F.R.C. Ltd. Model 203SL speakers & Sony stack system

[Techman]

I've just been given these speakers and Sony kit by someone in the village who was clearing out some their late fathers things.

The main items in question in this thread are the F.R.C. speakers. The story goes that they were only used with the Sony system shown, with the original Sony speakers that can be seen in one of the pictures below being apparently never used. I can't help feeling that these much older F.R.C. speakers would have been used with a previous system, now long gone and perhaps before the living memory of the owners son who has just passed them on to me.

A bit of an on line search has shown up very little information on these speakers, other than that they contain those EMI elliptical drivers with matching separate tweeter. I confess that I was never much of a fan of these drivers back in the day, as I seemed to be able to destroy them quite easily with too much volume but still well within the rated wattage. However, now I'm older and have calmed down a bit, I may look on them a bit differently.

I haven't had them connected up yet or looked inside them, but have been told that they're working and that the only known fault with the entire system is a suspected broken belt on the turntable of the record deck. Seeing as these speakers seem to have so little information about them on the net, I thought I'd post about them on here for any possible comments and opinions. I'm not expecting any great performance from such 'relatively' small drivers in such huge great boxes, but am willing to be surprised.

[ben]

Never heard of FRC. Interesting. Those speakers predate that stereo by at least 10-15 years.

Unfortunately a lot of Sony gear of that era (circa 1990) had poor build quality. Like you, I was recently given some of the same kit by a colleague whose relative had recently passed away. The speakers had rotten foam surrounds like the last two pairs of Sonys I have seen, so I ended up dumping them. Check yours!

The main stereo unit will need new cassette belts for sure. Watch the tape transport keys as they always seem to break!

[Nickthedentist]

Ferguson Radio Corporation? Proabably originally coupled with something like this: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...ereo-510772536

They seem to be fairly low-end, 2-way units from the late 1960s, with EMI elliptical drivers: https://www.audiovintage.fr/leforum/...ic.php?t=53060

So maybe 25-odd years older than the Sony.

Agree with Ben about the Sony psuedo-stacking system. Nothing to write home about, but the separate CD player may well be much better quality (and slightly older?), and at least the turntable has a magnetic cartridge.

[paulsherwin]

I actually have a very similar Sony system - mine is slightly later with a PLL tuner and presets. It's out of use in the loft at present. It's not awful by any means, with a nice clean sound and plenty of output. It has a mag cartridge and line level input, and I think the cassette decks have Dolby B. I used it in my office for a while with a separate CD player.

[ben]

Nick - interesting point. I had thought of Ferguson, but I believe they were bought by Thorn in the late 50s, so I'd have expected to see the Thorn logo on them, as I would date those speakers as late 60s.

[Techman]

He was saying something about the cassette units in that he could hear the motors running. I thought he meant that he didn't have any tapes but could hear the mechanism running when operating the controls. However, he may have been trying to explain that he could hear the mechanism, but the tape wasn't playing, so it could be belts gone.

I hadn't seen that particular site posted in the above link when I did my search. The posts in that thread seemed to suggest that the performance wasn't actually that bad. They do have the same sort of grill look to those BRC/Thorn type stereograms of the time, also a bit of an ITT look, reminding me of a particular colour TV model that I used to service years ago.

There is actually a separate CD player with the stack, and I've posted another picture below showing all the Sony kit. The question now is whether to first connect it all up and try it, or take the back off one of those speakers and have look inside - I notice that one of them has one odd replacement screw, so may have been opened before.

[ben]

The sound from the cassettes will be the motor. You'll almost certainly find the belts gooey and disintegrated and as such, when the motor runs unloaded, it makes a lot more noise.

Personally I would just check the speaker wiring is okay and plug in. You may want to measure each speaker with a meter on low ohms range beforehand, if you're unsure.

[Techman]

Yes, it may well turn out to have the dreaded gooey belts!

I've opened the speaker with one odd back screw, and what, no lagging? It's either been removed due to it disintegrating, or the ones in the picture in the link posted by Nick have had it added, and unless they're the same speakers, the ones in a picture on another site I found earlier had the same 'foam' shown.

7/67 and 26/67 on the EMI speaker seem to indicate the date.

[dazzlevision]

FRC is indeed Ferguson and these speakers formed part of their “Unit Audio” range. I have a Ferguson brochure on the Unit Audio range and will see tomorrow what specs they have.

