Love your videos dude! Especially your trip to the Shack. 😂 Glad to see someone much younger appreciating Radio Shack products. I’m in my 60’s. Radio Shack was always the subject of verbal abuse regarding audio quality. Sure, they made a lot of low budget/quality products. They also made high quality products. Unfortunately, the brand was synonymous with poor quality. It’s a shame. Now I miss Radio Shack. It was always a go-to place for me to find that little electronic part you could find nowhere else. I cut my teeth on Radio Shack electronic kits. BTW….that old speaker with the tweed material quickly reminded me of the PA speakers that were hanging on classroom walls in the 70’s. Take care! Long live the Shack!!
Thank you so much for the great comment!! I do remember in the late 80's and early 90's Realistic and Optimus not having the best reputation. Which is why I was really blown away when I heard these. They do have a bit of a cult following. Thank you for the info bud! Stop by anytime!
I have both versions of what you have. I like the sound of the Optimus Pro 7 a little better. I'm very surprised that no speaker maker picked up on these after Radio Shack went out of business.
I have both pairs. I use them for desktop setup on each side of my monitor powered by a Yamaha R-N303. Good bass for near field. Sleeper speakers for sure.
Nice to see original Minimus-7 and Optimus Pro7 compared. With so many myths about Minimus-7, at least size difference myth between M-7 and Pro7 is debunked here. Pro7 is kinda rare -- listed for 2 years only, '94 and '95. Yours was built in July '93 . Your Minimus-7 was built May '90, which is the last year these were made in Japan. Crossovers are electrically identical -- regardless of capacitor brand . It's just a cap and coil 2nd order high pass filter on the tweeter. Woofer runs free. For tweeter polarity, Positive terminal has a reddish-brown insulator. Negative is white. Tweeters are NOT factory wired reversed polarity -- another myth. Stock M-7 has ragged upper frequency response with large peaks at 3.5kHz and 8kHz. Reversing tweeter phase flattens the 8kHz peak but worsens the 3.5kHz peak. Also sucks out upper midrange around 2kHz. May sound better or worse depending on personal preference. It's a free mod, but there's no free lunch. The only mods to make these sound truly fabulous are PZ-2.1 or PZ-2.2 at Audiokarma. Google is your ride ...
@todstiles4326: My guess is that the Optimus Pro 7 is rare in name, but not the speaker itself. A little later on, Radio Shack “adopted” the RCA name. (How that happened is beyond me). The speakers became RCA Pro-X44AV speakers. There was no change in design that I could see. In my previous comment, I failed to mention that I just acquired a pair of the RCA branded version. They are just as good as far as my ears are telling me.
Definitely not speaking as an expert, but the last set of speakers looks like ones I've seen that were homemade. Radio Shack used to sell a book on building your own speaker cabinets, and they sold quite a few bare speakers back in the day for that purpose. I remember there was a math equation for figuring out the ideal internal volume for your speakers.
It honestly seems like the sealed one sounds a bit better on the lower end but it's hard to tell because they're not as good at pushing out low frequencies as they are miss and highs.
Love your videos dude! Especially your trip to the Shack. 😂 Glad to see someone much younger appreciating Radio Shack products. I’m in my 60’s. Radio Shack was always the subject of verbal abuse regarding audio quality. Sure, they made a lot of low budget/quality products. They also made high quality products. Unfortunately, the brand was synonymous with poor quality. It’s a shame. Now I miss Radio Shack. It was always a go-to place for me to find that little electronic part you could find nowhere else. I cut my teeth on Radio Shack electronic kits.
BTW….that old speaker with the tweed material quickly reminded me of the PA speakers that were hanging on classroom walls in the 70’s.
Take care! Long live the Shack!!
Thank you so much for the great comment!!
I do remember in the late 80's and early 90's Realistic and Optimus not having the best reputation. Which is why I was really blown away when I heard these. They do have a bit of a cult following. Thank you for the info bud! Stop by anytime!
I have both versions of what you have. I like the sound of the Optimus Pro 7 a little better. I'm very surprised that no speaker maker picked up on these after Radio Shack went out of business.
I agree on both points you make! They are great little speakers!
Nice find!!! Your videos are awesome!!
Thanks for watching
I just bought these speakers today and did the reverse wiring. Do you still believe this raises the high end? That is what i need more of. Thanks
It doesn't change it that much I found out. I wonder if something is wrong with the crossover.
I have both pairs. I use them for desktop setup on each side of my monitor powered by a Yamaha R-N303. Good bass for near field. Sleeper speakers for sure.
Absolutely!!!
Nice to see original Minimus-7 and Optimus Pro7 compared. With so many myths about Minimus-7, at least size difference myth between M-7 and Pro7 is debunked here. Pro7 is kinda rare -- listed for 2 years only, '94 and '95. Yours was built in July '93 . Your Minimus-7 was built May '90, which is the last year these were made in Japan.
Crossovers are electrically identical -- regardless of capacitor brand . It's just a cap and coil 2nd order high pass filter on the tweeter. Woofer runs free.
For tweeter polarity, Positive terminal has a reddish-brown insulator. Negative is white.
Tweeters are NOT factory wired reversed polarity -- another myth. Stock M-7 has ragged upper frequency response with large peaks at 3.5kHz and 8kHz. Reversing tweeter phase flattens the 8kHz peak but worsens the 3.5kHz peak. Also sucks out upper midrange around 2kHz. May sound better or worse depending on personal preference. It's a free mod, but there's no free lunch.
The only mods to make these sound truly fabulous are PZ-2.1 or PZ-2.2 at Audiokarma. Google is your ride ...
ABSOLUTELY AWESOME Information bud!!! Thank you sooo much for watching and commenting!!
@todstiles4326: My guess is that the Optimus Pro 7 is rare in name, but not the speaker itself. A little later on, Radio Shack “adopted” the RCA name. (How that happened is beyond me). The speakers became RCA Pro-X44AV speakers. There was no change in design that I could see. In my previous comment, I failed to mention that I just acquired a pair of the RCA branded version. They are just as good as far as my ears are telling me.
Definitely not speaking as an expert, but the last set of speakers looks like ones I've seen that were homemade. Radio Shack used to sell a book on building your own speaker cabinets, and they sold quite a few bare speakers back in the day for that purpose. I remember there was a math equation for figuring out the ideal internal volume for your speakers.
That is awesome! I wish I could go back to those days! Thank you for the information!
How much does the port help or hurt the sound? Preference of one over the other?
It honestly seems like the sealed one sounds a bit better on the lower end but it's hard to tell because they're not as good at pushing out low frequencies as they are miss and highs.
I have a pair of Panasonic speaker with that same fabric cover from late 70 I think. Mine still work and sound fine in a bedroom.
That's awesome!
If you change the tweeter polarity, you will take it out of phase with the driver. That will make the total sound from the speaker less coherent.
If you reverse the woofer leads it accomplishes the same thing.
That sure looks like Iowa. I've got all those speakers, BTW.
I WANT THEM!!!
They're yours!!!🤣🤣🤣
Definitely.