who appreciates the benefits of truly classic audio engineering. Combinations of the bass reflex and horn enclosure offer proven superior quality in sound reproduction. The advantages of the extended bass response of the bass reflex enclosure, coupled to a short, radiating exponentially formed front loaded horn without folds, further extends the low bass range.
VANDERSTEEN 2Cs
[£2500] £650
The Vandersteen 2C has a slightly warmer balance and timbre than Snells and Thiels, although you can come close to the latter by boosting the 2C's treble adjustment. (Calibrated rear controls adjust treble and midrange levels.) The extreme highs are a real delight. Electrostatics and ribbons may be faster, but no electrostatic or ribbon I have ever heard is as smooth and coherent in radiation and overall integration. As mentioned before, the bass is exceptional: extended and very well controlled over the entire bass spectrum. Anyone who is sick of the apparent leanness in most speakers' 80-500Hz region, an area critical to musical pleasure,can be confident that the 2C is a speaker with an exceptional lower midrange. It provides natural warmth without dulling the rest of the sound; frankly, it is a joy.
This is the ideal speaker for woodwind and string players. Also well handled is the difficult transition area between the upper midrange and highs. The Vandersteen 2C will please brass and percussion fanciers, and is an exceptionally pleasant speaker for tenor and soprano voice, not only because it does well with voice, but because it does so little to color the sound of the music around them. Even the average Pavarotti record is soothed somewhat although few voices have been so wretchedly recorded. Dynamics are also very good, although the Thiels and Quads do a slightly better job of handling low level dynamics. The Vandersteen 2Cs have been improved, however, to the point where they are now exceptionally good in handling moderately-loud to loud passages and can outperform the comparable Thiels and Snells and virtually all full-range electrostatics in this area.
As for imaging, bipolar and line-source speakers do a better job of representing the entire soundstage, but this speaker is still superb in every other respect. The image is wide, tall, and stable without the blurring of detail and transients common in omnidirectional speakers. The centerfill and depth are excellent, width is very good, height is good, and imaging is stable and convincing. Overall, the Vandersteen 2Cs place you in the middle of the hall, let's say rows J-M. Both the Thiels and Snells tend to offer a more forward and immediate sound character.
The Vandersteen 2C is embarrassingly good evidence that a competent designer can produce a full-range speaker with true deep bass at an affordable price.
B&W 602.5 S3
speakers, excellent condition. £275
SONUS
FABER GRAND PIANO LOUDSPEAKERS
[£2200] £1000
(as reviewed by STEREOPHILE)
I've never heard a pair of the Italian Sonus Faber speakers
I didn't like, here's a pair of Sonus Fabers that stand on
their own two feet, are graceful-looking but not "wooded
out" to the max, and, at £2200/pair, would seem to be
reasonably priced. The Grand Piano is the top of Sonus
Faber's "affordable" Concerto series (see Martin Colloms'
review of the Concerto in the January 1998 Stereophile),
and the company's first and only floorstanding speaker.
According to Sonus Faber's product literature, a love of
violin making inspired the woodworking excellence—and not
merely for its physical beauty. Rather, the company sees
the speaker baffle as "an instrument which amplifies sound,
not merely a container of sonic power with technically
approved dimensions."
Is that an admission that its baffles "sing"—something no
speaker designer with whom I'm familiar would advertise? I
don't think so. I think it's more company "color" than
anything else, though the cabinets of the expensive Sonus
models differ from most others in that they're built from
solid, seasoned (dried two years in a kiln) wooden staves,
or slats, which are chosen one by one "so as to control the
harmonic structure of the resonances." I'm not sure how one
does such choosing merely by looking at a slat of wood, but
it means both beauty and expense: each chosen stave must be
clamped and hot-glued to the next, and finally hand-sanded
and varnished like a fine violin.
Why are the cabinets so constructed? Because using solid
wood would create seriously nasty resonances. That's why
most speakers are made of far stiffer and less expensive
MDF. Sonus uses solid wood, but by slicing it up,
"jointing" it, and gluing the pieces together in vertical
slats, stiffness is increased and resonances are broken up.
And, of course, it makes an impressive interior-decorating
statement.
