my new monitoring system- pics! jap ls3/5as?

well. I was all ready to go get some JBL Control 1s from RS for £50. A chance visit to Cash Convertors in Ipswich yesterday and i saw some little Sony speakers.

at first sight- looked nothing special- power rating 40w nominal, a bit small etc.

A look at the model number- SSA1 seemed to suggest they were not entry level rubbish.

Got them hooked up once i'd satisfied myself that the drive units didn't look damaged.

And yes, they were on the end of a 30wpc Marantz integrated with treble and bass controls on max and playing some trance music. They sounded crap! Once the tone controls had been 'rectified' you could tell they were just incredibly revealing of both source material and the source hardware. I took note of the model number and asked them to put them to one side.
The chap there, bless him, said that there were a larger pair of Sonys for only £20 more that were shielded (although these SSA1s are shielded). The larger ones retail for £80 and i sold them at bennetts- they're really rubbish!

Anyway, looked them up in a 1996 issue of HFC. These SSA1s retailed at £500 odd, used 'bio cellulose' tweeters and have a sensitivity of 85dB and 4 ohm impedance. Not a nice easy load for my Sonic T amp, i thought.


Anyway, went back today and bought the speakers. There was something rumbling around in them- perfect opportunity to open them up and see what made them £500s worth.

First off a special note about the baffle. If you look, the tweeter panel is recessed to time align with the voicecoil of the woofer. There are felt things attached to the tweeter ala Russ Andrews! Secondly theres some kind of carpet material around the tweeter part presumably to aid dispersion.



Then around the woofer there is also a felt layer. As a result there are no hard surfaces on the front baffle at all!

Crossover. These crossovers look as meaty as the mighty Omiga Audio modded Rogers crossovers. Nice thick cable used internally too. This is where the knocking problem was by the way- the crossover had detached from its velcro mountings at the bottom of the cabinet. Nothing major at all and fixed within 20seconds!

Tweeter. Note the sponge thing covering the voice coil. Who knows what bio cellulose is

Woofer. Note some rubber things glued onto the surround and cone. Again, presuambly to aid dispersion.

Woofer again. There are 2 magnets on it. That may explain their bass abilities. Bit surprised to see pressed steel chassis but you can't have everything!


Cabinet- you can see how thickly its constructed.

Finally the Sony badges are leather! yes...leather. Construction and attention to detail here is totally OTT but i love it!

So how do they sound on a decent system. Well on they went to my plinius/SAT system (see sig). This pumps out over 225wpc into 4 ohms, nearly double their rated maximum power input! Never mind
They sound fantastic. My dad asked me 'have you got your subwoofer on'!
They are so brutually honest and revealing of the source material. They sounded impeccable on a recording made by my band. Of course its an impeccable recording- i made it!

On a great performance of Rhapsody in Blue conducted by Bernstein (magical btw) they sounded great but there was too much atmospheric noise such as music stands moving, audience noises etc.

On a Hue and Cry CD there were times when i thought low male vocals lacked a tiny bit of depth but listenning to the same work through some Stax headphones revealed it to be the source.

I put the Vaessens back on and sure enough the lower octaves did reappear- these Sonys are great but they just can't go lower than 40hz- the rule of physics says so...so the Vaessens are staying.

So now the Sonys are on my computer monitoring system and surprise surprise, being driven by a Sonic T amp. Despite the fact i had to have the Plinius on 10 o clock volume to get a decent level the sonic T drives them fine up to around 11 o clock. Quite a surprise.

I think these were Sonys answer to the Ls3/5as. Same ruthless presentation, same cabinet dimensions and 'deadness' of the cabinet too. A utter utter bargain!

Oh...the price? £22.50

And before you all start moaning that there are never any other bargains out there i got another pair of speakers today too- some Axis LS28s. A bit of research on the net found that they were $699 a few years back. They are made in Australia (a stones throw away from the birthplace of my Plinius!) but thats a story for another thread!

 

Great find!

 

lol £22.50! nice

 

rory, I think I remember the review!

nice find. you should get some good sounds on your pc now

 

don't suppose you still have the review or remember how well they were rated do you? Not that it matters but i'm always interested in a second opinion!

Yes they sound good..nowhere near as good as they did on my Plinius setup though. Going to experiment with with lifting them up around 5 or 6 inchs. Despite the fact that theres a load of blu-tack under them on this solid wood desk they sound a bit muddled just because of the cramped environment.

I've just looked at the proper LS3/5as again and the tweeter is actually brought forward of the woofer- the opposite way round to these.

 

Hi

I have found more of these high end Sony speakers, not cheap!...

on this page...

www.steveshifi.co.uk/used-hifi-loudspeakers-1.html

 

no, those are the AL5s, These are the A1ls. Close, but no cigar! These are 8yrs old approx and were £500 back then. Still seems cheap for the cabinet complexity etc but we are talking a huge multi-national company.

 

Rory,

Sounds like you've got yourself quite a bargain there! I suspect they'd benefit from some sort of small, openish, stand. Nothing too high or too flash, just something to get them off the desk surface a bit.

Your next challange ought to be to find a bargain amp for them with better current delivery than the Sonic T.

Regards,

Stuart.

 

The felt material around the drivers is there to reduce cabinet diffraction effects – also seen on the BBC LS3 5a and more latterly on Neat loudspeakers. The woofer is the same as was fitted to Sony SS186E – another small Sony bookshelf model that slipped under the radar but was actually rather good for the money.

 

i think you mean the Sony SS86 there- i can't imagine that £100 bookshelf speakers would have double magnet drivers and there certainly weren't bits of rubber dotted around the cones of the SS86s- i sold them!

Stuart- yes i know what you mean about the current of the sonic T

I was initially planning to use a Arcam Alpha 8p power amp and use my Behringer mixer as a preamp. But for some reason they refused to work together? Basically got very little sound through. Most bizarre. I did try and use my sound cards volume control as a preamp too but it was too sensitive so the Sonic T is ideal for the moment Might upgrade the PSU to a regulated one though.

 

Rory, looks like you have a bargain there! I'd be interested in hearing about any ideas you've managed to come up with regarding lifting your speakers off the desk a little, as I have my Missions set up in a similar way and I think they could benefit from a little breathing space. Unfortunately, the layout/space restraints in my room limits them to where they are now.

 

Its the efficiency of the speakers not the T-amp ! Those sony's look power hungry so as the T-amp is not supply more than about 6 watts ......

If you swap the vol pot or just bypass it and run them via the vol control from the puter, you will get a vastly superior sound coz the vol pot is frankly rap with a capital C

 

i

 

Maybe I should let Rory ask, but what do you need them for so bad?

I suppose you have tried asking Sony if they know where you can get a pair? They might have some sitting around for spares.

 

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