No Disc Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 I'm providing my brother some much needed help in order to sell off his stereo equipment. One of the more interesting pieces is this pair of Sony Esprit speakers. Circa 1985. http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?spkrfull&1049078994&item There were only 16 pairs of these beasts were ever made. I've heard them before and they are quite nice. I've communicated with another owners of these speakers who compare them very favorably with the Wilson Sophia's. These beasts were driven with a 4-way cross over and Quad amped. 2 x 150 watt monos, and 3 stereo Esprit amps. Sony in there vain attempt to compete with Mark Levinson went all out and made a cost is no object setup. The Esprit line was the result. Unfortunately during the 1980s very few took Sony seriously and the esprit line flopped. Sony dropped support on the Esprit line like a hot potato. Supposedly there was a hi-fi magazine that reviewed the esprit lineup during the mid to late '80s, my brother can't seem to remember the exact year or publication. If anyone happens find anything on the esprit lineup in their closet, please let me know. I would be most appreciated in finding anything. Comments welcome. tb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 In my basement and in storage are a pair of Technics R&B Series SB-7's. These have very similar looking drivers as far as being flat. The Technics', however, are still round and I'm sure were still meant to be in with the mid-fi genre and nowhere near Levinson stature. They retailed for about $800/pair in 1981. The driver face is made out of a honeycomb-foil. They are very lacking in the bass dept. (8" non-ported woofs) but they do carry what looks like a Hyle tweeter but some say it's just a ribbon variety. I may still bring these out of retirement to use in my study at home. Up until a month ago I had the matching bookshelf pair (the SB-3's two ways) but I sold them to someone in California. Strange, he paid for all the shipping from Ohio to near San Francisco. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 SONY is a four letter word. I sold Sony, and was an authorized service center during that time frame. Late '70s Yamaha and Denon blew it away for sonics, and were more reliable too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted January 31, 2003 Author Share Posted January 31, 2003 Interesting. Did you carry the Esprit line? The Esprit line was much higher quality than the ES lineup. - tb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDBRbuilder Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 If you think square drivers are weird...Yamaha came out with a series of speakers in the mid-1970's in which the woofer had the same shape as a soundboard from a grand piano! They highly touted this new "breakthrough" in sonic accuracy, yet the concept died on the vine within a couple of years! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Now that I think about it there was another instance of the flat square driver. It was in a rather cheap Sony rack system at the mid-fi store I worked at. You know, the kind of systems that had a floor standing partical board rack built to fit around the components and they threw in the free 22ga. speaker wire. I don't think the whole system sold for more than $1,000 and if I remember right it sounded like garbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 I think I saw these speakers in a store that also sold Dahlquist and Ohm Walsh speakers in NYC in the 80's...I do not remember how they sounded, but they were obviously Sony's stab at state of the art then, I suspect this was early for Sony in this regard and the results were probably less than stellar, Sony only really got "serious" about the high end later on. you could pretty much attach a voice coil to any shape panel to make the air piston (like those ridiculous piano shaped pistons mentioned earlier) but I suspect that given we are talking wave motion here corners and edges are not the best reproducers for music. cool looking none-the-less, someone might bite on looks alone. what elese is he selling? regards, tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 One of the car audio companies has been making square subs fo a few years now on the premise that for spl competitions you can have more cone area in a given space then you could with round cones. I really dig the look of those sony speakers, certainly a conversation piece. Btw, can those sony reproduce a square wave Peace, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 ---------------- On 1/31/2003 12:05:41 AM tblasing wrote: In my basement and in storage are a pair of Technics R&B Series SB-7's. These have very similar looking drivers as far as being flat. The Technics', however, are still round and I'm sure were still meant to be in with the mid-fi genre and nowhere near Levinson stature. They retailed for about $800/pair in 1981. The driver face is made out of a honeycomb-foil. They are very lacking in the bass dept. (8" non-ported woofs) but they do carry what looks like a Hyle tweeter but some say it's just a ribbon variety. I may still bring these out of retirement to use in my study at home. Up until a month ago I had the matching bookshelf pair (the SB-3's two ways) but I sold them to someone in California. Strange, he paid for all the shipping from Ohio to near San Francisco. ---------------- T... THere is a local radio station here in ottawa 106.9 rock(the bear) that uses SB-7 in their master control room The room is half moon shaped and is live on only one wall and these monitiors ,which are recessed in the wall sound fab! They are powering out of a Bryston 2B Very nice,..but i have never seen the sb-7 in the stores.. p.s that ribbon tweeter is nice and flat too almost k-77 sounding.. rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 DJK Sony went out the window, for me after the glory days with hi fi like the 7045 reciever and tc377 tape recorder, and the 8088f tuner. Those were original. After that it became alot of box stuffing and cheap power supplies. ANd it doesn't say much when the Realistic TM1000 tuner beats out anything engineering wise in the entire sony tunerline of its time. lol.... TM 1000 was a very nice tuner by the way Don't let the name scare you away. p.s Our last video screen,. we chose the Panasonic over the trinitron. no question. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Yeah, the early to mid '70s Sony was OK, but they were in decline by the late '70s, and by the early '80s their tape decks were unbelievably unreliable! While their Esprit line was better built, so what? For that kind of money you could buy Accuphase. Sony video was literally a different company, and their products held up better. The Yamaha 'ear' shaped speaker was a real hoot! Definitely low-fi, as was most of their line in the early '70s. They had a four channel clock radio with a 'digital' clock, one of those mechanically driven 'flip' display things. In 1974 Yamaha decided to quit making garbage and make good stereo instead. They made some incredible gear in that '74~'78 time period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 3, 2003 Share Posted February 3, 2003 DJK yeah i agree what you were saying about Yamaha There was a point there,.especially in Pro Audio ,where they were just nailing the competition, both on stage and at the $$ till Didn't they come out with a pro ,raw speaker line ,created especially to be able to "field replace" JBL pro drivers..In other word they would make their version of a 2205 woofer, or a 2405 slot ring...etc.I don't know how well this stuff sounded or lasted ,compared to the originals ,JBL,but im betting it was less cost Yamaha to this day, is one of the top musical hardware and software(midi) companies around. And..they make the worlds most consistent 9' concert grand,..the CF111S. Hey if its good enough for guys like, Billy Joel,Elton John,Stevie WOnder, David Foster, The boston symphony,and a few other high paid bums... The Quality speaks.....!! eh Eat your heart out Steinway ! ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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