After the end of boombox era, what captures my attention next was the midi hi-fi system. My personal rating whether you agree with me, JVC was one of the brand that stands above all in term of design, features and sound quality. My recent purchase JVC midi system model EX-D11 paired with JVC most creative innovation the woodcone speakers.
BEAUTIFUL!!! But... What is squid? Leather-clad Sonus Fabers with wooden cones would have been a blast
I remember that system. Looked very cool. I would like to hear it. The wood sheet is only 0.28mm thick? Wow. But if it was such a good idea, why isn't it used by any of the top speaker brands? Most of them use synthetic poly cones. Reminds me of Pioneer's ribbon tweeters on their CK boomboxes of the 80s......If they were so superior, why do most of today's speaker companies still use standard silk or titanium tweeters? That's the funny thing about audiophiles, they always claim to have invented the best-sounding product, but then 2 years later they abandon it. In reality it was never a superior invention, they just did it for marketing purposes. 2 years later they abandon it and come out with something new to keep themselves looking "fresh" for marketing purposes. Reminds me of Reebok "Pump" and stuff like that. If it was such a great idea, why didn't they keep selling it? Or these Adidas "springblade" shoes.....How long do you think they'll stay around?
Or those horrible snow shovels with the bent handle, torture on your wrists.... I remember a tiny bit on those speakers, I don't think they were the only ones they made them. We have to remember most speakers are paper cones so your using the same material, but this is like solid wood or pressboard, your going to have some defects in the wood, or what is know as patina, now a days....
I would love to hear these woodies, since hi-fi got expropriated by BigBoxes, we invented hi-end... And now even hi-end is being used for whatever... This boils down to the RichieBlackmore song: “do you close your eyes when you are...” listening!?!? I close my eyes when listening, and I use an advice from my audio-guru from Chicago Pro Musica: “you want something pretty, buy a painting!” Priceless!!! And yours is a very good point: techno-bull sells but in the end the sound quality of the speakers makes them stay. And then different preferences: imaging, or PRAT, or price, or forgiveness in positioning... Maggies or Martin Logans I totally love but having them in the middle of my room: no! For mid-fi speakers we discuss here extra beauty points is a plus
Solid point, Hi-Fi Man discontinued their wooden headphones in their younger days because of inconsistencies is production
A little more information from an old blog https://web.archive.org/web/2005020...ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/apr04/0404tool.html
I love these guys take risks, we don't see this a lot anymore, back then they didn't have as much computerization to study the different materials. The fact that Sake worked and Suntory didn't is interesting and makes me think of penicillin. All this stuff may sound goofy but this is how products get developed. When I worked for the audio company, we focused on cleaning tape for 8mm, VHS and compact cassette. We used to go to the fabric store and look over fabrics and check out the thread configuration to see if there was anything interesting. We'd cut them up load them in cartridges and test them out, that's how the "secret ingredients" would be found.....
@Mister X you nailed it, my friend!!! A bottle of vino (or a six-pack of lager) transforms any of my boomboxes into hi-end machines!! I an not alone in this Universe!!!
This is cool, they had a DIY kit. These guys got a lot of press on these but it looks like they only had the small speaker size. These would look great on a "hi-end" boombox, maybe the newest Marantz or even better, McIntosh? I've got an old speaker somewhere, I just found one but it has wood colored paper cones, from a few feet away it looks like wood, maybe late 70's build? They were a low-rung speaker company but the speaker is nice looking, it reminds me of these.
I saw some programme once in which they said that marketing and design collude to make each new release look more extreme than the previous one. Trainers and 4 X 4 vehicles were given as two examples. A similar programme said that throughout the 1960s new was promoted as good until the adverts were all saying things like "Brand New for Summer 1969". Then Ronan Point fell down and a few similar things happened and advertising went into full nostalgia "Back in the good old days" mode. I didn't realise this was by the director of "Alien" and "Blade Runner". As for why things don't stick around you would need to know a) the number of rejects during manufacture b) the number of customer returns during the guarantee period A former Housemate did his PHD on failures in Carbon Fibre, which Rolls Royce tried to use in aircraft engines. When done right the material had big advantages, but they had such problems gettiing consistent results that they ended up switching to Titanium.
They aren't expensive now, When I was going to score one I was looking at some 150-200$ max. But eventually decided to pass on those, one of reasons they lack tweeters.
The speaker terminals and cables are good quality, unlike most manufacturers who use thin wires and cheap plastic spring-loaded terminals
Super Tweeters to the rescue! I've got a pair of these, built like a tank, very high quality although I had a hard time hearing a huge difference. These would look great on top of the speakers. https://www.etsy.com/listing/712488...MIu--q8e2J4wIVw4CfCh2URQNNEAQYASABEgIXC_D_BwE
