Everything about Speaker Units for Musical Instruments - Vol. 2

In my previous post for this blog series, I mentioned that there are Japanese made speaker units that are comparable to the quality of JBL and Altec, so this time I am going to go further into detail about Japanese speaker units.

■Everything about Speaker Units for Musical Instruments - Vol. 1

Japanese made amplifiers are of course equipped with Japanese made speakers. However, as far as I know, YAMAHA and AIDEAN are the only two amp makers that have also manufactured speaker units as well.
Other amp makers have produced their own amplifiers, but they outsourced the production of the speaker units to other audio makers.
Pioneer has made speaker units for Roland, Victor made units for Guyatone amps, and Technics also has made many speaker units for guitar amps. The manufacturer Foster has been regarded as the laboratory for Fostex, but they have put out various OEM speakers to the musical instrument market.

YAMAHA still uses their own speakers for their amplifiers. Those who know about AIDEAN are usually really big audiophiles. AIDEAN was originally a company that only made speakers, but for some reason, they started the amp brand Zoom (not the effector maker), produced and sold amps with their own speaker units. Particularly, the speaker used in the amp called ZOOM M-100 sounded wonderful. A clear sound image with firmness from bass to treble, yet not noisy at all, an excellent overtone reproduction, and a high sound pressure make it an ideal speaker for musical instruments.

Roland was founded in 1972, but they had already released one of their masterpieces, the R&P speaker in 1973.

The R&P speaker was an extraordinary unit equipped with an exceptional input resistance for musical instrument speakers at the time, a magnetic circuit using alnico magnets, and a cooling fin to help enhance the cooling effect of the voice coil. Of course, the sound was fantastic with a silky and fine-grain sound quality.

There was once a speaker unit called GHV-3 by Guyatone. I remember when it was released in 1979.

This unit was designed for musical instruments developed in a collaboration between three brands; Guyatone, Victor, and Altec.
Both the appearance and sound quality are very similar to Altec speaker units, and the paper cone used in the GHV-3 actually is the one made by Hawley, which is used in Altec speakers. Since the GHV-3 was a high-end speaker unit that was not profitable, this speaker was only used in two models of amps, the high-end model GA-2000MKII by Guyatone and the other one from their second brand MSC.

The now defunct maker Vestax (formerly Shiino Sogyo Co., Ltd.) also made some great speakers.

The early 1980’s was the heyday of the component amplifier system.

The component amplifier system is the idea that the buyer can choose his or her favorite preamp, power amp, effector, and speaker, and then combine them to create his or her own system. I think Vestax was the manufacturer that promoted these components the most.
The brand name used to be VestaFire back then, and the name of this speaker unit was the VAS12. Look at this huge magnet and a diecast frame that is resistant to the torsion. This is a gem that was sold separately as a speaker unit for musical instruments when JBL, Electro-Voice, and the German maker Dynacord were the mainstream speaker brands. The VAS12 was very popular among studio musicians for its flat sound unique to the Japanese-made speakers and large damping factor.

What do you think?
Unfortunately, all of these Japanese speaker makers are no longer in production.
Maybe the reason was because the supply didn’t match the demand or the production costs were higher than the selling price? That’s so disappointing.

Instead, nowadays foreign brand units are available at much lower prices.
Also, speaker makers are remaking some of the most popular units and they are even remaining faithful down to the same specs from the 1960’s.
There are too many types of speakers and it’s hard to decide which one to choose. However, the sound quality dramatically changes just by replacing the speakers.