SABA gren cones, old stereo console

[poptart]

A friend has picked himself up an old stereo console at a yard sale and I'm trying to help him determine it's value. It has five Saba speakers, two 8", two 10", and an oval tweeter. How you make 5 speakers into a stereo system is beyond me the tweet was in the center but connected to the right side only... the right side 10" has a different magnet than the left one too, odd little piece of gear. The maker seems to be Saba or possibly Freiburg? both names on it, the model is "Continental".

I searched around for info on these speakers, there were a couple mentions of them here and most everything else online is in german or japanese. There are also a few on ebay with high starting prices and no bids yet.

Does anyone know if the console is worth something as a complete piece? Always nice to know before you go hacking away at an old piece of gear. If it's not worth keeping together it has a nice power transformer with universal primary, a pair of output transformers, a few good telefunken tubes and a whole lot of handy bits and pieces.

codes on all the speaks read like 5898, ***, 002
Also a 19-200 code on the 8"

sorry I have no camera, but I popped them on the scanner. Here's the 10"

[IMGDEAD]http://members.shaw.ca/carlgigun/saba10.jpg[/IMGDEAD]
[IMGDEAD]http://members.shaw.ca/carlgigun/saba10b.jpg[/IMGDEAD]

amd the 8"

[IMGDEAD]http://members.shaw.ca/carlgigun/saba8.jpg[/IMGDEAD]

They're actually quite round, the scanner just distorts alot

My friend picked this up for $2. Any info/history/values appreciated.

 

[el`Ol]

The alnicos are the most desired versions. The 8" are normally sold together with Saba bakelite tweeters. The 10" are more rare, bit it is said they are not such a good match for the bakelite. Sensitivity is 98dB for the 8", power handling 5W, Impedance 4Ohm. When you don`t get bakelites you could get 4Ohm horn tweeters from the car hifi sector, e.g. Beyma.


Greets, Oliver

 

[el`Ol]

I looked in Ebay Germany. There are lots of Saba tweeters now.
Audio & HiFi, Hifi-Raritäten, Lautsprecher

 

[poptart]

Ah, Thank you Oliver! That got me started on the german ebay, lots of Saba speakers and some similar radios on there. I see the tweeters you're talking about, very unusual design. This radio had just one oval tweet. The radio in it looks just like this one http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=933&item=6545405847&rd=1 but it has a larger cabinet with speakers and the front panel is in english. The top of the cabinet has a long crack that could be repaired, but otherwise it's in great condition. I wonder what makes that one in the link more expensive than some others on ebay? This one definitely has the same radio, so I'm still not sure if it's better to keep it together or part it out.

Thanks for looking!

 

[el`Ol]

The speakers are better parted out, because they are working better in open baffle than in a console. And i would replace the electrolyte capacitors by new ones.

 

[Stixx]

There's some sort of hype going on in Germany about the Saba greencones. Everything that resembles green is sold as greencone, and some of that stuff really fetches good prices.

Apart from that the 8" Saba's are good widerangers best be used on open baffles and also best used with the 4" bakelite tweeters. Those might look unusual and actually are some sort of bending wave transducer, but from 8kHz up and crossed over with good caps they do sound very very good!
I am using them on open baffles with 8" Telefunken....

Regarding that radio it is up to you to decide whether you want to tear apart a vintage radio or toss the cabinet and make good sounding loudspeakers out of them.....

 

[poptart]

I just wanted to say thank you for the information guys. It seems demand for these radios is mainly in germany and this one weighs too much to be worth shipping, so it will be parted out. I think my friend will be pretty happy to get whatever the speakers bring and he's into making some amps with the other parts.