Technics Speakers!
We Found TWO We Like!!!

SBLX-30 Speakers

Let's first get the specification stuff outta the way. Ok all you cool measurement folks (you know who you are), here's what the manufacturer sez:

  May i humbly suggest you look for the Technics speakers model numbers SB-LX10 and also SB-LX30? Both speakers use the same paper cone 2 inch tweeter and use a very simple crossover (three parts in the crossover to be exact for the SB-LX30). The 10's use a 6 3/4 inch poly mid/woofer whereas the 30's use a 10 inch poly mid/woofer. Both of them share the same tonality, yet the 30's have a bit more bass. The 10's are better at sound staging to my ears and have a more seamless coherency in my humble opinion. BOTH speakers sell for about $100 A PAIR!!! Again, a more thorough review is already underway. Stay tuned my friend. Same batty time. Same batty channel %-) .

 

NOTE: The above speakers can be hard to find as they are no longer made. Please see this link for new speakers that are available.

 

Below is a letter from a dude who sacrificed his time, energy and fundage to help ya out. So let's give the man a hand (as i stand up and applaud him for his efforts). Here's what he did and the results thereof:

     A few weeks back I read about the Technics SB-LX10 and
SB-LX30 speakers in a post from our very own Steven R. Rochlin.
Since I like a good project... and even more so  to take a
"diamond in the rough" and make it glisten - I HAD to  find out
for myself.

     I ordered the smaller 6" two-way SB-LX10 in wood grain finish for
the whopping sum total of $80. Hardly what one can expect much
quality sound out of. Turns out it was the best $80 I have spent in
a long time!

     Here's the inside scoop... these little critters do need a little
minor work to make them glisten. For my taste I installed a
10 ohm/10 watt resistor in series with the 2" paper cone tweeter.
This serves to attenuate the tweeter output and lower the
crossover point for smoother blending with the 6.5" poly cone
woofer. For slightly more upper treble the RS part number 271-120
8 ohm non-inductive resistor may be more pleasing. To complement
the newer voicing in the upper midrange and up - a little damping
of the enclosure is needed. I used one 10 ounce bag of high-loft
polyester stuffing, which was more than enough for the pair.

     The overall sound is full and open, with pleasing inner detail
and spacious imaging. Bass is surprisingly robust and extended...
with useful bass output extending to 50Hz before heading south...
yet there is still life at 32Hz(!!!). This little 15" high speaker is really
a delight to listen to! I can't think of a better value in a compact
speaker system for use in a starter, office or bedroom system.

Alan Maier (resident cheapskate)

Click here to send Alan some e-mail.

(-% Tweakers Corner %-)

  May i FIRST say that these speakers sound DARN good for the $$$ right outta the box in my humbly opinion. Technics was smart enough to realize that those cheap hard dome tweeters, er, um, well, they S^CK!!! These cone tweeter babies sound smooth and fairly sweet to my ears and DO NOT have that hard dome SCREEEEEECH either. The woofers are light yet rigid and what amazed me was the "voicing" of these speakers. They also sounded MUCH MORE transparent than any other speaker i've heard for under $100-150 a pair. What's more, the 30's even have, dare i say it, b-b-b-b-bass (how low can you go). Please break in the speakers for a few days and give them a listen UNTWEAKED!!! If you like what you hear, then go ahead and tweak away if you desire. If you listen and feel that the voicing is all wrong, then box 'em up and get a refund please. HEY, i'm stupid, don't have a clue in life (that is if i actually HAD a life to be clueless about), and only wish that YOU enjoy the music. Like our personal preferences in lovers, some like blondes, other brunettes, and still others enjoy red heads. i absolutely, positively, most definitely will NOT be insulted of you tell me you hate the living daylights out of these speakers. Like i'm actually making money off this deal or somethin'??? NO WAY!!! Just tryin' to share with ya something i feel is worthy.

Let The Tweaking Begin!

