EPI fans

Lazarus Short

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#41
Energy. They are supposed to sound great but most are missing a tweeter or two, so I have never heard them.
Yes, that was it. I recall that after about a million bucks on R&D, the tweeters were not robust. Other than that, the woofer outer suspension was sewn on, not glued.
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#42
20s for when those ebay links die. This is a set I refoamed.
View attachment 44019
View attachment 44020
I much prefer the looks of the 20+ with the front lower half in veneer.

Interesting to see the drivers recessed in the 20 but the tweeters appear to be surface mounted in the 20+ shown at the top of the page.

The tweeters are semi-recessed complete with gaskets to make them pretty much air tight. Here is a shot from another guy resto-ing a set.



epicure model 20 speakers (2).jpg
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#43

Scored a set of "Blue Cone" 8" woofers for my model 20+ speakers. I plan on sending them in to have the Butyl Rubber Surrounds, and the dust caps replaced. Has anybody ever dealt with these guys before? I am NOT going to repair these myself. I got enough work to do.

https://www.midwestspeakerrepair.com/
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#47
Ahh. Finally got a HUH! :)

Never dealt with this guy but he might be the go to guy for EPI.

https://www.humanspeakers.com/e/index.htm

Example of Dolby Atmos speaker. Don't have any myself, but all the salesmen I talk to say they are the best.

I had some issues with this guy a while back. I sent some drivers to him for rebuild, and he say on them for months, then he didn't answer my emails, and I finally blew a gasket on him. I have dealt with him over the years but he never sat on jobs. His repro drivers were OK but you can tell the sound of the originals. Decided to part ways.

Yes Fred, you finally got HUH'd :)
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#48
I just sent off an email to Midwest Speaker Repair in the Twin Cities to see what the damage will be when I send my woofers up there for new Butyl Rubber surrounds and new dust caps while cleaning up and reusing the "Blue Cones". I figure about $100 per pair. The Epicure 10's I bought off the Bay had a set of Blue's in it so to save money, I had him remove the inverted dome tweeters and the 8" blue woofers out of them and told him to keep the cabinets. I just wanted the good parts. Now I have an extra couple pairs of the inverted dome tweeters which I'm going to check the Ferro-Fluid and test and store them. If you get to "Spirited" during a Jam Session, the Ferro-Fluid starts breaking down and drooling down the front. Had that scenario happen a few times over the years.
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#50
Shipped off 4 of the blue cone woofers for a butyl rubber surround treatment and dust caps. they quoted me $40 each. One of the cones is kinda scuffed so I'll send in a couple more and pick the best 4 for these 20+'s resto-mod.

I'll have to look at my stash and see if I have enough Mahogany to re-veneer them. I think I'll try to do a water based clear finish to get them shining like a new car. I am going to try to spray it.
 

J!m

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#51
We experimented quite a bit with waterborne clear finishes and never really got the "pool of water" depth of shine to it. Perhaps 20- years on they are better, but there were various problems with clouding of the clear (poor clarity), grain raising and full-on delamination (incompatible with the oils in some woods). We had our best success with automotive clear coats. Nitrocellulose was fine for the vintage stuff, but solid colors/metallics etc. got auto clear. That was a catalyzed acrylic urethane. Automotive lacquer (not available any more) took forever to dry and was a bit soft. The Urethane was like an epoxy and would harden regardless of thickness, so we could block and buff it out in a day to three.

I hope you have better luck, and a dry veneer may be more accepting than the large chunks we worked with. (our "veneer" tops were about 1/4" thick). Otherwise they were solid, or half-n-half.
 

WOPL Sniffer

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#52
Shipped off 4 of the blue cone woofers for a butyl rubber surround treatment and dust caps. they quoted me $40 each. One of the cones is kinda scuffed so I'll send in a couple more and pick the best 4 for these 20+'s resto-mod.

I'll have to look at my stash and see if I have enough Mahogany to re-veneer them. I think I'll try to do a water based clear finish to get them shining like a new car. I am going to try to spray it.
I

Got a call from Midwest speaker repair in the Twin Cities and the spiders are shot so there is another $20 per woofer. So, spiders, butyl rubber surrounds, new dust caps and we're up to $60, times 4 woofers. One of the cones is scuffed so I'll send in my last woofer and have it done too and save the scuffed one for a spare. All this damage was done by the previous owner not waiting for the music to start before cranking the volume. A 500 WPC WOPL will make quick work of a 125 WPC set of speakers. I think the power surge over extended them and caused the damage. 2 of them were still sticking out when he brought them back to me.
 

Wheel-right

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#54
A good reason to always turn the volume down first when shutting down , starting up, and switching between tuner, turntable, cd player, and whatever else your playing with. What's the big hurry? the music will be there.
 

mlucitt

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#58
When I tested my first WOPL 700 (640 WPC), I turned up the amplifier full blast (input was a Hafler CD player via the venerable PL 2000 preamp) and ran out of the living room. It was too loud even standing in the garage with the garage door open. I walked down to the end of the driveway, about 100 feet, and the sound of Humble Pie singing "I Don't Need No Doctor" (which contains some nice musical dynamics) was as clear as a bell, even the cymbals.
The JBL 15" 2226 woofers and the 2426J high frequency horns were handing the 1280 peak watts pretty well. Anyway, because the amp was in the walnut enclosure, it got hot before the song was over (about 7 minutes) and the thermal switches de-powered the amplifier.
As I was checking the ambient heat coming off the heatsink fins, the amp had cooled off enough to allow the thermal switches to reset. When the amp came back on at the climax of the CD track, the speakers erupted, and I jumped about a foot straight up.
There was no damage to the speakers or the WOPL amplifier, thank goodness. This is how I became a believer in WOPL... What other amp can have the power cord yanked out of the socket and then plugged back in at full tilt, Mach 10?
 

8991XJ

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#60
Always liked the sound of the 3.0. We sold em back in the day. He's asking brand new 1980 price for those. That seems kinda high for big speakers but he may get it.
 
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