Midrange and bass response Power handling capability (100W per speaker)

High freq response (can be compensated for).

Wonderful sounding speaker with excellent midrange and bass. When I first got these massive speakers home and connected them to my Technics SA-300, I was a bit disappointed. All I could hear was midrange. Then I coaxed them a bit by turning up the bass and treble beyond their normal settings and viola! The Sansuis came to life. I realized that I had been missing the midrange entirely on my previous, German-made Heco 3 SFs (3-way). The 4-way Sansuis deliver excellent midrange making vocal passages come alive. Piano solos will sound like the piano is in your house! You'll need a sufficiently powerful receiver/amp to unleash the bass from the 14" woofers (mine is a 45 w.p.c. Pioneer SX-780). Highs on the SP-3500S seem to roll off a bit early so you'll need to boost the treble to compensate. Cosmetically, these speakers are stylish but sedate looking, like they belong with your grandma's stereo. But take off the wooden lattice (hand-carved?) speaker grills, and you will see that these babies mean business. 6 drivers per speaker arranged symetrically in the cabinet deliver a powerful sound that seems to get better at higher volume levels. To my wife's dismay, I can't stop listening to them! If you find a pair that you're thinking of purchasing, make sure that you set the attenuators on the rear of each speaker consistently before listening.

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Heco Phon 3 SF (hardly similar)

These things are brutes, I played them very loud on a old Fisher amp for years and never hurt one of them. The mids and subs are great very clear. I've got mine about a foot off the ground and they sound wonderful. To get something new with the same sound you would pay big bucks. And can you believe i have four of these monsters.

There big and heavy and the highs are a little muffeled. But if they are put with a decent surrond system then no problem.

My parents bought a house in 1983 and there were four of these speakers in the house.(sp-3500)along with a quadraphonic 8 track and reel to reel.

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many

Everything about them is great. They are clearly built to last. Awesome lattice work grilles. Very heavy. These ain't no KLH's...

Old. My brother in law was in a band. From the looks of these drivers these were used as PA speakers during their practices. Such a shame...

I have a pair of SP-3500's that have obviously been through some pounding music. Most of the speakers in this 6-way speaker sound pretty terrible. The 15" woofer's surround is almost peeled off most of the way around. I know they were top of the line 30 years ago. I'm just hoping I can find replacement drivers to do them justice.

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None...

Full smooth range and rich sound

30+ year old technology and specs

As in earlier reviews, my Sansui 3500's also came over from Vietnam in the early 70's - I too have all original paper work - I believe they were made available at Navy exchanges - the price paid back then "$84.50" - not too shabby even in 1970. The spec sheets are also impressive - my father in-law purchased an entire Sansui system, turntable (amazing machine), reel to reel (also amazing), mic, and receiver (massive tuner). I only use the speakers right now as the other components require some work. The speaker sound is very impressive - a big step forward over my old Bose 501's and 301's combination (that was a costly mistake). Very full smooth range and natural sound - similar to higher end JBL's that I have heard (and love as well). I love the wood veneers too. Mine have a very impressive wood mesh front to them (called Kumiko, made of Walnut)- can't imagine anyone putting something like that on the front of a speaker these days for under a couple grand. I run them off a smaller HK receiver and when cranked they rock. From my wife's Boccelli to my Beethoven symphonies and Jethro Tull golden oldies - these speakers can be mesmorizing. One problem I had was that the glue on the woofer surrounds broke down - I repaired that and they have performed like champs ever since. Some tech notes from the paper work: 14" woofer; 1st midrange 4" 2 cone-type; 2nd midrange 4.5" horn-type; tweeter 2" two horn-type; 100watts Max; 8ohms; 58lbs; ~25"x17"x11"; sensitivity 96dB/W; Range 25-20KHz normal listening; Crossover freq 700Hz,2,000Hz,6,500Hz; Cross directional firing. Lastly, the package I have also has a Sansui dust cloth - not sure if it came with the speakers or other component, but it is certainly a nice touch.

