Mordaunt-Short Pageant Series 2 Speakers

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

I found a pair of the these speakers at a local charity shop, but they were quite marked on the cabinets, and I couldn't be sure that they're fully working, so I decided not to buy them. I've started to think that I should have bought them now, but I've no idea how good they are, and what kind of money they're worth.

Can anyone give me any info on them?

 

[Anderson]

What's the address for the shop?....

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

I have no idea, but it's nowhere near you. Where do you live?

 

[davedotco]

I have no idea, but it's nowhere near you. Where do you live?

The speakers in the photo are Tangents, not MS Pageants of any kind.

Pageant Series 2 look rather like this.....

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

You're absolutely right, I didn't notice when I added the picture. Have you had any experience with the Pageants?

I've found a few things out, including a bit of info on these forums from years ago, but I'm not sure how if they would stand up to my Zensor 3s for instance.

 

[davedotco]

You're absolutely right, I didn't notice when I added the picture. Have you had any experience with the Pageants?

I've found a few things out, including a bit of info on these forums from years ago, but I'm not sure how if they would stand up to my Zensor 3s for instance.

The original Pageants of the late 70s were very popular in some quarters, something of a favourite of some magazines and some dealers. The Series 2 and later Series 3 were attempts to keep the sales going.

Personally I found them fat, bloated and undynamic, what at the time was sometimes refered to as a 'classical' speaker.

But then, my taste in speakers is becoming quite well known on here, and these were pretty good examples of the kind of speaker I really do not much like. Others do seem to like them though......*unknw*

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

'Fat, bloated, and undynamic', sounds a bit like me. *smile*

I'd struggle to fit them into my system I think, but I'd quite like to hear what they sound like. Depending on how much they want for them, I might pop in before I go to work tomorrow and buy them.

Any thoughts of how they'd compare to my Zensor 3s?

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Had another look at them today, and the cabinets are pretty badly scratched and marked, with the veneer coming away slightly, so I decided not to bother.

 

[davedotco]

I am not a great lover of vintage gear, clearly there are some desireable items but mostly, I'm a bit 'meh'.

In the early 1980s I had a pair of these, ATR Monitors.....

Big. leaky german boxes, 8 inch bass driver with a 'softish' metal dome and an ATR modded tweeter.

Quite sensitive and easy to drive they were bold and energetic but rather surprisingly, more refined than you might imagine. Rare as hens teeth though, even then, if I was looking for good older speakers I would be looking for either Monitor Audio R852 or Epos ES14.

An odd choice given my usual low opinion of MA product, but the R852 were rather good for those who felt the ES14 a little too revealing.

 

[CnoEvil]

An odd choice given my usual low opinion of MA product, but the R852 were rather good for those who felt the ES14 a little too revealing.

I agree. The R852s are still going srong on a second system....and sound quite different to the current MAs. A lovely sealed speaker with an 8" woofer and an early, well implemented metal dome tweeter.

 

[davedotco]

An odd choice given my usual low opinion of MA product, but the R852 were rather good for those who felt the ES14 a little too revealing.

I agree. The R852s are still going srong on a second system....and sound quite different to the current MAs. A lovely sealed speaker with an 8" woofer and an early, well implemented metal dome tweeter.

Just think how good they could have been if Mo (Iqbal) had allowed the use of the rather better drivers intended by the designer, but he insisted on building to a price and using standard oem drivers.

Robin (Marshall) designed these at the same time as he was developing the ES14 and the latter got the expensive high performance drivers and was a much better, though more difficult, speaker as a consequence.

 

[CnoEvil]

An odd choice given my usual low opinion of MA product, but the R852 were rather good for those who felt the ES14 a little too revealing.

I agree. The R852s are still going srong on a second system....and sound quite different to the current MAs. A lovely sealed speaker with an 8" woofer and an early, well implemented metal dome tweeter.

Just think how good they could have been if Mo (Iqbal) had allowed the use of the rather better drivers intended by the designer, but he insisted on building to a price and using standard oem drivers.

Robin (Marshall) designed these at the same time as he was developing the ES14 and the latter got the expensive high performance drivers and was a much better, though more difficult, speaker as a consequence.

Interesting - I didn't know Robin Marshall had intended them to have better bass drivers.

I know that MA were very proud of the metal dome tweeter, made by Elac to their own specifications.

The Bass woofer was an all new 8" unit. It had a die-cast Aluminium chasis and a thermo-formed polypropylene polymer cone with a nitrile rubber surround. The woofer also featured a vented pole piece and a hard dust cap, which was not glued directly to the cone but to the voice coil former.

They were about £50 cheaper than the ES14s (and I preferred them anyway) in 1987.

 

[davedotco]

The 852 was to be a sort of top model in the 252, 352, series but the constant 'difficulties' of working for Mo Iqbal was getting too much. The bass driver was from SEAS if I recall correctly and typically of such drivers featured a long coil/short gap configuration and a fairly heavy cone suitable for use in a sealed enclosure. Still a very nice speaker though.

Originally the 852 was slightly more expensive than the ES14 but 'street' pricing made them pretty comparable. The big thing about the ES14 was it's remarkable 6.5 inch bass driver. Built using the more expensive short coil/big gap arrangement the driver was specific to the ES14 and designed accordingly. It was used full range, break up modes and mid/hi-frequencies were so controlled that no crossover was needed, the tweeter being protected by a simple in line capacitor.

In some ways the ES14 are very like modern full range speakers, with added supertweeter, except the tweeter works a little lower. This gave the speaker an immediacy that little at the time could match, though it could display a revealing 'ruthlessness' that was too much for some.

 

[steve_1979]

The Tannoy M20 Gold are a great classic speaker. I really regret giving my old ones away when the foam surround started rotting.

I might be tempted to get another pair and an original NAD 3020 amplifer one day just for kicks.

 

[Classical Old Fart]

I cannot remember when I bought these, early eighties perhaps. Teamed up with a B&O TX2 record deck (yes, vinyl) which is a bit younger than the speakers and an Audiolab 8000A amp. They sound perfectly okay in a room 18 feet by 15 feet (sorry for the Imperial measurements, but my title is Old Fart). I am sure that there are far superior speakers out there, but until they die a death I will not be replacing them. Very nice Classical sound (classical as in Bach, Sibelius etc.) and a comfortable size. I have mounted them on two (one each, not two per speaker) lightly decorated wood carved elephants, so the sit about 18 inches off the floor). No spikes, bi wiring, £100 a metre (39 inches at a guess) cabling involved. Shostakovich's 11th symphony rumbles the floorboards and your intestines with this set up. However, Respighi's Pines Of The Appian Way needs something bigger.