Bozak B410 Concert Grand Floorstanding Speakers

Bozak B410 Concert Grand Floorstanding Speakers 

DESCRIPTION

Approx. 50 in high X 36 in wide X 28 inch deep (big as a line backer) Giant 4 woofer 3 way system

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-7 of 7  
[Sep 01, 2012]
Bob Radzak
AudioPhile

The Bozak B 4000 Symphony pair has been the magnificent center stage of my system since 1974 with serious classical and jazz music interests. I am not surprised to share other very favorable reviiews by others on this subject.. Their transparent audio realism, soundstage imaging and just superb musicality remain unsurpassed in High Fidelity. During this period to the present, I sustain interests in the constant pursuit of achieving this " Illusion of Reality " in music reproduction. There have been, perhaps, a few other speaker designs which may approach the Bozak's, but none have proven significant interest. Today, it seems, " High Tech " is the word which prevails in all pursuits of excellence and less than excellence. I do believe that past, present and future developments in the subject of high fidelity must be considered in total. to sustain the audio enthusiast's pursuit of that realism.
Hence, tube technology has been firmly re-established since the advent of the digital sound media and reproduction. There is the constant chant for the return of the " analog sound " amongst recording, audio equipment and performance professionals in both solid state and tube venues.
I have and continue to audition both the latest and vintage audio equipment with interest and am very pleased to have the Bozak's sharing very compatible company with my system components, both vintage and current. Every music experience through them continues to be a delight of fulfillment and appreciation.
Specific descriptions of the B 4000 Symphony's sound qualities and performance are very subjective, as we are all aware. Realism is the bottom line as they disappear thru the music.
They are just great.



They are just great.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Oct 21, 2010]
Tubes N Horns
Audio Enthusiast

I like to play my music loud and I like to feel it as well. This is difficult with my 2A3 amp that puts out 6 wpc (twin tubes in parallel). I owned Klipschorns and La Scalas and sold the Khorns due to a change in living arrangements. I studied speakers for a long time but the Bozaks were off my radar. Saw a set on ebay and did some research and decided to give them a try. I have the bi-amped model (74-11 build date) so I picked up a couple of vintage SAE amps to drive them. Fell in love. Put on some Stevie Wonder Innervisions and the bass practically removed my sliding glass doors from their frames! Talk about chest thumping bass! My pant legs did flutter in the breeze. ZZ Top's rendition of Viva Las Vegas cracks the plaster. I chose not to dilute the sound by adding my big Velodyne sub into the mix. Don't need it. Ordered a passive crossover unit as the outboard active crossover has no attenuation controls. Going to throw the 2A3 at the mids/tweeters and an HK Citation 16A at the eight (yes 8) woofers. My neighbors are going to hate me.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Oct 14, 2010]
John
AudioPhile

Simply putI am in tha audio business so writing this review is not in my best interest but once in awhile something happens that has to be shared no matter the consequences.
I sell high end audio gear including very famous speakers that cost tens of thousands of dollars. I was not prepared for the level of performance that a pair of 42 year old speakers that look more like china cabinets than speakers are now delivering in my living room. Last spring I saw an ad for a pair of Bozak Concert Grands for sale a couple of towns from me. I made an appointment to go listen to them mainly out of curiosity,since I had never seen a pair in the flesh. Within 5 minutes of listening I knew I had to buy them. I didn't haggle I commited to pay what he was asking and came back about a week later with a truck and a large friend (they are over 200 lbs each). He included his external Pioneer ribbon tweeters which add nice air whin placed behind the speakers on the floor facing upward.
Here is what these speakers do that I believe is missing in most modern speakers-they get out of the way of the music when you play them with top notch equipment. There is an effortlessness to these speakers that allows music to fill a room in the most relaxed manner I've ever heard. Detail is present that rivals modern speakers but there is no hardness at all. When you say this most people think the sound is going to be soft and slow but it isn't. The speakers play music that has nothing to do with being audiophile speakers and everything to do with recreating the performance the way music sounds in an acoustic venue. In other words I find no trace of electronics in the sound. If you are playing soft delicate music they sound like small monitors with detail and layering and if you need power in the music the can shake any size room . If you have a chance to hear these on good to excellent equipment do it. Suspend your preconceived notions and experience something that breathes life into the music. It doesn't happen all that often.
I've had B&W 801s, Wilson Watt Puppy 6s, various Logans, Quads and Maggies and these are so far my favorites after 35 years as an audiophile I had to go to a vintage speaker to start having fun again.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Oct 22, 1999]
Steve
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Outstanding sound.

Weakness:

Big. I mean really big. Requires bi-amping.

