Need help identifying audio equipment

[Druha]

Hello, this is my first post, please move to appropriate section if appropriate.

Ummm, my late father has left behind some old, but what I believe to be high end audio equipment. I could use some help figuring out how much either this stuff is worth, how good it stacks up to modern equipment, and in general...what you think I should do with it lol.

Apparently I need to have 5 posts before I can post pictures, so here is a link. I don't know if this will work.

B&W Series 80 Model 801
B&W 2004 ZMF?
Carver Amp Magnetic Field Power Amplifier?

add a http to below, its my skydrive public folder

://cid-df021c6982038697.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum! I'm very sorry for your loss.

The equipment is nice. The B&W 801s caught my attention. There are others here who are much better at helping with vintage gear, so I'll leave the estimates to them.

Have you hooked the equipment up and given it a listen? If so, did you like it?

Adam

 

[jamie2112]

Sorry about your loss.I will buy your speakers the brown ones. How much do you want?The carver is not worth that much and the cd player is 50 bucks at the most...

 

[TLS Guy]

Sorry about your loss.I will buy your speakers the brown ones. How much do you want?The carver is not worth that much and the cd player is 50 bucks at the most...

I had a friend sell a pair of those recently, and got he $1000 for them. My brother has a set, so I know them well.

Jamie, if you do buy them they come from the days when there were quite a few amps with DC offset problems that fried speakers. Part of the protection circuit of those speakers has a large cap in series with the speaker, so DC can not fry them. These caps are not the best, they are electrolytic any way, and now none of them have the value they started out with, limiting the bass.

Now amps, other than Acurus have protection. So what you need to do is remove those caps and bridge the connections. I would remove them, as the British Brand of cap that was in my friends, was of a type that I know eventually leaks its electrolytic making a mess. I found this out, when I had to take one of my friends speakers apart, as one of these caps went open circuit and he had no sound at all from that speaker.

The F3 of those speakers is around 44 Hz. The worst feature of them is the bass, which is just the wrong side tubby, in my view. The bass speaker is in a sealed enclosure, but the bass is not as tight as you would expect. Otherwise they are a good speaker.

 

[Druha]

Thanks for the quick replies and condolences.
wow, I usually visit car forums and am way out of my league here lol. I do love electronics and sound systems, but you guys are on another level.

Jamie, I was about to send you this massive IM, but again i need 5 posts to be able to. IM me your email maybe?

So the B&W 80, 801 do i have the series 2 or 3?
Is this website accurate? (add htt)

p://audioreview.com/mfr/b-and-w/floorstanding-speakers/matrix-801-series-2/PRD_119131_1594crx.aspx#review0

I am seeing prices of over $2000+? I just want to be fair, and I need to setup the system first to make sure they work and I dont fall in love with them and want to keep em. (memories)

PS. I dont mean to be breaking any forum rules if there are any about posting external links

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks for the quick replies and condolences.
wow, I usually visit car forums and am way out of my league here lol. I do love electronics and sound systems, but you guys are on another level.

Jamie, I was about to send you this massive IM, but again i need 5 posts to be able to. IM me your email maybe?

So the B&W 80, 801 do i have the series 2 or 3?
Is this website accurate? (add htt)

p://audioreview.com/mfr/b-and-w/floorstanding-speakers/matrix-801-series-2/PRD_119131_1594crx.aspx#review0

I am seeing prices of over $2000+? I just want to be fair, and I need to setup the system first to make sure they work and I dont fall in love with them and want to keep em. (memories)

PS. I dont mean to be breaking any forum rules if there are any about posting external links

You might well get $2000 on line, however those speakers are very heavy, and shipping them is a problem. My friend did a local consignment sale at a local Hi-Fi dealer, in the Twin Cities and $1000 is what they made. So I have a real number for one city. They are 20 or more years old now, however they are a classic and the modern replacement is a round 20K per pair.

The current version has a much better bass response, the mid driver has greatly improved, and has no edge termination, just a minute air gap. The mid range enclosure has been made very rigid and the diamond teeter is entirely new.

Personally, I would say around $1000 is a fair valuation for your speakers.

 

[Druha]

so i hooked the system up, everything is still banging. I wouldn't know how to pick up the subtle flaws if there are any, but I know what sounds better than anything else I have heard. Listened to some opera, classical music, and hip hop. Opera and Classic sounds beautiful. hip hop is clear, but not as well suited.