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After 20 years, they still sound wonderful

Age

My father brought these home from Vietnam in 73. Along with these, came a Pioneer SX-9000 receiver with Reverb, a Sansui reel-reel, and a Sansui turntable. All components of the system amaze me, but the speakers are really something. You can just tell by the way they were (Probable hand built) made, that they mean business. According to my father, they were played very loud, most of the time. It's 28 years later, and they still can take a beating. The sound is very good for an old speaker system. The mids and tweeters (even the squaker) are positioned so as to create spaitial effects companies like BOSE have been using for years. 14" of woofer add to the solidness. These are absolutely great speakers. If anyone has a pair, and wants to get rid of them, let me know... I'll buy them from you!

good base 14" woofers each. Long Lasting (from the 70s). Good full range sound

Need handles to carry these massive things.

Yeah. These are some of the best speakers that I have heard. My friend's parents were moving and had some speakers sitting around in some upstairs attic. They were purchased in from Vietnam in the 70s. I still have the manual and original order form. The one model up from these was so heavy the wouldn't normally ship them. They gave them to me saying I could have them as long as I moved them out of the house. So, I took them, hooked them up to a receiver and they rocked. I wish I could pick up another pair of these speakers somewhere!

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tough

little lacking in high range

Storing my neighbors sansui sp-2ooo'S for a while at my place.He inherited them from his brother who passed away in veitnam. He bought them in japan. Hooked them up to my yamaha integrated ax-592 amp. These things are some monsters! The enclosure material looks like one inch thick.A 12" woofer,A 6" squawker,A 5" squawker(mids)two round horn tweeters and a round horn supertweeter. With a large 5"x8" port these things have some amazing bass for there age(boomy but still impressive).A e.q. could probably help that out.For the 70 watt power rating they did'nt seem to mind being pushed. The only things that I noticed that the extended high range does'nt extend very far,It seemed kind of overpowered by the bass.Still for the speaker you would have to spend big bucks for something equal new.I like to upgrade the x-overs in the speakers to see if they would gain more extended range. Offered my neighbor a price for them,His response:NOPE! Sentimental Value! A good old speaker!MIKE.

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sp- 3500 sansui

Very old speakers very well built.
Great for Hi-Fi in huge room : more than 60m2 at real level (horrible in small romms) if :
-you add a sub-woofer speaker : 36 cm cut at 70 Hz
-Use a very defined amplifier
- to reach a top level : changing the tweeters : as technics 5hh10 or Fostex FT 17 h

The sound is very true in the sens that you seems to listen speakers as voices of the theater ...

Recently installed a home theater & stereo system. 10 speakers in three rooms. The Sansui 3500s that
I brought home from Japan in 1973 still sound great.
They compare very favorably to the 8 new JBLs.
Hooked up to the new amp they really came alive.
I call them "oldies but goodies." Glad that I
did not replace them. Yes Jim, some of us out
here are still using them.

These things are OLD (my Dad ordered them in the early 70s while stationed in Vietnam and later passed them on to me), but they still seem to sound pretty good in my current home theater system as the front left/right speakers. My Dad insists that they were some of the best speakers available at the time, and given the way they still sound, I don't doubt it. "Beefy" is probably the best term to describe these speakers' appearance, weight and sound production capabilities. Although I haven't really had the opportunity to compare these with many other speakers, I've been fairly impressed with the range and clarity of these speakers for their age. With the 14" Woofers that these things have, I've been holding off on a powered sub as I'm not sure my neighbors (and wallet) could handle any more bass. They are encased in a nicely finished medium brown wood, and are covered with a darker intricate wood lattice-work grille. My current receiver is the Yamaha RX-V995 (100Wx5), and it definitely has enough guts to actually give these speakers a workout. A nice touch that these speakers have is that they have two tone knobs on the back: a "High Range" knob and a "Mid Range" knob that can both be set to three settings. These three settings are "Clear", "Natural", and "Soft". These were helpful in attempting to match the tone of left and right speakers with my center speaker (a Klipsch KSF-C5). Unfortunately due to age or differing manufacturing lots, the tone of one sounds a little different from the other with these knobs set the same way (with pink noise as the test signal). The only other gripe is that because of their age, they were made before magnetic shielding became a common practice. With a 14" speaker and it's HUGE magnet, the magnetic interference on my TV is kind of scary if I don't keep them facing _straight_ out from the front wall...EVEN with about 3.5 feet between them and my TV on each side. Once you get you get used to all of the little idiosyncrasies of these speakers, I think they're DEFINITELY worth a listen. I'd love to hear from anyone who is still using these, or knows anything more about them like what they're original retail price was, their frequency response, their sensitivity, and their weight. I'm not the only person in the world still using these speakers...am I?