To cut costs, the Concerto line uses a simpler design
structure that calls for an ultra-rigid MDF top, bottom,
front, and back to be built first, then covered in black
leatherette. The side panels, fabricated from 1"-thick
contoured MDF and finished in gloss-black lacquer, are
acoustically decoupled by the folded-over leatherette.
They're screwed in and glued, the goal being to reduce the
low-frequency acoustic influence of the large, flat side
panels on the drivers.
The Grand Piano is a two-way design utilizing a 7"
acrylic-treated paper-cone woofer designed to SF's specs by
SEAS, crossed over at 2.3kHz via a first-order (6dB/octave)
filter to a " silk-domed, ferrofluid-cooled SEAS tweeter. A
7" passive radiator with a textured cone surface controls
the bass backwave.
While a two-way design with gentle slope filters gives you
the advantages of simplicity, it also means the woofer is
operating outside its ideal bandwidth, and is being asked
to deliver the goods well into the treble. So, to add
stiffness to the cone and optimize high-frequency
dispersion, the 7" driver is fitted with a concave brass
phase plug. According to the accompanying literature, a
great deal of attention has been paid to the long-throw
motor design to ensure linear behaviour, particularly in
the transition between forward and rear motion.
ACOUSTIC ENERGY ELITE 2's
A
New mid-fi collection of speakers, using modern design
techniques in drive unit technology and cabinet enclosure
construction.
Following with AE tradition, lightweight high-efficiency
alloy cones housed in die-cast aluminium chassis are used
for the mid/ bass driver units, providing a fast, tight
bass response with optimum detail and clarity.
A medium sized stand mount speaker with incredible power
handling, dynamics and bandwidth clothed in a rigid and
curved cabinet enclosure. Engineered by AE to give
exceptional performance with music or film to satisfy
today's high market standards.
Boxed as new [£449] £225
NAIM CREDO’s
in cherry, beautiful. Boxed £775
REVOLVER R33's
These
are not fussy speakers, sensitivity is 90dB -- that sound
bigger than their size nd are superb for long
listening sessions. Revolver RW33's have a lovable sonic
character which makes them a must-listen at this price
point. They've got great punch, respectable bass and depth
for their speaker size; rich midrange; undemanding listen;
build and finish; and are magnetically shielded.
Boxed, as new. £325
MORDAUNT SHORT SYSTEM 442 FLAGSHIP SPEAKERS £475
TDL STUDIO 10's
If you're looking for bass to shake foundations, then look no further than the TDL Studio 10. Standing over 1m tall and with twin-bass cones, these floorstanders will fill even the largest of rooms with a powerful, expansive sound. Mated up to these are carefully chosen mid-range and treble units that offer explicit detail with natural voicing.
With an integral plinth offering a sturdy support, the TDL Studio 10 is easy to place, with the light beech and gloss black finish looking the part too. Gold-plated, bi-wirable terminals offer a high quality connection that matches the rest of the design."
Boxed [£499] £135
WHAREFDALE DIAMONDS
NEW £150
ROGER LS7t's, in lovely original condition £275
LOWTHER CORNER ACOUSTAS
[below]
single driver, DX2's, horn loaded, wonderfully
natural, £750
QUAD ESL63's
In
amazing condition, all panels rigerously checked and
serviced.
Read one customers thoughts: 'For over 30 years I have been
chopping and changing Hi-Fi Equipment in my system.
sometimes the effect has been a slight improvement, other
times significant. Nothing, in all those years, has made
such a stunning improvement in the overall sound quality as
the Quad ESL 63's. They are the very best speakers I have
ever heard.'
6 months guarantee £1450
LOWTHER BICOR 2000's
£1500
Very similar to the AUDITORIUMS but more modern in appearance and heavier in construction which produces lower bass. Two drivers per cabinet: one fires forward the other out of the rear at a 45% upwards. Extraordinary soundstage-simply very musical in every way.
QUAD ESL57's
Completely over-hauled, serviced panels, new dust covers,
new rectifier blocks--sound is absolutely superb. 6 months
guarantee. £950
EPOS M12.2's as
new, £325
CASTLE S7's
£315
MISSION 752's boxed,
new drivers fitted £275
JORDAN WATTS
EX-BBC £295
RUARK Icons, CHERRY £175
USHER S-520 PIANO BLACK £330
LOWTHER ACOUSTA'S PM7AS £750
NAIM CREDO'S IN CHERRY BEAUTIFUL, BOXED £775