Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

..I was fortunate to have hears a pr of these little guys back in 1969 actually and must agree with Mr Holt...they were pretty remarkable especially give the msrp..

I have a pair I've used for years. They still sound great..in fact better than when I bought them as I've upgraded all of my associated equipment. The mid range is still smoother than anything else I've heard.

and still a benchmark for ease and naturalness (in my mind). Nice article by Mr. Holt !

... yesterday I was dreaming about building speakers and I spotted these modern implementations of Dynaco A25s:

http://www.seas.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=475:seas-a26-kit&catid=66:seas-diy-kits&Itemid=365

"Don't tell your status-conscious friends how much they cost.They don't sound quite as good when you know."" I think a lot of audio manufacturers have made a very tidy profit based on that idea.

I remember when the Dynaco A25 came out it was a lot of fun for a low budget dorm room kind of mid-fi system.
Decent bass for a small box although not as tight as an AR2a and miles behind an AR3a.
Frankly it was pretty dull sounding and after the thrill of saving money wore off you were left looking for detail and better bass pretty quickly.
In reaction to its dullness the industry proceeded to march onward away from the "dull New England sound" and head for the "crisp detailed West Coast Monitor sound."
Out with Dynacos and in with JBL L100s.
Of course frat boys never knew. Or cared.
But what the Dynaco accomplished was that it brought hoards of consumers into ownership of a system that kicked hiney and was tons more fun than anything they ever imagined owning.
And it was hard to make them sound harsh or unpleasant which was great as they mainly wound up in odd spots with little thought to setup back then.
The fact that the Doors, the Who and Simon and Garfunkle were still new and fresh at the same time as these boxes certainly didn't hurt their sales either.
All you needed was a Marantz receiver with blue dial, midrange knob and FM tuner speed wheel to be cutting edge on the cheap.
Right time.
Right speaker.
Right price.

When my brother asked me to help him pick out a stereo in 1974 or so, he passed on the Larger Advents I chose for myself and we went with Dynaco A-25s. His Sherwood receiver and Gerard TT are long gone, but the Dynacos live on. The last time he tried to replace them, his wife took one look at the big black boxes he set up in her living room and told him to put those handsome wood cabinets with their classy linen fronts back up. And the new ones didn’t sound any better anyway. I don’t remember what the woofer surrounds are made of but it must be some tough stuff, because they’ve never been serviced. Whereas I’ve replaced the Advents’ foam surrounds twice. They still sound OK, too. Oh, and my wife still plays the Marantz 2230 (with the blue dial and FM tuner speed wheel) every day. Classics, all. I smile each time I see them.

College undergrad years
through some of grad school with my A-25 speakers were wonderful. They were driven by Dynaco solid state gear. When I finally sold them (early 80s) they were still in pristine condition. Yes, I was seduced by Matt Polk's SDA system which was later driven with Adcom components, & a Sonograph CD player. Love to revisit both.