Absolute garbage... fun video though! those are something I would have found in a dumpster as a kid, played around with for a while before blowing the speakers and throwing them away. Opening up speakers and finding fake mids and highs was so common 😂
Hah, wow, I could swear I saw these at Champion Auto Stores (long gone Midwest chain) at one time, only it was a white box. Along with KRACO and Sparkomatic stereos. It'd be interesting to put real speakers in that styrene or ABS case just for yucks, bonus if one could find them with the chinsy chrome voicecoil dustcover. Add some acoustic insulation. They still wouldn't be great due to the shape and thickness of the enclosure but it might be do-able. Gotta love the power meters. As an odd aside, a technique I used in model railroading to simulate fire (for instance, a campfire). Use a Miniatronics 1.5v micro mini lamp and connect it to the earphone jack of a small 8 transistor radio with an add-on 9v adapter. You tune it to a classical station of your choice and the flicker for the 'flame' would vary with the music. The effect was WAY better than the more common fire kits which had an easily decernable repeating flicker pattern. Aaaanyway . . . . Considering what my cellphone and laptop can do it should be possible to vastly improve them. Again, just for yucks since I sorta dig that 1980's cheapo Taiwan aesthetic. Hopefully you didn't pay much for that NOS junk, even if it is just for fun. :)
Local to me back when it was open at "western auto" in La they used to carry kraco and sparkomatic brand. My first ever subs were 2 12" sparkomatic in my grandmas trunk lol.......Im 42
The speakers you would actually be wanting in those days would be the Pioneer TSX series these days they go for a super high premium if you can find them at all. As they are quite sought after in the Bosozoku japanese car culture. Usually spotted mounted on the rear parcel shelf.
I only knew one person in the 80's that had these rear-deck mount type speakers. His dad bought him the best ones Sony offered cause he wasn't allowed to cut any holes in his Buick Regal.
I was a kid but I remember this type of stereo equipment. My brother was in high school and bought " mind blower" speakers, had amp built in the speakers. Absolutely crap, lasted 2 days.
Id still gut the enclosures. Put in some sound deadening to kill the plasticy hollowness. The use some cheap, good speakers from Parts Express. Make a real 3way out of them. Then use a real amp to power them.
The plastic is way too thin. The resonance would absolutely be uncontrollable. If you want to make dogs howl, I'm sure it would work! Look around for the die cast Realistic "Minimus" series. I retrofitted some of those with MB quart and Dynaudio drivers. Very nice for close monitor listening.
LEDs for the “power meter” are just wired in parallel so there’s no “metering” happening at all. Pure junk. BUT, those cheesy looking cabinets are total retro fab. Stuff them with some modern high quality drivers and some sound deadening material for the plastic and you’ve got a great sounding set of flea-market cheaters 😂
Yep I have actually seen something similar turned out pretty amazing and even amazing looking with good drivers mixing like a gold colour and the owner claimed they sounded pretty good but the box was better than this one. He said it was some speakers he found on the garbage and put good stuff inside cause they looked amazing but was other very different model than this one and from Europe.
They use the term "high-temperature" a lot. They don't seem to realize that that term is used to describe speakers that can handle high temperatures, not speakers that reach high temperatures just by using them. 8:50 Yeah, I'd put them at mid-80's, also. Silver surface mount car speakers were a big thing around then(Sony was big on it). They all sounded weak, though.
Wholesale at the time, depending on how many you would be getting. Ran between $8.00 and $12.00 Great stuff, Made specifically for flea markets, Arabic stores, That wanted to rip people off. Then when they came back, Take out the no refunds sign.
I like whenever he mentions “Flea Market” speakers because I totally remember stuff like this being sold out of vans on hooks with big price tags on them. Everything from 10” Pyramid subs to Alphine (Yes, Alphine) speakers and head units. Occasionally there’d be a few Pyramid Gold series amps that were decent for Subs on a budget (PB-300?) or the famous PB-100 . Damn I miss those days here in the NY Westchester area.😕
@@joeyholthusen6495 Joey; unfortunately many people don't know what a great invention the passive radiator was. Shame they don't use them today. I was in the electronics business for over 35 years started when I was 17.
I had a pair that were very similar box speakers that I bought at a flea market type store back in 1987. There were a couple of differences. The "woofer" cone was white, the foam surround was blue and the dust cap was silver. The magnet was HUGE and believe it or not, it was vented!! BUT the mids , highs and lights were sealed off, so i cut it open and like yours, the mids and tweeter was fake, only the lights had wire to them but they actually sound really good and even had a 1 1/2" voice coil on the 4" .It was surprising stout. They were packaged in a glossy white box. The 80's/early 90's had some really cool audio!
Those are the exact say as a set of Pyramids my older brother put in his 1987 Jeep. It didn't come with a radio or speakers so I guess a step up from none at all.