[unitaudio]

If the Ferguson speakers have been out of use for a while, they might not sound as they should straight away.

I have a pair of Hacker LS1000/C speakers with similar EMI bass units which had been unused for at least 10 years. They sounded awful at first but thinking they ought to sound better given the size of the cabinets and the repute of their manufacturer, I gave them a chance to free up.

It took a month for them to come right but now the difference from when I got them is amazing! I've grown to like them a lot.

Regards,
Paul

[Studio263]

The best thing there is the Sony CD player, the big loudspeakers (with cone tweeters and no real crossover network that I can see) are unlikely to meet modern expectations. Boomy, 'one note' bass (undamped cabinets) and no real treble (tweeters) are what I would expect.

I had a Sony stack system like that, it was a bit more elaborate and had a separate turntable and slightly larger loudspeakers. It still looked new but I had no use for it so I took it to the audiojumble, marked up as **free**. All anyone had to do was to bend down and pick it up, yet of the hundreds of people who passed by the stall no-one chose to. Luckily the man at the dump wasn't so choosy - thud-thud-crash-clang!

[paulsherwin]

I rescued mine from the recycling centre when nobody was looking. They weren't so strict back then.

[Techman]

I was about to say that the CD player is the best part of the whole lot. It is, and works well. There was no plug on the CD player and when I did connect it up to power, I found there was an old CD still inside. It was a home burned compilation of current music of the time and the felt tip penned date on this disc was 2008, so guessing that this was around the last time the system was used before being put into loft storage and guessing an upgraded system being bought to replace it. The unit played well and I'll definitely keep it and put it into use somewhere.

I've had the rest of the 'stack' connected to the FRC speakers running all day playing local radio. The performance was underwhelming, exactly as I had expected, but that's not to say it was at all bad. Those EMI drivers perform exactly as I remember them. It was mentioned in a post above that there would be boomy, one note bass. Well, not with these drivers, as just as I remembered them they don't actually have a very good bass response anyway, so are ideal for the un-damped cabinets. Both tweeters were working with performance as would be expected - I remember blowing one of the same type in a home made mono system years ago. You might think about fitting better 'round' drivers, and reinforcing and lagging the cabinets if you wanted large, retro looking speakers with good performance, but there's no easy way to get to the front of the baffle to cut a fresh hole, as far as I can see anyway.

As for the stack system itself, I don't think there's any gooey belts. both cassette decks function without a tape installed, other than fast forward on one of them, both rewinds worked, but although the capstan and pinch roller were revolving, there wasn't enough power available to pull a tape through on either deck, not even to try to chew one up! The capstan could easily be stopped with a finger, so it's a case of worn, stretched and/or perished belts that are not at the 'gooey' stage yet - that's if this model does actually suffer from melted belt syndrome. It's not worth the bother of replacing the belts, well not to me anyway.

The turntable started to work after I gave the platter a gentle lift to see if it would just lift off, or was of the type that has a spring retainer below the deck. It was struggling a bit and had a bit of a shudder on every revolution - I was guessing that this was a belt drive, but now wondering if it's not - I haven't bothered to investigate further. The Sony cartridge looks to be of a magnetic type and although working on both channels, the stylus tip seems to be missing, so couldn't be tested further, but worth keeping as a spare.

F.R.C. = Ferguson Radio Corporation, obvious when you think about it. These speakers seem to be quite rare, probably because they received bad reviews back in the day (just guessing), and quite rightly too if they did, so not many where sold. I don't think they've ever had any lagging (typical BRC/Thorn) and the ones shown in the earlier link have had it added by someone, although those are a later serial number, so maybe FRC had to start fitting it due to complaints, you never know. I don't think they'd ever been opened. The odd screw fitted in a fresh hole beside an empty hole seems to be because there's the broken stump of an original screw still in the hole, probably broken in manufacture, and the cabinet was found to be vibrating in that corner by the owner, who found the broken off screw and replaced it with one in a newly drilled hole. I'll be keeping these speakers and probably file them away in the loft for the time being. I've yet to test the original Sony ones.

[ben]

The stylus is an Audio technica ATN70

[Diabolical Artificer]

I'm almost certain that they are the speakers we had at home in the 70's, they went with a record deck, radio and amplifier all in one unit, similar in style to the tuner in Nicks post. Apart from that I can't remember much else.

Andy.

