Coral 8A-70 Full Range Drivers

The Coral 8A-70 are masterpieces of the single cone full range driver artform. These are rare drivers, and I don’t know if there were few made, or if they came very late in Coral’s lineup, or both, but for whatever reason I don’t see these come up for sale very often and there is very little anecdotal information online. I haven’t been able to find any information about what product these drivers would have been included in, but whatever they were mounted in must have been an extraordinary speaker!

These are fairly massive drivers, heavy at 7.5 pounds each, and just dense everywhere. The 8A-70 feature large ceramic magnets and somewhat thick cones that are apparently made out of a proprietary corn pulp fiber. A whizzer-less design, Coral instead used a metal center tab for treble extension.

The Coral 8A-70 simply do everything well. They are full range speakers, and not what I sometimes refer to as “wide band”. These heavy duty, overbuilt beauties bring the full flavor to the table and do not disappoint in any way. They sound nicely smooth and play very low in the bass range while still having enough sparkle on top to be satisfying. They are relatively efficient, maybe 96 db/wm or so in practice, which means they can play well with everything except for the smallest of the flea watt amps, but still gobble up higher power. They play clean FAR louder than I could ever sit through. And they sound awesome.

The only caveat for me on the 8A-70 is that I don’t find them to be quite as emotionally engaging as some of the other choices on hand over the past few years, such as Oleg Rullit’s Aero 8, the Altec 755a, or the little Holey Baskets. And coaxials like as the Isophon PH2132 or Coral’s own 8TX-70 bring the emotion, but also a more present treble which conveys a sense of space that is a little beyond the 8A-70 on their own. The Isophon make people cry. That property is less present with the 8A-70. And in fairness, that emotional property is actually pretty rare.

I’ve had the 8A-70 for three or more years now, and it’s taken me quite some time to get my thoughts together on this one. I’ve enjoyed them, and after so many hours of back and forth I find that they are almost as good as the very best, and are a great “all-round” choice for a vintage full range speaker. They do it all, and with grace. These are not common, but do come around now and then. Happy hunting.

Heavy duty is the name of the game with the Coral 8A-70. These are dense and extremely well made speaker drivers that offer some of the finest sound reproduction you will find anywhere.