Please note-I am neither a cowboy nor an old lady but I do love my B-310Bs, which are very similar to the B-410s. They are a teriffic music speaker and do quite well in a sound surround system. No need for a subwoofer with these around. Bozaks are a real bargin in the used market often selling for 30% of what they cost new.
The review below is very detailed and I only disagree about the cowboys and old ladys statement. They woofers are good to at least 40Hz and the speaker is smooth to 12K. Above that my hearing is pretty much shot from the clanking of tea cups at social gatherings. I can find none of the mid-range boom described below. Perhaps the tube equipment he used had problems-I am using transistor amps at 205wpc on the top and 240wpc on the lows. The only real drawback to these giants is the arrangement of the tweeters. The 8 tweeters are aligned vertically and have the same effect as a ribbion speaker, so the sound is outstanding when seated in the sweet spot but more diffused when moving around the room. The B-310A has a 4x2 tweeter array so this should not be as directional. In comparison to my B-305s(4 tweeters, 1 mid-range and 2 woofers), the B-310Bs(8 tweeters, 2 mid-range, and 4 wofers) are fuller and richer. The smaller B-305s however are better for playing in a room during social gatherings because of the tweeter array aimed so the sound is dispersed.

",", also below, was looking for someone to recone his speakers. Bozak replacemnt speakers are occassionally listed on web pages. The previous owner of mine had two woofers reconed by Orange Co (CA) Audio. I have also seen the crossovers for sale.

Speakers are pumps that move air. There is no getting around it guys and gals, size matters.

Similar Products Used:

Bozak B-305 Concerto Grosso

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Nov 26, 2001]
John Mathewson
Audiophile

Strength:

Unbelievably coherent sound that becomes quite transparent with listening. Huge output capability and speed at high SPL's.

Weakness:

Directional compared to modern high dispersion units. These speakers are like a good dog; they favor their master.

These speakers are one of the great finds in second-hand world. They sold in the 1960's for over $2000 and can be had today for about $1200.

Looking at the other reviews (old ladies and cowboys) it's clear that they were listening to the older Alnico magnet Bozaks. These were manufactured in the 1950's - 1960's and replaced in the 70's by ceramic magnets. The manufacturing code tells their manufacturing date (e.g. 715 was manufactured in the 5th month of 1971). You can tell the difference by looking at the magnets; the ceramics are short, flat and wide with no housing over them. The newer units are generally in better shape. Watch out for corroded aluminium tweeter cones.

Alnicos are tubby and less modern sounding than the newer ceramic magnet Bozaks. Having listened to both and tested their low frequency resonance, the ceramics are clearly superior and have little of the mid-bass bloom that the gentleman refers to.

With modern tube electronics the B410s can amaze you with their dynamic capabilities. These speakers can put out gobs of low-distortion sound. Bozaks have always been a smooth sounding speaker with lots of oomph even at low sound levels. At high levels they can rock you with bass drums that you can feel. Rudy believed that massed instruments needed massed speakers to sound right. He was onto something. The 410's have 14 drivers in all.

These are great speakers if you have the room and can live with their focused rather than dispersed sound stage. They only need about 50-100 watts to drive them. I love 'em and have listened with many audiophiles who are amazed with their overall sound quality. Highly recommended.

Similar Products Used:

None similar. Have used many other great speakers over the years. Bozaks have a very unique, appealing sound. Low listener fatigue.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jun 08, 1999]
norm

I too am a longtime fan of Bozak Loudspeakers. I purchased my Bozak 'Symphonys' in 1975 at 22 years of age. No old lady or cowboy here but interestingly enough I did choose them over the Klipsch LaScala's. I found that by adding an ESS Great Heil to help on the top-end the sound was nothing short of remarkable. At present time they sit quietly in my closet. I am in search of someone to refurbish the woofers. Any help would be welcomed. Norm

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
[Jun 07, 1999]
David L. Winebrenner
an Audio Enthusiast

