Hi Vernneal & Elberoth2,
they just sound fantastic. That's why I put so much effort into making new cabinets. They had great reviews in the 80's and to my opinion they are still outstanding nowadays.
They have all the advantages of a time-aligned point-source. They are quite neutral, but have a slight bit of "sparkle" in HF. In this case I really like it, it gives a certain flair to the musik, similar as some vintage tube amps do. If you do not like it, just turn down the tweeter volume a bit on the pot at front of the cabinet and it is gone (in my DIY cabinet the pot was shifted to the bottom of the stands.)
But most outstanding here is the bass. Just amazingly deep and dynamic. I never ever heard any speaker that size capable of that. It is not the most precise bass performance they have in their original cabinets, but here again, similar to the HF, I do not perceive it as a real disatvantage, it is very vivid, dynamic and enjoyable! Actually my DIY cabinets improved the bass precision; to me the it is just perfect now. I never understood why Matushita gave up producing those speakers. Some say, this was due to high production cost...I don't think so, they were sold pretty well for the prices asked for, there must have been other company internal reasons... you seldomly find them in good used condition, obviously owners are still quite happy with them. Today some aske for crazy prices more than twice the original, but usually you can get them just around 450 to 550 Euros depending on condition.
One thing to mention: If you consider to buy them, there were two kinds. One with a foam surrounding produced mainly for US market, others with rubber surroundings which are those I would recommend due to long term stability of the material.
