Another modern version of the classic Dynaco A-25, from Annandale Acoustics

I saw this mentioned tonight over at audiokarma.org:

Annandale Acoustics

This is the second company offering a modernised version of the revered A-25, but this time it's an American company and according to their site, MADE here too.

Here's a page describing in great detail the original classic 2-way 10" design, and some others based on it, that were sold to hundreds of thousands of people in the 1970s:

Dynaco Speakers

At this rate, when is someone going to come out with a modern version of the A-25's competition, the Large Advent?

 

That looks fantastic. They seem to have put a lot into it.

Hm. Seems it'd be durable too and made in the US? Amazing. Do you know about what they go for?

 

I haven't located a price yet. Though there is an email address provided (maybe they're test marketing right now?).

 

The originals adjusted for inflation would be under a grand, these are 2500 bucks. Seen another way, you could buy 25 sets of the originals in the used market for the price of one new set. Too expensive to really be in the spirit of the originals, but nice to see something made in America

 

Two thousand five hundred? I hope they sound good.........very good.

 

For that kind of money, you could buy a very nice used pair of Dynaudio Focus 220s.

 

The drivers are made by SEAS, according to their website.
That's not a bad thing, but SEAS is not US.

They do point out the cabinets are made from American Birch, blah, blah, blah...

Manufactured in the US, yes. Made here, not exactly.

 

Ah. Thanks for the further info, "he who is the Lolrus" and Shakey.

 

You could buy 2 pair of the Dynaudio Excites that jut got rave reviews off Streophile.

 

The original A-25 used seas drivers and was built in the seas factory. They were merely Imported by Dynaco, so this speaker is much more "American made" than the original. We had a pair in and compared them to an original pair of a-25's and they are light years better.

This speaker actually sounds a lot like the harbeth compact 7, seies 2 (the earlier model). Pretty warm sound overall. Pleasing but definitely on the lush side. Great speaker for classic rock.

 

Tone,
I was aware of that, about the originals.
This one even looks like the Harbeths.

I was merely pointing out that some of it's components are sourced outside the US, as are most electronics, past and present.

 

Excellent speakers, but not as full-range as the Focus 220s. Also, the Focus is a higher engineering specification speaker than the Excite range, sounds better and is higher performance. All the Dyne lines are pretty much non-overlapping in terms of product segmentation and performance, just like Canon's segmentation for it's Rebel, prosumer (50D, 7D, etc) and 1D pro line of digital cameras.

Moreover, why would you need TWO pair of Excites?

 

It's a global economy, that's business in the 21st Century. The U.S. has ceased to become a manufacturing based economy for commodities where economy of scale determines pricing. And speaker drivers are commodities.

Come to think of it, are there any U.S. driver manufacturers?

 

Well at least they are partly made here, which is a big improvement over many other brands, and more importantly to me anyway, they aren't manufactured in a certain country on the western side of the Pacific.

Anyway....

Even as a fan of "old fashioned" speaker technology, to me 2,500 clams seems too high for this type of speaker system, so personally if I wanted to own a speaker system like this I would rather buy a pair of the World Designs WD25As, another modernised version of the A-25, for $895 (component-only kit version is $360). Because even with shipping from the U.K. added, it would still be much less expensive.

Speaking of Dynaudio, they also sell 10" 2-way loudspeaker but this is their own design that debuted back around 2007: DM 2/10. Costs about $1200 per pair.

 

Other than maybe JBL, there isn't a single cone speaker made in America with American drivers... why is this even a point of contention? The Annandales are decent speakers, but definitely voiced and will appeal to a certain ear very well and not to others...

 

The DM/10 is a fine speaker, but for $1200 one can step up to a nice, clean used pair of Audience 72s or 82s, which are a better speaker.

FWIW. Dynaudio is one of the very companies that designs and manufactures their own drivers.

 

Omega uses US-made drivers, untraditional as they may be. They sound different than the "usual" designs but have their own place in the marketplace.

http://www.omegaloudspeakers.com/about/materials

 

Who cares where something is made?

I want "bang-for-the-buck", so does "everyone else" otherwise Walmart woudn't exist.

Henry

 

The same drivers and crossover components are available at madisound.com.

Jeff

 

Some of those look very interesting.

 

A company called Tekton Designs makes a version of the A-25, using the Seas drivers - I'd never heard of them before this, but their version starts at $1000, according to their blog.

 

Read post #1

I only made mention of the non-US nature of this speaker because the OP stressed that not only were they an American company, they were MADE here.

I couldn't care less where they are made.
I just checked their website, provided by the OP in post #1.

For all I know they could be made in South America, Central America or North America.

They said it, not me.
It's misleading, IMO.

 

I looked over there and found the drivers....

tweeter & woofer (sheesh the woofer costs in the triple digit range!!)

....but not the crossover. Or did you mean to - gulp - design my own crossover for them? Scary! Xovers can so tricky, and are usually more important for good sound than the drivers themselves.

Maybe I'll just try and find a pair of these at a thrift store.

 

Cheap at twice the price.

Last year I upgraded my Dyne Audience 72 tweeters with Dynaudio Esotec+ tweeters and they were $365 apiece direct from Dynaudio NA. I think even higher specification Dynaudio Esotar2 tweeters are around a grand apiece.

 

Oh man you paid way too much! These are the real deal - a cellulose-based/conical-shaped radiating surface is what ya need for that shmooooooth sound.* Here's a set of Marantz loudspeakers, talk about zero WAF!, that use 2 per speaker, along with a line array of midrange drivers and dual ten inch woofers (using a +/-3dB scale, they are rated down to 20Hz, which is believable based on the huge enclosure and very wide/long dual ports).



* which seemed to be much more common "back in the day" even among the less expensive gear; though the super-precise analytical character so many modern speakers exhibit can be a good thing for home theater purposes