This evening I came upon a pair of IMF Electronics 'Super Compact II"
speakers. They were $30 in very good condition. I didn't buy them
but I brought them to the home of a friend of mine who wanted them, an
80 year man that has I would reckon, 3 or 4 TONS worth of speakers and
audio equipment in his house. He just buys stuff and stores it, sort
of like a Collyer. I think it's called DISPOSOPHOBIA. At least in
his case it's not worthless stuff like newspapers.

Anyway... because I'm familiar with them, I noted in his museum a pair
of old JBL monitors, 3 ways, the size of the 4410's. I don't
remember the model number but the woofer cones were white. They must
be from the early 80's. My friend is not a lender or giver, but he'd
sell me anything. Gosh, would you actually recommend old JBL monitors
like these I am speaking of?

Looking up those Super Compact II's they seem very fine there is a
complete website about them. Apparently they are ruler flat from 60hz
to well over 20,000hz. I could have them if I wanted...one problem is
they are terribly inefficient, 83db (1 watt 1 meter) I saw somewhere.

Thanks I didn't know about Tannoy home speakers actually.

You know a lot of people rave about Midiman BX5 and BX8.


True, like most manufacturers, they also inflate their specs
a bit(or have a better setup to test in, versus real-world
results)

Take Klipsch. Most of their speakers actually test at
several db efficiency lower than they market. A speaker
that actually does 90db is pretty hard to find.

Still, this isn't bad compared to most others in the
same price-range.

I can't find the S3 for sale anywhere on the net.

This is only available via their retail network(audio
store, not retail store). Listen to the S3 and their
subwoofer working together if you can. It's amazing
because they have built-in electronics in the sub that
basically turn it into a passive woofer as far as the
crossover is concerned(seamless integration with a flip
of a switch). But it still is a powered sub.

For HT, this is amazingly better than a 5.0+sub as
the speakers do the filtering and corssover instead
of your receiver.

The only other speaker that was like this was, no surprize,
the Mirage FRx-9 - it had a powered integrated subwoofer
in the tower and was amazing for the price. Basically a
non-modular Athena S3/P3 for a bit less money.

But - what's the budget? For around $1000, Tannoy's older
Saturns are the deal to get. Some old stock models still
exist. The S6 tower is amazing. In Bookshelf speakers, the
S6/S8 bookshelf speaker is very good as well. But $800-$1200
is a bit much to spend for most people.

At more reasonable prices, the Tannoy MXm are much better
than the Athena or JBLs. But they aren't close to the
Saturns(Eyris DC I think they're called now)

Or you can go old-school like I did and get some JBL-Pro
monitors. The 4400 series are really convnetional speakers
more than true nearfield monitors. Mine are about ten
years old with the old(modified by me)crossover. The new
"A" models have a better crossover that needs no tweaking.
www.musiciansfriend.com - type in "jbl 44" in the search box.

A pair of 4410As is a fine setup, and they have them on sale
right now. If you want to listen to them, call JBL and ask
where the local distributor is - it will likely be a studio
equipment shop. The specs on JBLs pages are actual real-world
testing, which is common for most monitors. YWSIWYG. No
marketing nonsense.