They are so good that they look just like those old "white van speaker scam" 😂 Just print a crazy high value on the package, sell for cheap and it sells like hot bread while being massively cheaper speakers than the already kinda cheap price they used to ask already LOL.
...maybe switch the speakers...you have the left speaker on the right side, and they will not properly image...or you can put them directly in the trash...always fun Big D...do you remember "Big Brut" speakers? or Sparkomatic, or Kraco....Craig Powerplay...Jenson Triax...I had these types of speakers in my Mom's 1976 4 door Nova...along with a booster /eq under the dash...also, a pair of Pioneer TSX8 deck mount 3 ways on the rear deck...mounted with 2 face tape...which became dislodged, and hit me in the head at a sudden stop..but it started a hobby that has lasted 40 years and counting...great show Big D, as usual
When I was a kid, these are the types of speakers we would come across as freebies to play around with. Hook them up to just about anything equally cheap and cheesy, overdrive the crap out of them and move on to the next.
In the 70's and 80's my dad had a collection of garbage home speakers like this that I used to screw around with. They were so pathetic(as were the kmart brand stereos I had to power them) I spent the first 15 years of my life assuming that speakers vibrate so fast that you can't see them move.
The sad part is this is something that keeps repeating it self... I bought some crap Auna 5.1 speakers which is 2 bookshelf, 1 center speaker, 2 tower speakers and one 10 inch sub, it's a German brand and they cost like 300eur like 3 years ago or some crap... The wattage is all big lies, the center speaker came with a dead tweeter, the woofers on center and bookshelf speakers inside are generic unbranded and there's a sticker with like 5w and like 2w on the tweeter and they claim quite a few dozens of watts and much more in full power LOL. They also sound horrible worse than my Logitech Z5500 PC speakers from 2005 and the subwoofer doesn't even work as a subwoofer cause it only makes rattling and air port noises and it's also far from the 100+ rated wattage. Only the tower speakers are actually OKish which are the only ones with actual built-in crossover while the others is just a cap for the tweeter and are at least somehow clear contrary to the muddy muted sound of all the other speakers, they actually sound better than the Z5500 satellite speakers but I mean they have 2 much bigger woofers and like 1 inch silk dome tweeter so it's not surprising. The only thing that surprised me in them is that the bookshelf and center speakers actually even have a tweeter which for how horrible they sound I thought it would be piezoelectric crap, but they arent much better anyway, it's just a tiny plastic tweeter speaker... Ps: they weren't exactly that cheap, but in EU there's not much like US cheap good speakers, here even something entry level like Klipach Reference Home Theater pack is almost 1000eur and even more depending on the seller while in US some ppl bought it like 2 years ago in promotions for 250 US $ and was around 350$ the normal price. Edit: Most Hifi 5.1 here are close to 1000eur. The best deal I could find here is really just 5.0 Jamo speakers which are pretty decent for just slightly below 500eur but adding a good sub it goes again to 900eur and higher which is more than 1 month salary in my crap country 😡
@@guily6669 Where do you live, if you don't mind me asking? I actually live sort-of close to Klipsch (where their better stuff comes from). On another note: US hifi nerds are always looking for old European made vacuum tubes (Mullard, Amperex, Telefunken, Siemens, Philips rebrands, etc.). I have some that are worth $600-$700 each and some $500/pair. People used to throw away projectors and oscilloscopes that have hundreds of dollars worth of tubes alone in them.
Love these old tech videos! Big D, if you can ever find those Sony 3-Way 8” mobile speakers, I’d enjoy seeing you review them. I saw them around ‘87-‘88, always kicked myself for not buying them. Anyone else ever see those beautiful, if impractical, speakers?
@@MarvinHartmann452Glad to hear somebody else saw them, most people’s eyes glaze over when I’m trying to explain them. Appreciate you, thanks for sharing
Wow. The woofer was about what I expected , but the fake mids and tweeters really threw me. I expected at least a piezo disk tweeter. Apparently this was something you bought at a flea market in the 80's when you couldn't afford to buy the Pyramid speakers, also sold at the same flea market. I don't think these sold for more than $20 new with the idea that you were getting a steal. 🙄
Usually i skip over the part when you play music because it never mattered what was playing, it sounds the same on my phone...until today, those speakers sound like crap and if it sounds like that on my phone, i can only imagine what it sounds like there 😂
These were available inJC Whitney catalogs for the longest time. Most of the stuff they sold for car audio made flea market crap look good in comparison.
In the UK, we had a name for stuff like these crappy electronics. We called them "a mugs eyeful", cheap plastic, fake claims, and often complete lies about specs and abilities. The term refers to them looking more than they actually are. Cheap scratchy plastic coated in equally cheap silver (usually) spray paint, badly applied. Flashy LEDs that mean nothing, and glued on (often misspelled in Chinese English) info plates covering holes in the case. My mates dad loved crap like this in his car. Horrible cheap head unit, and speakers that sounded horrible, even to a kid. I remember the PMPO/RMS output debates he'd read in the car audio magazines. There was a motor factor (car accessories shop) near us and it sold crap like this in the window, the boxes were usually sun faded.
