Small curious 'knob sized' AlNico magnet speakers, considered by many the 'Strads' of the Hi-Fi speaker world, have as their equivalent 'Alard,' the English Lowther 'A' series.  AlNiCo usually says the speaker you are seeing is 'of the old school', when watts were precious.  SONY, Hitachi and NEC VFET, a silicon transistor pair and Audiophile tube amplifiers, were not about 'power handling.'  In those days there was no question like 'how many watts do these speakers handle?'  It was the other way around - How loud are the speakers for 0.1 watt input? - loud enough, that you wouldn't want them any louder! 

The watts needed for AlNiCo speakers are not the same watts modern Home Theater receivers give.  The way a vintage 1970s amplifier sounds very good at a low volume and often very poor at volume needed for your ceramic magnet speakers - may lead you to conclude the amplifier is no good for modern times.  But these 'softly spoken' amplifiers need an 'AlNiCo' magnet speaker to magnify their feeble output levels.  Single Ended Triode amplifiers often said by audiophiles to be the best, are a "Class A" single output tube amplifier, with about 2 watts R.M.S. in very high quality audio, many AlNiCo speakers designed to be at their most useful below that audio power level.  The 'Class B' double device output stage has more power like the highly respected QUAD II, a "Class B", its audio is not as good as Single Ended. 

Elliptical full range version of the 'mighty midget' Goodmans Maxim driver

The Full Range elliptical above is not a Twin Cone as it doesn't need a whizzer cone.  The whizzer is called after sounds made playing music by itself, sitting on a loudspeaker's voice coil.  Whizzers and tweeters make hissing and buzzing noises greatly adding to listening pleasure but not all Full Range loudspeakers need whizzers.  Not all AlNiCo loudspeakers have the archetypal permanent magnet clamp of the 'Energized Field Coil Winding' loudspeaker, other types of magnet structure are seen, the large mass type are not very portable and that was the main reason for the permanent AlNiCo magnet's development, so our article quite rightly mentions the portable radio.  Many folks concerned with Audio will not fully appreciate that the Audio Hi-End is radio, it is radio electronics.  Some of these folks will think that radio is Lo-End.  They've gotten into a way of thinking that affects their choices and another error of that kind, is making 'power handling' of speakers the key issue in determining the 'quality' of a 'loudspeaker'.  Power handling of loudspeakers is not a key to quality, the more power they handle, the more distortion of the waveform they are likely to suffer.

Costs of making AlNiCo magnet loudspeakers ended this kind of Hi-End audio product. Just too extreme with one compact driver doing the work of three and three times louder than modern 3-way speakers through exotic lightweight cone materials.  They were very special loudspeakers, to be seen as relics of a bygone era when the best in materials were available at sustainable costs and everyone worked at their full capacity making remarkable things.  Appearance of AlNiCo loudspeakers defies the sound made and only the enthusiast horn-loads them to magnify their bass to its full potential.  Some modern speakers of similar style just aren't worth horn-loading, the old ones are so exceptional!

The power meter below on amplifiers is handy when using AlNiCo speakers as they have a lower than average power rating.  When the AlNiCo speaker passed out of use the power meter on most amplifiers was not needed, REALISTIC receivers continued with power meters, their speakers mostly of higher SPL.

Power meters assist feeble AlNiCo speakers in limiting power levels

ALNICO - ALWAYS LOUDER PER WATT INPUT THAN THE CERAMIC VERSION!

Below right Efficient mains energized field-coil winding electro-magnet speakers - still useful!  Battery sets couldn't use them and stereo speakers would need mains and speaker wires to work them!  But Active stereo Hi-End speakers and active sub-woofers could benefit from electromagnet drivers!   Well Michel Fertin is rumored to have made an 8-inch unit with a response of 35Hz-21KHz and an SPL at 1w/1m of 100dB.  No evidence of any Fertin speaker exists on the web but the high SPL of a magnet working as new has implications for AlNiCo permanent magnets.  These magnets lose their charge over many years and at least one Hi-End company recharges the so-called 'permanent' magnet to restore newer performance.  

Mains 'Energized' Field Coil Winding loudspeaker electromagnet

The ceramic magnet on a cast basket is less likely to lose its charge, but the ceramic magnet on a steel basket certainly will lose charge only not all ceramic magnets on steel baskets are alike.  In the late 1950s, E.M.I. were mounting their stamped steel basket AlNiCos on an aluminum plate. 

Below right a moving coil speaker of permanent magnet type - once thought 'practically perfect'.

'Permanent magnet' as unlike the 'Energised' field coil winding electromagnet

The AlNiCo magnet speaker is relatively modern, replacing balanced armature and mains energized field coil winding, electromagnet speakers, these ancient electromagnet types very powerful and impressive to youthful ears. Looking ahead a little, at the 1963 Radioshack catalog, a tri-axial doing 25-40,000Hz is by 1989 REALISTIC Mach Two territory!  Some of the Full Range you got back then, Jensen, etc may even sound out similar!  One thing to find out is the impedance, 15-ohm needs a bit more power than 4-ohm and 3-ohm won't work with most Solid State amplifiers, it will probably trip the protection relay in the amplifier.  The higher the impedance the more quality is the speaker, 15-ohm or 16-ohm are better Hi-Fi than 8-ohm, but less powerful.

NOTE AlNiCo 13 x 8 may be most sensitive but ought not to be made 'too loud' for their design limits.  The power rating of these may be lower than ceramic types depending on the wire used for the bobbin.  They are not meant to be loud, only to reproduce the feeble output of single end tube amplifiers.  Be careful not to apply too much Solid State power with AlNiCo magnet speakers!

Below Changing styles of magnets seen with EMI 13 x 8 ellipticals.

 Early 1960s silver color basket AlNiCo screening cup for tube consoles

Early 1960s Cube AlNiCo on silver color and electroplated baskets

Note the above AlNiCo versions of the EMI 13 x 8 may be even more sensitive than EMI 319!  However as real tube amplifier speakers they often appear in 15-ohm (the 1960s British High Fidelity Standard) or other specialist tube loads like 3-ohm.  (3.2 ohm, the 1960s Japanese preferred radio loudspeaker load). It is interesting that JBL's Hi-End horn hybrid loudspeakers of the late 1990s are for 3.2 ohms not 15-ohms! On Ebay be careful to check the impedance of all 13 x 8 drivers matches your amplifier requirements!

Later 1960s bronze color basket 13 x 8 with 10 watt ceramic magnet

1970s green color basket 13 x 8 with 15w and 20w ceramic

The medium 15 watt EMI 319 magnet suiting the QUAD II studio amplifier beside the huge ceramic magnet of an EMI 450 20 watt BASS Long Throw woofer, even bigger magnets used in early 1970s B&W speakers responded to higher Solid State and tube amplifier power capabilities.  Long production run 1960s bronze color basket 319 were still in enough demand to be made in a green basket version.  Note back sealing gasket as mounted from the front, and white EMI 319 ceramic magnet spot sticker.  The later EMI 13 x 8 450 models have no EMI brand stickers on the ceramic magnet.