Our Favourite Classic Speakers #2 - Royd Audio A7mkII

 

This series documents particular loudspeakers gems from our last 30 years in the Hifi industry. Not in any particular order, just as they come to mind.

Royd Audios owner Joe Akroyd was one of the real characters of the British Hifi industry, always engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke, quite abrupt but very likeable,  he was very passionate about his products and never seemed interested in sales or profit .... he would bring up new models to the shop personally and his enthusiasm was infectious. Joe seemed to have a unique ability to make simple products which captured the essence of music ... which may be why Rega and Royd collaborated in the early years as Roy Gandy of Rega was making similar magic happen with Record Players.

All Joe's speakers could be listed here .. and I suspect some more will, but the real star must be the Royd A7 MkII. these were one of a series of 7 litre cabinet designs and in the mid to late 80s sold for £99 ... but such was their ability that they were not out of place in systems with Linn Sondek front ends and Naim amplification ... in some ways their only drawback was that they almost needed equipment of a higher perceived level to do their thing ... so were sometimes overlooked

They certainly didn't look much with their basic vinyl wrap cabinets and cheap 'off the shelf' Audax treble unit. But inside, there was some clever stuff going on .. The handbuilt Royd bass midrange unit was braced by an aluminum tube which exited out of the back. The tube had a slot in it to allow airflow and tuned in such a way that it reenforced the bass output ... the crossover was very simple and brought the treble in at 4khz

The A7 found a lot of  favour with the Linn/Naim customers and was often used as a budget alternative to the Linn Kan, which it sounded similar to in a lot of ways.

They were also quite rewarding to 'mod' ...sealing in the drivers with silicone sealant and damping the aluminium tube, livened them up quite a bit ... also rewiring and splitting the crossover to allow the addition of a second set of sockets for bi-amping was very popular ... I remember Naim NAC32/Hicap/ 2 x NAP140 into modified A7s being quite a combination!