I have decided to keep the system, $1000 isn't worth giving these classics up for. Maybe if the markets continue to tank.

Thanks for the help guys much appreciated, I will revisit here and there.

Sorry if i got your hopes up Jamie, good luck with your setup/selling the Jamos.

 

[TLS Guy]

so i hooked the system up, everything is still banging. I wouldn't know how to pick up the subtle flaws if there are any, but I know what sounds better than anything else I have heard. Listened to some opera, classical music, and hip hop. Opera and Classic sounds beautiful. hip hop is clear, but not as well suited.

I have decided to keep the system, $1000 isn't worth giving these classics up for. Maybe if the markets continue to tank.

Thanks for the help guys much appreciated, I will revisit here and there.

Sorry if i got your hopes up Jamie, good luck with your setup/selling the Jamos.

It is that old saying, they are worth more to you than anybody else, so enjoy them.

I would get those old caps out though or replace them. The best thing is to remove them. One of the big improvements in amps was direct coupling were the output devices are directly connected to the speakers. Having those caps in there removed the benefits of direct coupling. The bass will improve if you remove them, for two reasons, the caps limit the bass response, and the caps will have aged, and have less storage, then they had originally. As they age further the bass response will deteriorate further.

 

[skizzerflake]

Hello, this is my first post, please move to appropriate section if appropriate.....
Carver Amp Magnetic Field Power Amplifier?....

If this baby is working, it's a great amp. I still mourn mine, which got hit my lightning two years ago. With a decent preamp, turntable and good speakers, it makes a kick-*** vinyl system. I assembled one like that to go with some "surplus" Vandersteen speakers, using components from EBay and people wondered at the great vinyl sound. Depending on the model, the Carver may have up to 400 watts per channel (continuous) and 1000 WPC in bursts of up to 16 seconds, which means you can drive inefficient speakers to great volumes with clean power.

 

[Druha]

It is that old saying, they are worth more to you than anybody else, so enjoy them.

I would get those old caps out though or replace them. The best thing is to remove them. One of the big improvements in amps was direct coupling were the output devices are directly connected to the speakers. Having those caps in there removed the benefits of direct coupling. The bass will improve if you remove them, for two reasons, the caps limit the bass response, and the caps will have aged, and have less storage, then they had originally. As they age further the bass response will deteriorate further.

Is this an amateur DIY project or do I need to be very/somewhat experienced with audio equipment? I would definitely want to look into this. With 2 12" subs it should bumpa lot harder.

If this baby is working, it's a great amp. I still mourn mine, which got hit my lightning two years ago. With a decent preamp, turntable and good speakers, it makes a kick-*** vinyl system. I assembled one like that to go with some "surplus" Vandersteen speakers, using components from EBay and people wondered at the great vinyl sound. Depending on the model, the Carver may have up to 400 watts per channel (continuous) and 1000 WPC in bursts of up to 16 seconds, which means you can drive inefficient speakers to great volumes with clean power.

mmmm Ideas, will keep that in mind. I remember my dad had a turntable hooked up to it, dunno where it went though. I will try to find the model # and would like to try to find an online manual for it.

Noob question: what's a preamp do? is that like the equalizer/soundboard?

 

[TLS Guy]

Is this an amateur DIY project or do I need to be very/somewhat experienced with audio equipment? I would definitely want to look into this. With 2 12" subs it should bumpa lot harder.

I have no idea of you skill level. For me it was easy. You need to dismantle to get to the crossover. Then there are two huge blue caps in series with the positive supply. Unsolder them, and then solder a wire jumping the contacts they were connected to. It was a quick job for me, but for you it may be different.

I think the woofer is actually 13 inch. The 3db point is 44 Hz if I remember correctly with 12 db roll off per octave, which puts them 15 db down at 22 Hz. So not a spectacular bass response, but adequate.

 

[skizzerflake]

Is this an amateur DIY project or do I need to be very/somewhat experienced with audio equipment? I would definitely want to look into this. With 2 12" subs it should bumpa lot harder.



mmmm Ideas, will keep that in mind. I remember my dad had a turntable hooked up to it, dunno where it went though. I will try to find the model # and would like to try to find an online manual for it.

Noob question: what's a preamp do? is that like the equalizer/soundboard?

The preamp mainly serves to do input switching, balance, loudness control and equalization (usually bass and treble controls), however, with a turntable, you also need an extra signal boost to the tiny cartridge output and a special equalization curve that offsets the bass cut that is built into every LP.