[dazzlevision]

Here is an extract from the Ferguson Unit Audio brochure, circa 1968. The price of the pair was £20 10s (£20.50). Also attached, is a photo of the complete range of equipment then then offered.

[Edward Huggins]

Noting Studio263's comment within Post #11, there is a basic two element LC crossover.

The inductance and cap are mounted on the main driver's chassis. These can just be seen. If the speakers were mine, I would fit a small plastic tubed port (c.2.5" dia x 3" long) into the rear, add some c. 1" x 1" bracing and experiment with BAF wadding. These speakers never seemed suited to infinite baffle operation.

[sp10mk11]

Last year I bought a pair of these from one of the charity sellers on ebay, wasn't too disappointed for the price paid, I would think on the end some thing like the Sony system they would probable be ok.
I was moaned at about "another pair of speakers" so I took them to the re-cycling centre and left them there
One thing mine were lined with wadding
Also thanks to Dazzlevision for supplying information about them

Gary

[Techman]

Thanks for the info. on the stylus, Ben. So it looks like Audio Technica badge engineered cartridges for Sony then?

I have another much better Sony turntable that I use on occasion and that had an original Sony cartridge fitted, which I swapped out for a different one. I still have the original cartridge and wonder whether that one is also made by Audio Technica?

Just for the record and completeness, the model number of the Sony stack is XO-D10(S) and the speakers are Sony SS-A20. 6 ohm and 35 watt music power, according to the labels that have gone sticky and now fallen off. It's a good job I decided to un-stick and un-ravel the connecting wires on the Sony speakers, as the packing tape holding them to the backs of the speakers had degraded and got 'goo' all over them. The speakers worked well with the system and did seem to improve slightly as they 'ran in'. Obviously, the large FRC speakers sound better as would probably be expected.

As mentioned by Edward, a tubed port could be added with some extra structural reinforcement and lagging and I'm sure the FRC speakers could be improved upon. As 'unitaudio' said, speakers do need to 'run in' after being left in storage for a long time, and I did seem to notice an improvement in both sets with use. I've certainly noticed this with new replacement drivers and also with a pair of Goodmans Mezzo SL speakers that I picked up at a sale several months ago. I put them in line, replacing a pair of Acoustic Research AR7 speakers and was very unsure of them at first as they just seemed to lack the tightness somehow that the AR7s had. These speakers have the tubular port system and are of a far higher quality than the FRC speakers. These Mezzo speakers have had quite a lot of use now and have definitely improved over time - either that or I've got used to them!

I've opened the second FRC speaker (it had to be done) and it's the same as the other one with no damping lagging. I looked hard to see if there was any sign of their ever having been any and thought I'd found evidence when I noticed two staples in one of the side panels (shown in one of the pictures below), but there was no other staples in any of the other panels and no sign of any ever being there - I wonder what those staples were for? I didn't notice whether there were any in the first speaker to be opened. The foam damping shown in the pictures in the link provided by Nick has obviously been added by an owner as you can see where it's been cut too short and an extra bit added at the top - surely BRC wouldn't have done this, would they? There's a very generous spare length of wire left on the inside of the cabinet behind the cable grip - I think it's longer than the wiring in the first speaker to be opened. I also noticed solder splash dropped onto the inside of the cabinet bottom from when the connections were soldered onto the drivers.

The specification kindly supplied by 'dazzlevision' conspicuously stands out as not mentioning power handling - no surprises there then!

I remember these drivers being available from Radiospares back in the day and remember a work colleague buying a pair. He built a couple of very nice bookshelf cabinets round them. Guess who ended up with them as a free gift when he found that they weren't as good as he'd hoped?

Some pictures of the inside of the second FRC speaker below. I noticed that the serial number of this second speaker is a lot lower than the first one - totally random!

Thanks to everyone for their input so far.

[ben]

Originally Posted by Techman

Thanks for the info. on the stylus, Ben. So it looks like Audio Technica badge engineered cartridges for Sony then?.

Yes. The AT3600 cart is probably the widest-used magnetic cart out there. I have seen them rebadged by Akai, Aiwa, Sony, Marantz and Dual to name just a few. They're inexpensive and good value for money.

Do check the plastic moulding though, as there are two different versions (actually three if you count Dual's). The ATN70 stylus will fit the AT3600 cart with its ATN91 stylus, but not vice versa! See pics. (There's a 'cutout' on the stylus body)