Longest running speakers?

4 replies
J(
Offline
jjcox (archived)
Bronze
Posted May 12, 2010 at 17:41 GMT
#1907837

Still proud owner of a pair of BL6000's, I was wondering... the BL6000 and BL8000 have been around since 1992. They're in their 18th year now (wow, they're finally adults!). The only B&O speakers I can find that have been around longer, are the CX50/CX100 line, which have 19 years on their tracks. So... if the BL6000/BL8000 keep up another year, they'll have matched them and a year later: beaten!

Will those be the longest running speakers ever? For some reason I can't imagine any other company building speakers that stand the test of time SO well. Can you?

Evan
Offline
Evan
Gold
Posted May 12, 2010 at 21:54 GMT
#1907838

Shouldn't be hard to overtake the CX now! In one of the catalogs for last year I remember reading an interview with David Lewis on the BL8000, just after they had produced 500,000 of them. Quite an achievement.

Location: San Francisco

I'm an automotive audio and acoustic engineer. I design loudspeakers and full sound systems for new automobiles. I also dabble with studio, consumer and pro audio projects from time to time.
CL
Offline
Cleviebaby
Bronze
Posted May 13, 2010 at 07:31 GMT
#1907839

jjcox wrote:

Will those be the longest running speakers ever? For some reason I can't imagine any other company building speakers that stand the test of time SO well. Can you?

Well, yes I can!

The first Quad ESL Electrostatic loudspeaker was introduced in 1956 and stayed in continuous production until 1981.  In fact, there are a couple of companies still making them  under licence, including one in Germany which also makes, again under licence and at a whopping price, the Dieter Rams designed (styled?) version of the same Quad speaker, the Braun LE1.

The Rogers LS3/5a has also had a seriously long production run in its various guises, and is still in production today, albeit with minor modfications from the original early 70s BBC specification. 

Cleve   

B(
Offline
ben12345 (archived)
Bronze
Posted May 14, 2010 at 04:21 GMT
#1907840

ESS (Electrostatic sound systems) have been making their AMT 1 series speaker since around 1973.

They had a break for the past couple of years, but they are now back in production again.

I have a set of AMT 1C dating from around '81 or '82, which I use as my main speakers.

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