Opinions please.. Acoustic Solutions Hi-Fi Speakers.

Of the cheap'n'cheerful brand Marion,

I might be wrong but I thought they were a budget company set up in the late 90's to supply Argos, Littlewoods, Dixons, Currys, Richer Sounds with affordable kit.

not real hifi but if they are cheap well i have heard worse.
rob t

Hi, and thanks guys..

That's more or less as I'd feared.. I know nothing about them, other than their offerings in flat panel TVs from places like Sainsburys, or where ever.

All I had to go on was mobile phone photograph, and thought Hmmm!

I'm more inclined toward Wharfedale, KEF, Mordaunt Short and so on, but they're always either too far away (geographically) or too far away from my affordability range.

Marion

Wouldn't bother with those, I got myself some Sony SS-7200's from the NVCF in 2010, excellent speakers! Their 70W, quite big heavy things, but they can make the floor shake nicely
I paid £10 for them, they turn up on ebay from time to time, and either don't sell, or sell for very little.

Regards,
Lloyd. (not a speaker expert by any means )

Regards,
Lloyd. (not a speaker expert by any means )

Nor I, but I've always had a liking for Wharfdales.. My FORCE 2180 speakers had a nasty accident, but they were ideally matched to my Hi-Fi.

Now, I'm (re)using a pair of 1970's Wharfedale Linton 3 XP.. They're exceptionally good with this amp, but are at serious risk of being overdriven (they're rated at 30W DIN, versus the amp at 60W DIN) so I have to be very mean with the volume, but by 'eck, they can make the floor move!

I have a pair of Mordaunt Short, rated at 60W DIN, but they're bookshelf jobbies and just don't do it for me, plus, they're prone to fried tweeters

Marion

I bought some AR and they had nice wooden* boxes but were terrible. I gave them away.

(* well veneer over some sort of wood based composite)

I'm (re)using a pair of 1970's Wharfedale Linton 3 XP.. They're exceptionally good with this amp, but are at serious risk of being overdriven (they're rated at 30W DIN, versus the amp at 60W DIN) so I have to be very mean with the volume, but by 'eck, they can make the floor move!

If the amp will handle the halved or doubled impedance and if you've got the physical space you could always invest in another pair of 3XPs and wire them alongside your existing ones. The arrangement might start to look like the backline for a small band. But visitors would know that you were taking this seriously, and the burnout risk would be much reduced .

VB

I'm (re)using a pair of 1970's Wharfedale Linton 3 XP.. They're exceptionally good with this amp, but are at serious risk of being overdriven (they're rated at 30W DIN, versus the amp at 60W DIN) so I have to be very mean with the volume, but by 'eck, they can make the floor move!

If the amp will handle the halved or doubled impedance and if you've got the physical space you could always invest in another pair of 3XPs and wire them alongside your existing ones. The arrangement might start to look like the backline for a small band. But visitors would know that you were taking this seriously, and the burnout risk would be much reduced .

VB

Hi VB,

I have wondered about this... I have a pair of Linton XP2 (the difference is in the tweeters) rated at 35W DIN.. Both sets of Linton's are 6Ω impedence.. The amp specifies 8Ω.. So, would you series connect, or parallel connect, the speakers?

The amp has four speaker outputs, and a "surround" feature (not Dolby Surround).. I did actually wonder if that would split the output into "two ways" per channel and facilitate the use of lower powered speakers?

Marion

Aren't transistor amplifier PCBs rated at 4 ohms per channel so that they can be fitted with 4 speakers at 8 ohms each pair giving a total load of 4 ohms per channel?

Goodmans made some good speakers, (in my oppinion) Achromat 400 is one. (about 50 watts RMS handling)
Mike

Goodmans made some good speakers, (in my oppinion) Achromat 400 is one. (about 50 watts RMS handling)
Mike

Hi Mike,

This is very true, for older Goodmans gear (when it was a British brand) and I did indeed have a pair of 30W Goodmans Hi-Fi speakers about thirty years ago, again though, it was a tweeter that bit the dust. In my car, I had a pair of Goodmans GP100 that were so impressive, I bought a second set to use with my Hitachi mini Hi-Fi. Sadly, the DS007, which were outwardly identical to the GP100, were no where near as good.. After that, they (Goodmans) seemed to go off the boil, in my estimation.

Marion

I'm (re)using a pair of 1970's Wharfedale Linton 3 XP.. They're exceptionally good with this amp, but are at serious risk of being overdriven (they're rated at 30W DIN, versus the amp at 60W DIN) so I have to be very mean with the volume, but by 'eck, they can make the floor move!

