Great new (thrift find) speakers in the house: Szabo of Ontario

After my luck finding my Fisher 500B at the thrift store, I've been on a search for a high efficiency, large bookshelf speaker. The other day I stumbled upon a very nicely made pair of speakers I'd never heard of: Szabo speakers of Cambridge, Ontario.

After all these years it's pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff as far as thrift finds go. What's my number one, educated, highly refine method for testing mystery speakers? Well, first and foremost it's the good old "knock test." Yep, a good rap with the knuckles will elimate about 90 percent of the junk. Any hollow, echoing sound from that black, square cabinet will tell you how much care went into crafting those speakers.

The second I knocked on these Szabo's ... I knew. Something good was going on. Solid as a rock. These Szabo 525 speakers are average bookshelf size, about 14 x9 x8 inches, but they are SOLID at 12lbs each. The cabinetry is top notch. Even after 25 years, the construction is solid and the tolerances super tight. I've never seen better fitted dust covers. Someone at audioasylum made a note about these Szabos calling them a "poor man's LS35a" and I'm guessing he's referring in part to the cabinets. They have nice silk dome tweeters (turned out to be Seas), my other reference. Just love those large silk domes. The foam was, of course, shot on the woofers. 5.25" woofers custom designed by Szabo. Just innocuous enough looking for them to be tagged with the princely sum of $6 the pair. Oh yes. Proceed directly to register, do not browse though Herb Alpert lps....

I refoamed these last night and I'm testing them now through the Fisher. How are they? Oh, lovely, of lovely! These are wonderful speakers. The high end is about as lilting and floating as a good electrostatic. Absolutely marvelous. LF is limited to the extent of a 5.25" woofer, but very tuneful (these speakers have great tonality) and just about perfect with a little tone control tweak. Well balanced and satisfying this little speakers are! It's funny how many speakers were created by we obsessed audiophiles of the last century. How many of these gems go unnoticed?

Anyway, these Szabos are absolutely gorgeous sounding little monitors. The Fisher 500B sounds the best it ever did. The tubes shining with sparkling treble and a clean midrange and the detail from the Szabos is top shelf -- just wonderful, wonderful. I found a little bit about them from a post from the designer's daughter.


Hi, I'm the daughter of John Szabo, the founder of Szabo Audio Systems and holder of the 424 speaker enclosure design (US Patent #263394). It was great to read the posts about Dad's speakers. He passed away this week, Dec 5, 2011. The enclosure design of the 424 contributed to the audio quality, but as all you audiophiles know, the quality of the sound was dependent upon the cross-over design which was tuned to the custom-designed Cambridge Speakers combined with the tweeters. It would make him happy to know that people who value good sound still value his speakers.

In addition to designing a complete line of audio components including the amps for Electrohome back in the 60's, my father designed all of the electronic circuitry for Electrohome's electronic organs. He was also a founder in a very early electronic piano business in the 1950's, and holds a patent for a key innovation for electronic pianos when they were new technology. Not only interested in audio electronics - Dad also holds the patent in 1960 for the touch lamp with variable lighting levels - sill being sold today, and had applied for a patent on a unique telescope feature.

Obviously John Szabo was talented with electronics and that absolutely shows with these speakers. Ah yes. Like my other hero John Spica, it's amazing what one man with limited resources and a brilliant mind can come up with to produce music!

Sorry, pics to follow.

Oh, quick question: How many brothers of the refoam out there put a line of glue along the edge of the foam on the cone? Some do, some don't. I can never get it looking as nice and neat as not doing it, but it does seem like a smart line of defense in some ways.

 

Sounds cool...but ya get on those pics!

 

Not my pics (I'm tired of the process to upload to photobucket), but here's the same speaker. Simple cabinetry visually, but extremely inert and solid. Theres some kind of dispersion cap over the tweeter. I feel like it affects imaging, but the treble that hangs in the air because of it is quite attractive. Don't know if that's a audiophile effect or not, however.

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Those look VERY nice. Congrats on a terrific score!

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=364229

 

Just wanted to write a quick follow up. Did some more painstaking web researching and found out more about Szabo. There were several versions of the Szabo monitors. A smaller version, the 424 (with a 4" woofer) was highly regarded at the time. A bit of wisdom from a Canadian audio forum.

"Szabo 424C..

the designer used the ls3/5a as his benchmark and he believed he improved upon them...made in Canada.....don't know if still available...but were going for around $700 a pair....i know a few audio dealers who own these in place of ls3/5as......"

Very interesting. I almost bought a set of Chartwell LS35as decades ago (and regret not doing so) so I've always longed for a good mini monitor. Well, it's been a week solid of listening to these Szabos, and I am finally happy with a mini monitor, since when I listened to those LS35a so long ago. And since then I've owned KEF, ProAc, Mission, Wharfedale, Celestion, B&W, and these are my favorite small monitor yet! They accomplish the holy grail of "smooth yet detailed." So smooth it's not funny. Just so listenable, yet I feel they are retrieving more detail than 've heard in while. Excel with piano. Perfect weight. After I refoamed them I've been give them a little time to break in and I'm astounded by the bass on these 525s. If these were being voiced after an LS35s, he must have decided to create an LS35A with REAL bass. These have some serious punch. Listening to the Blade Runner soundtrack right now, it's hardly ever sounded better. Their strength is a very natural, relaxed presentation. The music sits a bit back in the soundstage and the vocals sound human and unforced. They perform great at lower and moderate levels, which is a nice thing. Only REALLY pushed do they feel strained. My Dahlquists have been sitting unloved for a week now. I'm in love with the 2-way mini monitor at the moment. Wow. Long live the mini monitor. I wish there were a SHF get together so I bring these for people to audition.

