Hitachi HS-500
What can I say, these speakers are simply divine!
The drivers are both alnico! The 8" bass is an amazing piece of design. Ive never really liked horn tweeters but these are perfect. Just one of these speakers gives a massive sound. They can be bi-amped as well! 1969!! Bi-amping! Thats when you realize how special these speakers are.
I too once owned a pair of these....perfect in every way!
ReplyDeleteWhat a grea t site you have. My favorite that I owned were Sansui 5000's. Sold them years ago and have regretted it a million times. I remember reading about the Hitachi HS500. I recall a 4" voice coil & gathered edge suspension...just reading about them made me drool. Always wanted to hear big Tannoys and Hartleys but never got to. Are the Tannoys" warm" like the Sansui 5000's were? Now have smaller Sansui's and old Design Acoustics. Have a great week!! Jay jddh772tampabay.rr.com
ReplyDeleteHi there, thanks for checking out the site and taking the time to write in. The Hitachi are charming speakers and the "gathered edge" suspension is very interesting indeed and was the main reason I bought mine. The sansui sp-5000 certainly have a lot of lovely alnico drivers in them! Im afraid I haven't heard much of the Tannoy speakers but like you would be very interested to give them a go. Please stay tuned, all the best!!
DeleteI Googled 'Hitachi HS500' and stumbled into this wonderful site! Decades ago I bought my pair of HS500s, amazed at their JBL-like 4 inch voice coils (on an 8 inch driver!) and their subwoofer class low frequency smoothness. Unfortunatetly, my 4 year old son (he's 35 now) 'experimented' with the speakers' advanced biamp connectivity by hooking up a 12V battery to various terminals and watching smoke come out! They have sat in my basement since the early 80s :-( Is there any hope for finding replacement gathered edge 8 inch drivers?
ReplyDeleteHi John, thanks for you kind words regarding the site. As for spare drivers for Hitachi, your best bet is to find something on ebay, however I think Hitachi later sold a pair of speakers where one had a gathered edge driver in one speaker and a normal one in the other. I cant remember the model but a while ago I was think of buying two pairs. These drivers may not be exact replacements though as the hs-500 was cutting edge and used AlNico magnets.
DeleteI want to say a big Thank you for your post and the website. If it wasn't for this article here, I would have missed out on the great opportunity to own one of these amazing speakers! They are really good!
ReplyDeleteI have these custom
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