Summary for those who don't want to read this longish story:
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I have owned a pair of Spendor BC1 loudspeakers for more than 25 years and have been extremely satisfied with the sound they deliver - especially their legendary mid-range sweetness and the great clarity of voice reproduction that results from it.
My BC1's have serial numbers 14600 & 14601 and they were secondhand when I bought them in 1983, then about 4 years old.
In about 1993 the bass drive unit in one of them failed, due to an apparent failure in the voice coil continuity. I contacted Spendor and they offered to send me a new replacement unit for about £100. I ordered it and fitted it relatively easily. The new unit was clearly more modern and had a slightly different shape. (The reason is probably that the early drivers had iron magnets whereas the later ones had ferrite. This results in a shorter, wider magnet.) The new unit gave a sound that was indistinguishable from the original, at least to my ears.
Ten years of satisfactory listening later (December 2003) the bass driver in the other speaker failed in a similar manner. I contacted Spendor again, but this time the news was not good. This is what they said:
Since the failed bass unit that I had on my hands was one of the original pre-1983 ones, it seemed that I had a problem.
This bad news was confirmed in a phone call in which the phrase "reached the end of their useful life" was used. They did offer me a trade-in deal of £125 for my speakers against any speakers of their current production, but I decided not to adopt that option.Getting a recommendation
After
fruitlessly disassembling and examining the failed unit, I began a web search
for solutions. I found nothing specific to repairing BC1's - hence this page.
But a Google search for 'loudspeaker repair' turned up Wilmslow Audio as a
likely prospect:
At the other end of the phone I found a friendly Neil Smith, who had a recommendation at his fingertips. He recommended:
VIFA C20WJ-19-08 polymer cone Bass £36 + delivery (here's a spec sheet: pdf)
He told me that other customers had successfully installed them in BC1s.
Although I am not in the habit of throwing £80 down the drain, I concluded that this was a sum well worth risking in order to test Neil's recommendation. My view was reinforced by Neil's offer to accept the return of the speakers after a couple of weeks if I was not satisfied. So an order for two of them was duly placed and the speakers were despatched by Wilmslow Audio the same day.
I was rather sceptical about the likely quality to be expected from the VIFA units given their price and their generally mass-produced appearance. But their dimensions and the appearance of the cones and magnets are very similar to those of the late-model Spendor bass unit.
I am writing this one day after completing the conversion, so I can't yet give a definitive assessment. I haven't yet listened to a wide-enough range of material and I am told that new speakers require quite a few hours of use before they yield their best. I will update this page with further comments in due course.
My initial impressions of the converted speakers are good. The quality of the bass frequencies is, if anything more open than with the original drivers. I'm not yet sure about the mid-range. It is good, but I haven't reached a conclusion about whether it matches the superlative mid-range quality that BC1 users are used to. A final opinion should be based on at least a couple of weeks of listening, and if possible a side-by-side comparison with a pair of BC1s with the original drivers. Watch this space for a further assessment ...
Certainly the resulting 'hybrid' BC1's are very listenable and are, I'm sure of comparable quality to most other modern high-quality speakers.
After 10 days, I am happy with the sound - perhaps because I have grown accustomed to it! I have been offered the loan of a pair of unmodified BC1's, but haven't yet got around to doing a side-by-side test - more news when I get the chance to do so.
After offering my working Spendor drive unit for sale on eBay I received several messages of advice including pointers to the Spendor owners Yahoo news group. This led me to withdraw the working drive unit from ebay and I am now investigating methods for getting it restored.
My BC1's are restored to their original state! Via the above-mentioned Spendor owners Yahoo news group I discovered Terry Miles, ex-Spendor engineer, email: and he has fully restored my faulty base unit, including new cone, surround, etc, in addition to repairing the broken voice coil, all for the very reasonable sum of £79 including UK postage.
So what are my conclusions on quality?
The refurbished speaker produces a sound that matches the other one well (although there is some difference in the sound off white noise).
Overall what I'm getting now is the original BC1 sound that I have grown used to. I can tell the difference from the substitute Vifa drivers - the mid-range clarity is better - it's noticeable in music (classical is my taste) and even more so in speech - the Vifas had a slightly 'boxy' sound in speech.
The Vifa alternative is a viable option for those who can't get their original drivers restored, the resulting sound is of good quality, comparable to many current mid-price speakers (I haven't heard many high-end ones).
But I'm glad that I've ended up with a properly-restored original pair of BC1's.
I'm now driving the BC1's with a refurbished Quad 303 power amp in a hybrid role; they are used as a stereo pair for music and as the front speakers in a surround system for a computer-based home cinema system. The Quad 303 seems excellently matched to the BC1's. I noticed a major improvement when it was installed in place of my previous Denon ADV 1000 surround receiver/amp.
More details at:
If others have useful information to pass on about the maintenance of BC1's, please add a comment using the commenting facility below.
George Coulouris