 

To fully experience the 424's you need to mate them with the original bass extender base stand that was sold with them as a separate item. On their own they are only a mid-tweeter unit with very limited response. For some reason most people cheaped out and did not purchase the bass extender which makes the 424 come alive. While I see the 424's for sale on a regular basis I rarely see the B510 Bass stands (same shape as the 424 but 3-4 times as tall) which were designed to have the 424's sit on top on a dense foam pad. The B510 wires direct to the 424 and then the main +/- hookups are on the base unit. When John Szabo showed and auditoned the 424's at all the audio shows back in the day they were always hooked up to the B510's as they were designed to work together. They really should be coupled with the B510 bass unit designed by Szabo to fill out the sound down to 50-60 hz. Together they are wonderful. If you really want deep bass down to below 50 HZ you can just add a sub. I noticed that some posters are saying that there was an early and late version of the 424, with each using different drivers. This is not true at all. There was only ever one driver complement available on the 424. Philips tweeter (never used a vifa) and a specially John Szabo designed 4" mid (never used a polycarbonate mid) from Cambridge Speakers. For a while replacement drivers were available from McBride Speakers who are now called Q-components in Waterloo, Ontario. Many of th 424's I see for sale have had the original drivers switched out and will not match with John's crossover design. Although bass reflex the bass driver in the B510 had a fairly high Q. The 525 on the other hand did have a different polycaronate cone mid-bass unit. The B510 used a 5 1/4 pulp woofer specially designed by John and built by Cambridge. The B510 used two 100 uf caps in parallel and very large value inductor coil. It dropped the LF down to about 50-60 at -12 db and ran up to meet exactly where the 424 left off. The response is seemless between the two units. They were bass reflex with a rear firing woofer and and down firing port. I could send a photo if you want to see what the B510 looks like as strangely, there does not seem to be any info or photos on the web.

 

Indeed. I'd love to see good photos of these, as these are very uncommon and a bit unusual.

 

Will get a photo on this week. I am sure they could be built by someone with the skills. The odd thing about the base is that it was not built with the nice solid oak of the 424's. It was very well built, but it was black vinyl veneer. A solid red oak version would be very nice indeed especially with the 424 on top. One of the hifi stores that sold a lot of the SZABO gear was Natural Sound in Kitchener (they are still there and are a great retailer). One of the older ( like myself) employees told me just the other day that very few of the bass units were sold as the total combo was quite expensive back in the day. The fact that it did not match the real oak finish of the 424 may have also turned a few potential buyers off. I changed up all the caps in mine to Erse Pulse X, which have a very low esr. I will not be able to show the crossover on the B510 base as it is a difficult cabinet to open (from the bottom) and I do not want to risk damaging them. I opened then up once for a refoam and it was a challange to say the least. The driver is mounted from the inside and the crossover is inside at the very bottom of the cabinet. They have those same crazy spring clips on them as well.

 

Sorry folks, but my computer skills are weak and have been unable to get the photo transferred from my camera to this site. Listening to Patricia Barber on them now and other than the lack of deep base the audio quality is med-high. I am comparing the sound to my Acoustic Research AR3a Improved and OHM model I. Mr Szabo definitely had skills and more importantly a very good ear for tone.

 

OK I cheated a bit ( I am looking for a another pair of of the bass extenders) and posted a want ad on Canuck Audio Mart.ca showing the photos. It was only way i could figure out how to post the photos.

 

photos are on canuckaudiomart.com
it was the only way I could get photos on line

 

photos are on canuckaudiomart.com as it was the only way could figure out how to get them on line.

 

These Szabos are wonderful. I've never owned a pair (would love to), but I've heard them with some nice systems and they really sang.

 

Very interesting stuff about the B510 bass stands. I had no idea they existed. I am using a sub at the moment. The 424 sit on some custom oak stands I made. Would be fun to build some of these B510's. Hmmmm......

I did have a pair of new from the store 424-C's in about 1995??? Foolishly sold them years later. Big regret. I did get a mint pair of 424-C's two years later and still have them. The stock crossover is cheap needless to say so mine was upgraded including better binding posts. So big it had to be mounted on the back of the speaker lol. In a shootout with a stock 424-C pair it did have noticeable gains so it's worth upgrading the xover.
Anyway, the 424-C I purchased new in box ($600) did come with vifa tweeter and black poly? cone woofer with rubber surrounds. The show room floor had these on demo as well. My current 424-C is the same. I can post pictures later tonight. The very few 424-C I have seen all had these drivers....

Nice to see a good following for the Szaob 424.

 

Here is my 424-C.

IMAG0797_1.jpg »
IMAG0795_1.jpg »

It originally came with black screws for mounting the drivers but as they started to corrod I replaced with stainless steel.

 

I am eating crow on my comment about the drivers on the 424. My brother worked at cambridge speakers and he says that does not remember the 424 ever being built with vifa tweeters as John Szabo was not a fan of them at all. Thought they were too schrill and preferred a more rolled off top end on all of his designs for a less fatiguing sound. Would love to hear them.

 

Nice find! I never put a line of glue along the edge of the foam on the cone. I just try to work very precisely. The secret is not to use too much glue...

 

There seems to be a lot of driver combinations from what few pictures are available on google. I have a feeling the Vifa & black poly driver combos were the very last. In the mid 90's these were the only ones I saw new out of the box. I believe the Vifa tweeter is a D19TD-05 if memory serves me correct. They are not schrill at all. I have had "shrill" sounding speakers and all have been sold while the 424's stayed.