On Apr 21, 5:53*pm, Boon wrote:
There's a lot of buzz in the audio community about this "modernized"
version of the Dynaco A-25 loudspeaker from Annandale Acoustics. I
know a couple of people who have ordered a pair, and Jeff Dorgay
reviewed a pair and found them to be similar in balance to the Harbeth
Compact 7, saying that they had a "pretty warm sound overall, pleasing
but definitely on the lush side."
The problem with these speakers (other than the fact that they're not
much to look at) is the price. A pair of new A-25s once cost $79, but
these are $2500 a pair! Even taking inflation into account, these
should be well under $1000. But, as the advertisments say, these
speakers will take you places the originals couldn't.
http://annandaleacoustics.com/
I'm still pretty curious. I heard a pair of restored originals about
two years ago, and they weren't half bad even by today's standards.
There are a lot of gullibards and trendies out there, and this might
be trendy a while.
Are they better than the originals? I hope so because the originals
were what they were, an inexpensive box speaker.
They were competitive with the "Boston Blando" Acoustic Research
speakers, which with an AR table and a Dyna ST70 and PAS combination,
the canonical college dorm system for moderately affluent college
students in the 1963ish micro era. Times changed rapidly then and what
was au courant in '61 was hopelessly quaint by '64, which in turn by
'67 was hopelessly outmoded. That combination was a lot better than
the suitcase record players college students had in those days, but it
was not what we would call high end audio today.
Unfortunately, the A-25 came out quite a bit later-roughly 1970, by
which time only a few backward people still used tube amps in new
installs, and when the price of high power solid state amps started to
come down bigtime. But most people weren't buying separate amps, but
rather receivers, a trend solidified by the Japanese products pouring
in at that time. Most of them were harsh sounding and the A-25 helped
cover that up somewhat.
The A-25 is eclipsed handily by the MTM designs with smaller woofers
that have replaced the ten inch two way and many are available at a
much lower price.