This story goes back to January of 1966 to the place where I worked while going to U of H in Houston, TX. The Audio center (now lon-gone) was a high end shop designed to separate the idle rich of Houston's nearby River Oaks from their hastily accumulated Oil patch gains. Charles Lucas, the repr for Bozak at the time brought an elderly sort of plumpish quiet man with a sort of red nose into the sound room and said "David, I would like for you to meet Rudy Bozak". Wow, what a shock. You never knew, in those days, when you would meet an audio pioneer. Rudy seemed to ba a nice sort of reserved older gentleman, but he seemed deeply hurt that we had Klipschorns and JBL Paragons and all sorts of other high end stuff but all we had of his on display was his smaller 5 cu. ft. siongle 12 in. woofer coaxial/2 tweeter model (can't remember the no.) So finally by the end of the day the boss, JRC, "knuckled-under" and place an order for a B410 (sim. to B310) Concert grand system for the sound room to compare and demo against other top-end systems. In about a monthe they arrived. Of course our resident Audio phile type freak, Woody had to be the one to unpack them. These are extremely large and heavy systems at something over 300 lbs. each. The 4 12 inch woofers are the same balck wrinkle paint alnico V model as the woofer that we were all familiar with used on the coaxial frame with 2 tweeters. The woofers were 16 ohms and hooked in parallel and series in the box to end up at 16 ohms again. (This is still in the tail end of the vacuum tube era). The 2 mid ranges were 6 1/2 inch rubber coated aluminum cone alnico V models and the 8 tweeter array use multiuple of the same alnico 3.5 incher used i pairs on the coaxial speaker above. This 2 row 4X4 array was very nicely configured with about a 10 degree spread betwen the top four, all angle slightly up as well about 20 degrees. The bottom row was the same except angled down 20 degrees as sell. The tweeter array end up being a pattern that enscribed a section of a sphere. The cones on the tweeters were black anodized aluminum (no rubber coating on these) From previous tests we new the free air resonance of the woofer was at approx. 36 'c.p.s.' (later HZ) This enormous (almost 24 cubic foot) sealed box was very well made but not as nice as the JBL stuff. It was aheavily brace 3/4 inch plywood with a nice oiled walnut veneer and cream colored synthetic/natural fiber blend grill cloth. We called one of the other guys working ther, Bill and told him they were in and he said he would bring a few master tapes we were familiar with down for comparison. It was one of those deals wher the three of us spent until about 9 o'clock at night comparing these high end speakers to each other. The new Bozaks were very nice in many ways but...they did have an abvious peak in the 50-120HZ range. We all agreed that it was caused by 'mutual coupling' of the 4 woofers being so close together in a box sharing the same enclosed volumn of air. (actually this is the exact same problem you hear from time time even to this day in some 'dives' where large 4 woofer bass guitar amps are being played.) Anyway even with this fairly large 'anomoly' they were still very nice sounding speakers and actually the better performing of our other huge all-out speakers in the sound room on the 1960 RCA Reiner, R. Strauss, Also Sprach Zarusthustra (before 2001 ever came out) which was a truly excellent old RCA red seal LP. On the master tape of the Dixie Land Band recorded at "The Speakeasy" there in Houston they wouldn't even come close to the incredible dynamic range and 'punch' of the K-horns, nor would they even come close to the extreme low frequency performance of the four AR-3 (smallish bookshelf speaker system ) array with 4 Marantz model nine's, (that Woody loved so well), when we played the live master tape of the Julius Reubeka pipe organ piece just simply called 'The Reubeka'. This was one of those incredible pieces recorded with Omega condensor mics that have no low frequency rool off all the way don to barometric pressure (DC). In fact the earlier mics had to be field modified with a tiny hole in the back of the capsule so that Texas thunderstorms wouldn't force the mics to shut completely off because of a barometeric pressure DC offset. Pipe organs are very bright with lots of mechanical transient sounds of traps and baffles opening and closing that are mostly audible only inside the pipe loft. I was there in the loft the night the recording was made on an old Ampex. It was an extremely impressive tape. Only the K-horns and the Altec A-7 would reach the 112 db and higher level of the original but at just below that level the 4 AR-3's were the smoothest most natural sounding other wise. Generally, the B410's were a little on the 'boomy' side but they actually had better high frequency dispersion than any of the others, but the AR-3 tweeters went a little higher. Test in the soundroom the next day with teh measurement equipment pretty much confirmed that the B410 had nothing much above 12,000 and really nothing at all below 36-38 HZ (still very good). and the K-horns did not do much in this room below 32HZ. But on the four AR 3 array, the flourescent light fixtures on the ceiling would rattle at 20 HZ from teh old HP 200 CD oscillator, and if you went all the way into the back of the building 40 feet back behind all the front rooms and offices you could still hear and feel the incredible clean fundamental 20 HZ that the four AR3's were putting out from the 4 Marant model 9's. What an incredible rig! In the weeks that followed hundreds of people heard the same systems. You would be really surpized how many people picked the big Bozak B410s as having the nicest sound. (Especially little old ladies and cowboys, both of which we had plenty of). Something like 60 or 70 % picked the Bozak B410's. We had really trouble understanding this. We always though that if all these had been behind a screen or curtain that the results from the 'walk-ins' would have been VERY different. In those early days most people were still not accustomed to little dog house boxes doing anything like a big speaker system. You migh see a pair of tehse in an estate sale for a pile of money but I can't honestly say I would spend any great deal of money (likey thousands) to buy them.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
Showing 1-7 of 7  

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