1950's Seas Oval Fullrange

Full range whizzer cone drivers have a unique and often addictive sound. Typically sharp and pointed, they can be startlingly direct and feel very live and realistic. They are usually quite efficient and often play well with small watt amplifiers, and in many cases work very well in the open baffles that I prefer. They can be a lot of fun to listen to, but those same qualities can sometimes quickly feel harsh and fatiguing. Poor recordings or heavy duty music can overwhelm them and that live feeling can become smeared, tinny, and irritating. Overall I’ve found myself enjoying whizzerless drivers more, and over the years have gravitated toward true single cone or coaxial drivers. But I’m always on the lookout and have an open mind, so when I found the pair of Seas full rangers shown below I couldn’t resist picking them up and giving them a spin. The audio-experienced seller on eBay described them as “surprisingly great sounding” and I was hooked.

Seas is a Norwegian company that’s been around a long time and have been making some very well regarded drivers for years. To date this is the first Seas product I’ve had in my room. I’d guess the pair below are from the late 50’s or early 60’s, and feature oval cones and small alnico magnets. I love vintage alnico and was excited to try this pair.

I knew these are small drivers, about 7 inches on the long end, but taking the compact package out of the mailbox I was shocked at how light it was. Had the seller forgotten to put them in the box? Getting them in-hand I was flabbergasted by their light weight; these are easily the lightest drivers of their size that I’ve ever handled, and I must admit that part of me was disappointed, imagining that they would not perform well with such light weight magnets. But I pulled out the speaker building tools, made a template for the oval cutout, and had them mounted in the big Telefunken cabinets that same afternoon.

Firing them up with the Yamamoto A-08s 45 amplifier, my doubts evaporated. Wow these are very good sounding little speakers! The Seas have a nice crisp presentation and sound extremely good on classical guitar, intimate small-scale jazz and girl/guitar vocal. They absolutely ace my wife’s Luiz Bonfa test, holding both of us in rapt attention to every note and nuance. But as expected heavy dense material like Angine de Portrine or Black Sabbath are better suited to one of the coaxials, my beloved Bozak B-305, or the humongous Altec A7 clones. No surprise that the laws of physics demand compliance! But for the appropriate material these little ovals are magical indeed. And they work fabulously in the open backed cabinets, with realistic lower mid and upper bass energy. No one is going to be looking for the hidden subwoofer here, but I don’t feel cheated in any way. For their intended use they excel in every category.

I don’t see a model number or other identifying marking on these small Seas drivers, so as with a few other things on this site it is hard to recommend specifically, other than to say that if you do find a pair like it they are certainly worth your time. I do believe that the oval shape is a factor in the good sound here, as well as the alnico, and that would seem to indicate that a wide variety of other similar ovals of the time period could be good choices that are worth investigating, from brands like Telefunken, Siemens, Grundig, Bauer and others. Regardless, this little pair of super lightweight antique Seas drivers absolutely delivers the goods on appropriate program material. Keep an eye out for a pair. Highly recommended!

Nicely robust but super light weight cones on these drivers.

I’m dating these as 1950’s or early 60’s drivers, but if you know better please feel free to reach out with more details.

These are beautiful little gems and are highly recommended for the right music. Good luck!