I have a pair of Snell Type K/II bookshelf speakers in the den that my wife had before we were married. I don't know how old they are, but I'm guessing 20 years old.

They still sound pretty good, and I'm guessing were well regarded in their day, but we have a pair of (15 year old?) B&W Matrix 3 s2's in the living room that do sound much better. Granted, I'm comparing a bookshelf to a floorstander.

My question is can we do much better with new speakers to replace the Snell's? Has speaker tech evolved that much?

What would be a 'better' choice these days to replace these 'older' types for under $1k/pair?

Thanks!

Try these as a modern day equivalent to your Snells:

http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/bls.html

Outlaw is located in Easton and their speakers are made in the USA.

Snell is still in business. Why not try the K7's. They will sound amazing.

Snell is still in business. Why not try the K7's. They will sound amazing.

Kind of off topic, but I'm just curious...does anyone know if D'Appolito is still with Snell?


Scott

Kind of off topic, but I'm just curious...does anyone know if D'Appolito is still with Snell?


Scott
Yes he is.

I would also pick the Snell K7s, GREAT speaker for the money. They are not cheap but are amazing for the money. Nice tonal balance, really good bass, and pinpoint imaging. I have yet to see a reveiw on Outlaw's speakers, I'm sure they're OK but Snell's been making great speakers for more than 30 years and it's all they make. I owned their Model A and they were great speakers, a little to big for my apartment so I had to part with them. If you like the B&W sound you should also put their 705 bookshelf on your short list.

I would also pick the Snell K7s, GREAT speaker for the money. They are not cheap but are amazing for the money. Nice tonal balance, really good bass, and pinpoint imaging. I have yet to see a reveiw on Outlaw's speakers, I'm sure they're OK but Snell's been making great speakers for more than 30 years...yes, they have.

I'll have to check out the K7's. From the Snell website it looks like not much has changed in the driver materials from the Type K - silk dome tweeter, treated paper woofer. Unlike the acoustic suspension Type K, they are rear-ported.

I'm planning to use these in our TV den which is a small 11x15 room. I'll also be looking for a matching center.

One speaker will be against a wall, while the other will have open space behind. For this reason I've been leery of going with a rear-ported speaker. However, I believe the K7's have a boundary-compensation switch. I think the Outlaws do too.

In fact the boundary switch for the Outlaw is similar to the K7. The Outlaw adds a tweeter level switch to help with different rooms: live vs overdamped vs just right.

I think that the Type K speakers came from the era when Kevin Voecks was the designer at Snell. Today, I think that he's at Revel speakers.

I own Snell Type A/II's and think that they're one of the best speakers ever. More recently I heard some Revels and they're were very nice sounding. One of the best I have heard in a long time. So there might be some connection here.

So maybe you should check out Revel.

Ed

Actually, Peter Snell designed the original Type K way back in 1983. It was one of his final designs before he died of heart attack on the factory floor.