Turtlerock Forum

Bit of an obscure one - has anyone heard AWA made / designed(?) studio monitors before?

They keep popping up over here (NZ) in 3 and 4 way configurations, I'm always curious but never enough to clog the house up with more junk.

Interesting... got any pics?

There's a set for sale locally now - but in poor condition

https://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-p ... 9a39aa-001

the 3 way looks like a transmission line design.

Apparently built in Wellington back when. Not sure if there was an equivalent in Aus?

from memory... Plessey used to have sites at Chester Hill NSW and in Wellington in the 70s-80s (and maybe earlier/later). They sold monitor kits using AWA speakers and their own cross-over kit - just make the cabinet yourself. The AWA kits were their domestic level and compared favourably against the name brand speakers of the day. They also made kits and monitors for the professional market using Fostex speakers and custom made crossovers.

They did have a factory in Wellington making speakers - not sure what these are driver-wise.

In that NZ for sale linkl, The HF driver and the one below look like phillips. I had a pair of locally made speakers with those drivers as my first monitors and they always translated well. The school had a pair of speakers with two of the phillips 8 inch and those tweeters. Both were sealed with no ports.

They look like they're made from good components (for the time) - I was unsure about the sealed design and potential phase issues from that many drivers. But it sounds like theyr'e worth $65 to find out maybe.

All my duntech's are sealed design. More accurate bass and more so with a good sub set up properly.

There's some later (?) versions labelled 'orthofidelity' going local so I'm going to punt on them.

Interest definitely piqued.

I often use stereonet to check things of a local nature out. The Phillips tweeters can be a bit forward and I used to tape a single laminate of toilet paper tissue over them.
https://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/ ... -brisbane/

....and a later ported model:
http://www.nrpavs.co.nz/archive_2_10/So ... itor70.htm

Well, I didn't win it. There's another pair at the other end of the country but they won't send them. So I'll wait around for a bit and see if another pair turn up.

Thanks for the intel.

Reporting back on these - I found a set of the three way monitors and picked them up.

They sound really good and hold their ground next to the set of PMCs I have sitting next to them.

The low end is more accurate on the PMCs but the AWAs aren't horribly out of whack and have I was surprised how the top end and midrange compared on both - not the same but revealing and open in both cases.

Definitely useful if you can find a pair in good nick.

I want to track down a 4 way set.

fwiw I have a pair of their top of line monitors from 1979 built with Fostex speakers (3-way with edgeless woofer and dome mid and tweeter)....... bought them direct from Plessey, Villawood ;-) on the market for a reasonable offer

What model are they Ian?

Any pics?

(Not interested in a purchase but I am also found a set of monitor 5s that are a 3 way sealed box with 10" bass driver).

Hi Dave,

My ones didn't have a model number - they were the prototype for the production monitors that were released in 1980,

They have a custom Plessey internal 3-way crossover and 8" edgeless woofer (excursion is incredible - the cones float and move in and out at least an inch) + soft dome midrange about 2"dia + soft dome tweeter about 1" dia.

fwiw the prod models sold for $1K each in 1980, so they were up there with the other high-spec offerings of the day. The prod models had 2 x mid domes and 2 x tweeter domes in each box - a good idea imo as it would balance the freq response better.

Hope the pics come out

Regards

Ian

Those are super cool, I wonder if there's any floating around over here.

The 4 way monitor 4s were apparently used in radio and suspect the monitor 70s (3 way ported) and monitor 5s (3 way sealed) were similar.

So interestingly I ran up the (closed) monitor 5s today and they're pretty ordinary.

These have a 10" coral bass driver and so probably Phillips or similar mid and tweeter.

They sounded very bright, much less bass (fair enough for smaller drivers in a sealed.box) and mid-range that was ns-10y.

The larger studio 70s have had a recap and I wonder if that's part of the difference?

The monitor 5s have come out of a radio studio, so someone thought they were useful / they seem to be designed for critical not home listening application.

fwiw - in the 70's a couple of friends purchased speaker kits from AWA Villawood (speakers and crossover kits) and made their own cabinets. The speakers were all genuine AWA at that time so I wonder if some of the speakers you're looking at have been swapped out with philips?

The results you find are similar to what I thought about the home-mades - not bad but not great. (i have to say they were chalk and cheese when compared side by side to my monitors in the AWA sound lab).

I pulled the covers off the smaller ones and they have awa parts numbers - i assumed coral / philips as that's what they were described as.

What model were the production version of your speakers?

sorry, I can't remember what the prod model was.... but I did keep the original design docs and speakers brochure - see the front page below with pricing from the Plessey tech - they provided the crossover design and component tolerances, speaker cabinet build templates, etc

Thanks Ian,

that's really interesting.

fwiw these are up for sale (along with some other stuff in the fs section)