@@CheezeCracker Replace the LEDs with NE-2 glow lamps which don't fire until voltage goes over 80-90V. More than likely the only audio you'd be hearing at that point is from the inductors in the amp! 😀
ok new challenge for you put newer modern speakers in it and actually make them sound good, also the led power meter is not even a meter it jus lights all them up at the same time cause there wired in series lol
Holy cow, those may have even been worse than the old Kraco and Pyramid crap from back then. The terrible sound of those brings back bad memories that we did not know were so bad back in the 80's. Heck, even the Pioneer speakers of that design were not so great. lol
american hifi had a decent run in the early 2000s they made the volfenhag , dhd , performance teknique , and american pro bass machine brands . i sold quite a bit of it and performed ok for cheap stuff.
WOW, these sound like computer speakers from the 90's. I bought one of these amps at a flea market that said it was like 1000 watts. One of the channels was wired backwards and it wouldn't even power my factory door speakers on my car let alone kicker 3 way truck boxes I had at the time. Major disappointment. The electronics inside the amp looked like it was out of a tv set or toy from the 90's.
These were probably sold in the K-Mart automotive department back in the day for $39 for the pair. Single 4" driver, 150W is the detonation point where the voice coils melt. :P Fun look at these. They sounded better than I thought they would, but they are still cheap 4" full range in plastic boxes.
Kmart sold some crap back in the day, but I highly doubt these were sold there. These are almost 100% flea market crap. Just cheap enough and flashy enough to unload on unsuspecting people that couldn't return them.
Makes me think about the Pyramid speakers, my neighbour had a pair looking like these, but from Pyramid, with real led meters and a glowing green Light from the dustcap!
A buddy of mines back in the early 90's had a pair of pioneer speakers made like that, that were loud, and actually had some bass! Sounded pretty good for back then! They were grey, and I think the name was TS-X9. It was a complete system, tape deck, amp, and speakers! Lol!! 😂
hey i had these! got them second hand in 2010 or some like that... they looked nice on the 80's car but damn they sound like a AM radio lol also like 5w or some like that
That 350W is just 3.50W cheap boombox speakers with fake mids and highs. I found a pair of dai-ichi speakers on my last dumpster dive that looks like that and is a real 3-way speaker and has a plastic cone. It says 50W but seems the woofer starts to knock around almost half a volume on a stock head unit.
I had those back in the day and the radio shack drop in speakers rhat were square and fit in 6x9 spaces didnt have no backs on them just 4 screws that went in the 6x9 holes
I only knew one person that had these rear-deck mount type speakers. His dad bought him the best ones Sony offered cause his dad wouldn't allow him to cut any holes in his Buick Regal.
I remember the old Kraco speakers you could get at pawn shops and flea markets back in the 80's. They sucked soooo bad. Lol supposedly rated for 300 watts
I’m old enough to remember those and they are definitely flea market items. It was a “full line” brand that had amps and eq’s/boosters and a few awful cassette head units. The price was annoyingly negotiable as in if you asked one question the sellers last question would be “how much do you want to pay?” I think they shared “build houses” with Mustang audio.
Yes. I installed one of their boosters with the gold colored face. It claimed 200w but had a SINGLE channel chip inside. The eq bands did almost nothing - just made the overall sound louder or softer. No frequency division. Oh it had a “built in alarm” - that actually worked.
I had a pair like that for my 87 Chevy nova, but they were from RadioShack. I don’t remember if they were Optimus or realistic but they sounded like crap too.
They were probably made in Jupiter hence the 60oz. magnet rating! 😛 So after watching to the end... LOL at "power indicators" and fake drivers. So much of that crap was on those all in 1 "hifi" systems sold at Sears, Monkey Wards, Kmart, et al! The LEDs reminded me of something we did back in the 80s with home made DJ speakers. To help with losing compression tweeter diaphragms, we started adding tail light bulbs in series with the tweeters. Tungsten filaments when cold have extremely low resistance and essentially conduct like a solid wire. But as the power goes up they heat rapidly and the resistance goes up. When the amp clips or a lot of HF is presented, the lamps will glow full bright and the power drops to the tweeter VC saving it from roasting. On some of the boxes I put lights on the top with red caps with an insignia reading PEAK POWER! It was hilarious and worked and kept the boxes out of the shop. A lot of PA speakers use this same form of protection as well. This trick is quite old. Radio Shack sold tweeter protectors back in the 80s that had light bulbs in them based on this exact principle. It works well. Any "old schooler" remembers J.C. Whitney auto catalogs well. Many of these types of speakers as featured in this video were in that catalog.
i guess if the enclosure is polypropylene that means "polypropylene system" cuz that's a paper cone. soon as i saw that paper (no) surround, it was over