Below is a basic summery of what i humbly suggest. Please
remember that these are, after all, only $100 a pair speakers so
tweak away until you feel the dollar value vs performance ratio
is optimized.  Unless you're like me and are stupidly insane
enough to have $100 a foot silver speaker wire laying around
gathering dust.  Below is the brief summery of what i
humbly suggest:

1) Add polyfill to the inside cabinet

2) Change internal wire for MonsterCable 16 gauge twisted pair

3) ESPECIALLY for 30 owners, deaden the cabinet and basket
    resonance by using Road Kill or some other resonance
    dampening device

4) Use acoustic foam to absorb the front panel's tendency to
    cause multiple reflections of the drivers output

5) remove the crossover from the speaker terminal and eliminate
    the stock speaker terminal altogether

6) Use higher grade parts for the crossover/eliminate the circuit board

7) Check out Alan Maier's humble suggestions as seen on this page

Aaaaalright all you "good sound fer cheap" folks lookey here! Let's FIRST start with the stuff that i humbly suggest fer BOTH the 10's and the 30's. If you decide to do nothing else tweak-wise, please add some polyfill to the inside of the cabinet. Polyfill (ya know, that white fluffy stuff that looks like cotton balls, only larger) can be found at your local arts and crafts store and also your car audio specialty shoppe. Sometimes there ARE no hard-fast rules. Simply remove the woofer and add some of this stuff. Personally, i liked the way they sounded loosely filled with polyfill. You can add "to flavor" so to speak. Polyfill is cheap, it's plentiful, you probably stole it from that old pillow you don't use anymore. (Said with humor) PLEASE, fer chrissakes, wash it first!!!

This one's an easy/cheap upgrade too! Just remove the woofer and solder 16 gauge twisted pair MonsterCable, or whatever cable YOU like, from the crossover to the speakers... Unless you are REALLY going fer broke and FULLY bi-wiring them. Then please read on about bi-wiring them a few paragraphs below.

Newfound owners of 30's please listen up. If you tap the cabinet you hear a nice resonant thud-ring-thing. The 10's do this as well, just not nearly as badly. What we want to do is deaden the cabinet resonance. Products such as Road Kill or Dynamat are GREAT for this kinda stuff. Road Kill and Dynamat are available at most car audio specialty stores. If you REALLY wanna tweak/deaden the resonance of your speakers, please also deaden the baskets of the actual speaker baskets! i've simply deadened the speaker baskets of some speakers and, well, i'll be darned, it made a subtle difference for the better! It's your call dudette/dude.

Well, so we upgraded the wire and deadened the cabinet and baskets... Now it's time to lower the cabinet reflections which effect the drivers dispersion patter per se. This tweak actually pertains to almost ANY speaker. Too bad more "high-end" speaker manufacturers don't follow this simple, yet cheap, upgrade :-{(+ . What cha wanna do is find some 1/4 inch thick foam stuff. A little thicker stuff is okey doekey too. You probably get the idea of where this tweak is leading to. What we want to accomplish is cutting out the foam to fit nicely around, but NOT covering, the actually drivers. This means removal of the cheap plastic ring around the tweeter as well. If you choose not to do this tweak, at least fill up that cheap plastic ring around the tweeter with some sort of sealant such as silicone to deaden it's resonances.

Now it's time to see just how die-hard a tweakaholic you REEEALLY are. REMOVE the crossover altogether. Now ENTIRELY seal up the cheesy speaker wire terminals and cut a hole to fit two pair of the wires of your choosing. Now eliminate the circuit board and directly solder the wires to the appropriate parts in the crossover. Please place the crossover closer to your amplifier. This helps to eliminate the speakers output from effecting the parts in the crossover. Then it's simply a matter of soldering the appropriate wires to the appropriate driver then seal the hole you cut for running the wires from the amp/crossover to the speakers. And of you REALLY wanna go for broke, spend another $50 in REALLY tweeko crossover parts of the same value. At this point i guesstamate you have invested about $60 or so dollars MORE into $100 speakers. PROOF: Steve's a nut case %-{)+ !!!

Most folks might do steps one through four. You might wanna skip number 3 if you're not that tweak minded AND have a pair of the model SB-LX10 speakers. If you own SB-LX30's i'd seriously consider doing step three if i was going to tweak these babies. Steps five and six are for those who, well, er, um, well, who are just plain "too stupid to leave well enough alone and want it all." Please don't despair, i fit perfectly in that last category :-{)+ . (Sang like a five year old) It takes one to know one naaa, naa, na-naaaaa, naaaaaaaaaaa :-{>)+ ptfptfptfptf!!! At least i haven't told you about using a normal shelf and also using $750 sand/lead filed speaker stands with blutac for other tests (for these $100 speakers mind you). DAMN, i just told you (DOH!!!). As ALWAYS, if you have ANY questions please fell free to e-mail them to me. May the Schwartz be with you.... always.