In yet another visit to the local audio buddie's house, he gave me a good taste of the B&C 12CXT concentric 12" driver today.

http://www.bcspeakers.com/index.php?sez=1&categoria=3&id_descrizione=32&prodotto=57

He started me with a pair of ESS model 10's. He had these in the basement thinking they were nothing special. He re-foamed the woofers and gave them another shot.
A rather open speaker for a mediocre larger bookshelf with a 10" woofer and little 3/4" dome tweeter.
Bass is rather good with a crisp clean top-end that isn't objectionable.

But a bit shallow sounding compared to the 12CXT in a 3.5 foot cabinet tuned to roughly 40 Hz. Not near as full or rich, and the midrange seems more recessed.

Next was a little Tannoy bookshelf speaker with a 6 inch concentric driver.
A poly sort of looking cone with a rubber surround, and a weird looking tweeter with tube-shaped phase plug.
I guess I could get used to these, but they did things in the midrange that kinda bugged me. Bass was good for what they were.
No comparision to the 12CXT.....The B&C stomped it....

After that was a Tannoy 10 inch concentric driver which looked exactly like the 6 inch driver, same cone, rubber surround and tweeter.
He tossed on a spare baffle, and mounted it in a 3.5 foot enclosure tuned to around 35-40 Hz.
Kinda laid back on the midrange, smooth with excellent bass. Not bad.
But the high-end and midrange seemed to laid back and rough compared to the 12CXT.
He then mentioned that the B&C has a 'real' tweeter crossed over at 1.8 kHz. The Tannoy's have a higher crossover center frequency.
And I seen a tweeter diaphragm for the 6 inch Tannoy, they are cheesy...

We then scrounged over 8 pair of Lafayette/Criterion 100B 10" woofers, testing for fs. We tried to get 2 matched pair as far fs is concerned.
I got pair with 56 Hz, and 48 Hz. The other with 68 Hz, and 70 Hz.
The high fs doesn't seem to matter much in a 3.5 foot cabinet port tuned to 35, 40 Hz. Bass is strong all the way down to the port tuning point.

He then put a EV 15TRB ( or 15TRXB?) 15 inch driver on a baffle, and mounted it in the 3.5 foot enclosure. It's a 15 inch woofer, the little T-35 tweeter, with a felt covered whizzer cone behind it. I think was a ceramic magnet.
The EV came pretty close to the B&C 12CXT. Strong bass, good midrange, with decent high extension. But a little rough on the mid and top. The B&C edges it out....
The T-35 isn't a bad tweeter if crossed-in at a higher frequency. I can live with the K-77 equalivent in my Klipsch Cornwalls I suppose because they come in around 6 kHz. They sound tizzy and annoying at lower frequencies to me.
The T-35 tweeter on the EV 15" sticks out in front of the woofer, where the B&C has the tweeter behind the woofer. You can notice the difference.
The EV tweeter seems to stick out where the B&C seems more like a point source.
A lot more R&D and refinement in the B&C 12CXT compared to the EV, which seemed primative. But they did pretty well...

The B&C CXT has a rather stiff cone and a highish fs, but they seemed to cruise right on down. He mentioned maybe a bit of EQ at 30 Hz to prop it up a bit. But it seemed fine to me.
We listened to all the speakers with a 2A3 amp using James iron. The B&C's had a rich full sound with great balance.
The vintage concentric's always seem like there is a tweeter hangin' out in front of a woofer to me. These didn't.
Clean tight bass with plenty of gumption from 3.5 watts.

Dan had a pair of Tannoy 12" monitor Gold's for 30 years in these same 3.5 foot cabinets. Sold 'em when he got broke and they started to fetch big cash.

He's flush now and wants another pair, but he doesn't want to pay those sort of prices competing on eBay for NOS vintage Tannoy drivers.
He feels the 12CXT comes very, very close to a 12" Tannoy gold, maybe even better. For a little over 200 Bucks for a B&C, I told him to do it. Why not?
Hell, I want a pair........

Flavor of the evening.......Criterion 100B woofer in vented 3.5 foot cabinet. Using a passive network with the center frequency around 3 kHz. 3k and down for the woofer, 3k and up for the Motorola 8" "Golden Voice" full-range with whizzer cone mounted in a open back enclosure.
I tried the Motorola's full-range, but it kinda sucked....too much coloration in the sound, resonance, etc....3k and up works well. The little 8 inch "mouldy voice" have excellent midrange, sensitive, and cruise up to where I go deaf.
The Criterion's make up the rest.
It look's like hell, but sounds pretty damn good for cheap shit. Stereo imaging is like headphones.....