Unspeakables — Worst Speakers You Ever Heard, And Why?

Of the better CVs? 217r, 15T/12T/, 311P. others. They are usually 2-ways with 12 or 15 inch woofers. Also the cabinets tend to be larger and have slots or transmission line vents instead of round ports. Also the heavier the better.

 

I can't speak for the whole range but that's a description that resonates for the ubiquitous "Bronze" bookshelf speakers. Also, special mention for the Monitor Audio Gold 100 (5g) stand-mounts which I demoed and thought sounded rather good. I even made positive noises on this very forum. Oh dear. Whata mistaka to maka...

It wasn't long before rather too much of my music collection was being presented with really unpleasant sharp upper mids / lower trebles and, although not awful, mids that were a touch recessed. As I now realise, whilst digging reasonably deep, the lower frequencies weren't particularly well defined either although it wouldn't be fair to use the term "boombox". I stuck with the Gold 100s for a year, trying a range of tweaks and taking on board my now all-time most grating annoyances, variations of : "the speakers are amazing; you just need to get used to them..." (translation: "we're the experts; we know what's best for you; it's all your fault"). No. No. Just no. It's a year of my life I won't be getting back. Unspeak(er)bles indeed.

Thumbs up for the majority of the respective Concept & 3000 ranges by Q Acoustics (so far) and for my current Dynaudio Special 40s; speakers for listening to music, not measurements.

 

Sounds about like the reason that most haters give for not liking ALL C-V models. "I heard them once at a frat party in the 90's blaring in the corners..."
To be fair to them C-V did a major decline in the later 80's, but the 50's-70's models were uniformly excellent. The 217r, 311p, and s1 to name a few.
Also to be fair Jensen also made some fantastic speakers at one time...

 

Mission 751 Freedoms. Everything that was great about the original 751, Mission decided to cast aside and promptly screwed the pooch.

 

It’s common because it’s accurate. No one hates CV because they have a hard on to hate some brand from 30 years ago. The fact is they designed speakers to hit a certain price point and make an impression on customers in a show room. Like adjusting a flat screen tv to vivid at Best Buy to grab attention through the fluorescent lights of a box store. Compared to the speakers they were sitting next to, they were louder and appealed to the customer who wanted to crank it up. It was a successful business plan and as a result they were heard by a lot of people at parties with loud music in college. Perhaps at the dawn of the company they were a high end brand but I’ve never seen those speakers, by comparison I’ve seen a ton of their speakers with the CV logo printed on a woofer. Those are the ones people are talking about. Those speakers earned the company the best market share they ever had.

I’m sure they made a range of products that sound differently from each other but they made their money building less expensive and more obnoxious versions of JBL L100’s.

and yes, Jensen made some very good speakers in the 60’s, a great bargain to be had if shopping vintage speakers.

 

Neither have I. In fact, I have yet to hear any CV speaker that I thought had anything approaching decent sound.

 

Sounds to me like a poor setup. It seems all to many on the here on the forums just do not get the concept of what proper setup is all about...

 

Same here man ! I bought a pair to replace a pair of Technics, and they sounded so much worse I returned them within the day. All bass no mids no treble. Thought thet might have been out of phase and tried all cables in all of the socket but no luck. Pity coz they did look the part, and were deeply discounted because the guy at the store was my friend and they screwed them by sending a pair of those, one in cherry, one in walnut ! That didn't bother me except for no resale value whatsoever. Not a problem in my teenage bedroom though, esp for a sonic upgrade. They were 3-way, 12'' woofers, can't recall the model

 

I came into this thread just to see how many times "white van" speakers were mentioned.

 

Whatcha need boss? I gotcha covered, 90% off!
.

 

I own a pair Cerwin Vega D 3's and used them for years I never experienced what you described

 

I bought a pair of Cerwin-Vega D-3 speakers in my college days, mid-1980s. They weren’t even the worst speakers I’ve ever owned, much less the worst I’ve ever heard. Not even close.

 

In my local paper

 

Sounds like a very bad speaker to me............

 

People listened to a lot of gear back then that didn't agree with me.

I listened to all sorts of speakers back in the early 70's, when I was sixteen. I couldn't really find any that I particularly cared for.

For this reason, I wrote to Altec. They sent me the plans to their 828 bass cabinet. This is the foundation for the famous A7 Voice of the Theater speaker. I had the cabinets custom built and bought the other components.

Problem solved...

 

Ages ago a friend had a pair of Bose 901s and he never connected the equalizer! When I asked him why he just said, “I don’t know. What’s it supposed to do?” Needless to say the sound was egregious. He was a university music professor and classical composer. Wow.

 

Which again is demonstrating that we should not blindly follow those who lead...

Its kinda like "yea thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."

My thoughts are that this individual is walking through the wrong valley...

 

Is that any different in 2022? There are lots of things out there I don't like.

 

Some Bose acoustimass system were totally un-hifi to my ears. A lot of B&W monitors made my ears bleed. But the worst was Triangle Antal 202 speakers with a Yamaha AVR in the nineties.

 

No. Same old, same old...

But, there are more things I like out there today.

I still have Altec A7’s though...

 

My dad had a set of those 80s infinities. They featured amazingly mediocre sound for such a fancy looking package. I never cared for them.

 

I doubt that most of the speakers that were popular back then, would be sold today.

This is probably a good reason as to why they are not...

 

I think some guys are beating down on the ultra cheap lowfi/midfi stuff. Pick on the lousy ones that are actually posing as hifi and priced in the hifi price bracket fellas.

 

Seconded. Those models were the best of Cerwin Vega sonically speaking. My record shop has a pair of one of those larger models, and they sound quite nice, in that shop. The acoustics in this shop are nice, it was a 1960's shopping center in Oak Ridge, TN and had a record shop there when built (Gordon's Disc-O-Tape, Vivian Gordon and I were also good friends).

 

Examples?