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Saturday, March 1, 2008

Philips 9710 or "The Doors of Perceptions"
























Why bothering Aldous Huxley for an apparently humble wideband 22 cm diam. speaker, made by Philips in The Netherlands back in the '60s?
Why these little unassuming speakers are truly a masterpiece!
Their superb paper dual-cone, the copper polepiece, the Alnico magnet and the incredibly linear frequency response... ALL the above give to this speaker its high status.
I've always been a lover and a scholar of old classy widebands: Goodman's Axiom 80, Siemens Klangfilm KL-307 and now Philips 9710 are capable - in carefully built, non-resonant large plain-baffles - to reproduce music in a much larger scale than expected by lesser audio cognoscenti, a different interpretation if compared with other top-class speakers systems.
The detail is ABSOLUTELY astounding and the level of resolution is of stellar quality.
Also bass sounds are nicely reproduced with no sense of frequencies lacking or rounded highs.
These gizmos will be mounted on a quite large baffle, tricky in building... my deepest thanks to M. Salabert of PHY-France http://www.phy-hp.com/English/Communication_E/Com_E_Baffle_Plan.html
and to Rob from The Netherlands http://www.dhtrob.com/installatie/weergevers.htm
and to Troels from Denmark
http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/philips9710.htm
and, last but not least to Nico Wilke
http://www.german-vintage-loudspeakers.com for their important suggestions and hints in the making of my new project.
Stay tuned...;-)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello,
have you realized a box for these speakers?
Regards

Antonio

twogoodears said...

Ciao Antonio... no, only tried Philips' on an open-baffle.

Unknown said...

Hi sire ..
How would you describe the difference between axiom 80 and 9710.
Tx

twogoodears said...

Wide band speakers are far too aften matter of speculations and hypes, IMO: remember Siemens Coaxial (ferrite/ceramic magnet) and Axiom 80 are two examples... the Siemens' were good but average vs. other obscure, German made speakers I'm aware of, also if not fabled and mythical like the above, Axion 80 being one of most sought-after... so your question about Axiom 80 and 9710: they're both nice speakers, Goodmans' is able to go much lower also on a baffle and is very smooth and natural on highs... 9710 is quick and beautiful and detailing better than Axiom's... but some oval Grundig DEW or Saba Green or Siemens KL/RL 301 or Zeiss Ikon or Siemens 306 are much more satifying and transparent than both Axiom 80 and 9710 Alnico

twogoodears said...

... and cheaper;-)