A placeholder thread for info and impressions on my Shearwaters and my restoration plans.
Meadowlark Shearwater Hot Rod
- Thread starter prime minister
- Start date
That I would love to know!
Had a pair of Kestrel’s that I picked up used in the Hamilton area after hearing so much about Meadowlark. I had a room that could support a bigger speaker so I started looking for shearwaters after reading great legacy reviews. Found a pair on eBay in NYC which looked awful but after talking to the guy, original owner he was a former musician in the area that was getting grief over the ugly old speakers. Veneer was chewed by a dog from what I understood of the missing veneer.. either way the drivers, especially the woofer which is a felted driver is hard to find and replace. He sent closeup pics and I took a chance. I picked them up in buffalo at a P.O. box. When I got them home and opened the box I found the dustiest dirtiest speakers I’ve ever seen. Took me 2 weeks to clean everything with alkaline water, q tips, as well as touching up the areas of MDF was showing with missing veneer. One thing to note, I was going to sand the coffee cup stains on the top (from heat) but I found out that the finish is a fake grain, it’s paint! So if I sanded it i wouldn’t be able to recreate it by hand.. I was going to refinish the veneer when opportunity knocked - HERONS!!
Btw, welcome aboard! Nice to have you as part of the Haven family.
Great to find this gem. John @mkom connected the dots today although Pat Mcginley mentioned your site to me earlier this week as well so your clearly on the radar!
Actually, it is indeed veneer. The stains on the top are gone now. A little Howards Restore a Finish and Feed-N-Wax, a little elbow grease, and they are lovely again.
For my space, the Shearwaters are about as big a speaker as I can handle, so no need to look for Herons here. And in my system, with my amp and my room, this is likely the best sounding system I have ever had. And one of the most musical systems I have heard.
Your choice of gear identifies you also as a MKOM customer. Good call!
John is not only one of the best purveyors of audio I have ever met, he is just generally one of the best guys I have ever met.
And what can be said about Pat? One of the finest speaker designers of the 20th century? I think so.
Last edited:
I can see that! I did the Living Voice thing at one point too. Lovely speakers, but so incredible picky in placement. In my 10 foot wide room, they wanted to be 4 feet out from the wall. Almost became a really big set of headphones.
Wish I knew that earlier! It was one of the biggest meadowlark dealers back in the day that warned me of sanding and refinishing. Those coffee cup stains drove me batty based on the admiration of the sound that came out of them
After:
I can see that! I did the Living Voice thing at one point too. Lovely speakers, but so incredible picky in placement. In my 10 foot wide room, they wanted to be 4 feet out from the wall. Almost became a really big set of headphones.
I’ll loved the sound of them once locked in but you’re right the sweet spot was like a vice. The Kestrel’s and shearwaters (more so) preserved all of the musicality and naturalness of the LV but added crazy bottom end and less stringent placement requirements. It was an easy decision to get rid of the LV
Amazing!
That’s how I got off the hifi carousel and found unique/interesting pieces that I’ve carefully built around after many years of letting magazines tell me what I should like. Collaborative and diverse systems and opinions help move things forward - that’s how I found you guys!
Hi All,
Discovered this Meadowlark forum and wanted to let Pat know how much I enjoy my shearwaters. These replaced my original LS3/5a 15 ohm (still own but in second system) several years ago.
Love Shearwater Hot Rods, but.... my OCD got the best of me and decided to do a Hot Hot Rod to the crossovers. I did this in stages to really be certain that any changes were not a step backwards. Largest improvement came with the 10 gauge woofer coils. Big gain in transparency! Resistor change was not really noticeable. Tweeter cap change was more of a voicing preference that seemed to mate well with my SET amps. Overall nice improvement.
Keepers!
Discovered this Meadowlark forum and wanted to let Pat know how much I enjoy my shearwaters. These replaced my original LS3/5a 15 ohm (still own but in second system) several years ago.
Love Shearwater Hot Rods, but.... my OCD got the best of me and decided to do a Hot Hot Rod to the crossovers. I did this in stages to really be certain that any changes were not a step backwards. Largest improvement came with the 10 gauge woofer coils. Big gain in transparency! Resistor change was not really noticeable. Tweeter cap change was more of a voicing preference that seemed to mate well with my SET amps. Overall nice improvement.
Keepers!