If the amp will handle the halved or doubled impedance and if you've got the physical space you could always invest in another pair of 3XPs and wire them alongside your existing ones. The arrangement might start to look like the backline for a small band. But visitors would know that you were taking this seriously, and the burnout risk would be much reduced .

VB

Hi VB,

I have wondered about this... I have a pair of Linton XP2 (the difference is in the tweeters) rated at 35W DIN.. Both sets of Linton's are 6Ω impedence.. The amp specifies 8Ω.. So, would you series connect, or parallel connect, the speakers?

The amp has four speaker outputs, and a "surround" feature (not Dolby Surround).. I did actually wonder if that would split the output into "two ways" per channel and facilitate the use of lower powered speakers?

Marion

On one output I think I'd series connect them. 12 ohms is only 50% different from 8 ohms whereas 3 ohms is more than a factor of two 'wrong'. And 12 ohms feels like the safe option for the amp, although I note what Refugee says, in which case you might be OK with 3 ohms.

If you're going to try both outputs simultaneously it would only take a few seconds with a sine wave input and a meter or scope across the speakers to find out what the power split was. Do make sure that the arrangement isn't 'Hafler' surround though.

VB

Series is safer for the speakers too. 1/4 of the power.

I have a pair of AS speakers. Theyre bookshelf speakers with two 6" mids/bass and a central tweeter. They sound brilliant with a little Technics midi amp. Then again a nieghbor chucked out some odd AS "speakers" used for the tele. They had a bass unit with the amp in and some 2" heavy duty speakers in a plastic pole thingy. The bass unit sounded ok,but the poles didnt. The bass unit used a speaker that I,ve found in lots of cheapish speakers,IE a 5" with an extra magnet piggy backing the speaker magnet proper.

Re Wharfdales. If you can get some E30,s,I think youd like them. I,ve got a pair of Mission 770's if your still looking,,Andy

Re Wharfdales. If you can get some E30,s,I think youd like them.

well yes so would i but even being the bottom of the range they are getting very expensive.
they were very high Efficiency and sounded good with low power valve amps.
imho they did not sound so good with buget 70s solid state amps.
mission 780's would be a good match.or if you want something older and bigger then ditton 44
or cheaper (last time i looked) warfdale glendales.
of all hifi components speakers are the ones that CAN be said to have a sound of there own and realy need to be listened to befor buying .
i have known people buy acustic solution speakers becaus they sounded good in a shop demo but then a few weeks later found them Fatigueing so listened to less music.
rob t

Not familiar with Mission780's;but Mission made alot of speakers # 700 wise. The 770's I refer to where made in 1980 ish and used Seas drivers.

Wharfdale E30,s can still be had for £50 - 70 on Ebay. I think they sound better than the larger models as ,like the Celestion 15's they use a bass reflex type system.

Funny you should mention Glendales,I have the Glendale plans and speaker kit. The woofers are 10" cast ali,very well made. I think the tweeters would be better replaced with modern equivelents. I,ll never build them,£10 if any body wants them.Andy.

i had both e 30's and later as pair of e 70's i wish i still had the e70's was there not also e90?
a gain because of the horn loaded tweeters brittal sounding solid state amps sounded harsh.
rob t

Do make sure that the arrangement isn't 'Hafler' surround though.

VB

Now, you've stopped me dead in my tracks here... I haven't got clue, and wouldn't know what that means, to be truthful

Otherwise, on with the motly.. I've added the second pair of Lintons, so that's one pair of Linton 3XP, and one pair of Linton XP2, 5W difference in power rating..

On each channel therefore, I have one 3XP and one XP2.. As said earlier, the only obvious difference is in the tweeters.. XP3 uses what appears to be small horn type (with a felt baffle at the mouth) and XP2 uses a "high pressure"? dome tweeter, and now it gets interesting because one of the XP2s has a dead tweeter!

Wired in this manner, I'm finding the bass is much softer, and needs more 'lift' from the bass control, conversely, the trebles are very prominent and need backing off somewhat.. Overall, I need to turn up the volume, just a tad, or maybe that's just me pushing the envelope

Even though the bass seems softer, there is a marked difference in the sound of the lowest bass, which really moves the floor boards! Going further, the trebles certainly have an enhanced presence.

I'm obviously going to need to play around with this for a while, but already I'm thinking in terms of another pair of XP2s (but with good tweeters in both cabinets) and making a sort of floor standing 'tower' containing one of each 3XP and XP2.

This configuration certainly sounds good, even with a dead "tweet" and I'm nothing, if not adventurous!

Marion