SpeakerTalk

[Dev]

Hi, I have my 105.2 recapped and refurbished and pairing them with a Sansui AU-9500.

The Soundstage is fantastic but high frequencies are not reproduced as good.
Which is the ideal match for them?

I understand they were designed for solid states only.
So which amp to go for?

And originally back in late 70's & early 80's, which amp were they matched with, originally, any insight?

Gurus please guide.

Dev

[speakerguru]

[SaSi]

These are not super efficient speakers of the 96dBW/1m to be effectively driven by a 10W amp.

They do need a lot of power (in the 200WRMS range) but if you have any amplifier and don't overdrive it it will do fine.

I listen to my 105.1 at moderate levels using about 1-2W of power.

[audiolabtower]

They are not as efficient as modern speakers, but are a relatively easy load, so should not be difficult to drive. A solid state amp with good bass grip (damping factor) might be useful to control the B300 but this is not like saying they are totally unusable with a wide range of (or valve) amps.

[proffski]

Back in 1974 / 1975 we happily monitored on LS35As using Leak and Lowther valve amplifiers. Even two unknown BBC made mono amplifiers.

As long as you are sensible with the volume control and know the systems limitations there should be little if any problems

Later we went onto Amcron DC150 and DC300 transistor amplifiers which did help somewhat. I still found it amazing that coming back after the weekends I quite often found that somebody had reconnected the Leak amplifiers in preference to the Amcrons...
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[Thierry]

In my humble opinion the Quad 606 (MkI or MkII) is a very good choice.
I also used a Quad 405 and an two home made Quad hybrids using the Quad 405 boards and a swicthing mode power supply.
All of the above amps give excellent results and 140 watts per channel with the 105.2 is well enough to get a comfortable listening level on any musical program without any audible stress on the most demanding music peaks.

Thierry

[rx7rotary]

I have been running mine with 60w Audio Research Classic 60, without any sweat. Control of bass is fantastic, midrange and highs a brilliant.

cheers

[proffski]

[Thierry]

[audiolabtower]

Years ago I used a 405.1 I built to the exact circuit when they first came out (bridge components matched to 0.5% with youthful enthusiasm!). The 105 is an easy load, 6 ohm minimum and not too reactive so it was a good match.

I remember the Spendor BC3 could drive it into very nasty overload (banging between the rails) before Spencer Hughes put the resistor mod in the crossover to tame the very reactive 3 ohms or so in the midrange, and Angus McKenzie's first paperback Hi-Fi Choice led Peter Walker to start the road to the surface mount pcb (no room left on main pcb) time averaged protection circuit of the 405.2.

[iso]

[speakerguru]

I worked on T52s quite a bit when developing the KM1 version. The damping ring was an over-plasticised PVC like you get on car tax disc holders (UK). It sticks to glass OK in summer and stays on, if you're lucky, for the year.
In the case of the T52 it was stuck to the diaphragm surround using a flexible hot melt adhesive. The diaphragm surround had to be sand blasted first to get a matt adhesive friendly finish and even then it was difficult to prevent or get air bubbles out. With time things tend to recover and the air bubbles may come back and the damping action could be lost.

[Thierry]

[iso]

[proffski]

[quote="iso"]