Cizek Model 2

rmeade

Super Member
Local garage sale find, today!

These speakers were made by a notable figure, Roy Cizek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cizek ). Roy worked for and knew the giants of the audio industry. He also started his own firm(s) that produced highly regarded products.

So, I need to re-foam (on order from mid-west speaker) this pair and will let you know my impression of their sound in a few weeks.

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Bought a pair new, back then. Definitely worth the effort. The tweeter level pots got noisy very quickly. I finally bypassed them.
 
I wonder how the capacitors in my speakers are holding up.
Depends on what's in there. If they're NP electrolytics, they should be replaced (even if like-for-like); if they're film capacitors, they're probably OK.
I do not know what's in them -- I've never looked at mine (which I believe are the original Cizeks, not the Twos -- but I cannot swear to that without diggin' 'em out of the rubble downstairs).

The "danger" of replacing capacitors willy-nilly in crossovers is that the sound of a loudspeaker may be very much altered from the original "voice" -- not necessarily improved :)
 
The "danger" of replacing capacitors willy-nilly in crossovers is that the sound of a loudspeaker may be very much altered from the original "voice" -- not necessarily improved

Yes, this is my concern. I think that the magic in the Cizek is all about the crossover. So, developing a home brew version would be self-defeating.

I think what I will do is remove the crossover, and then remove the capacitors (at least one end) and measure them. I will take from there.
 
Measure them for what? ESR may be more relevant/important as an assessment of "quality" than their capacitance.
 
They were/are very good sounding loudspeakers, from my perspective.
Choice of the Peerless silk dome tweeter plays a role in that, I believe.
Yours are in much nicer shape than the pair of Cizeks I have in the basement awaiting* rehabilitation.

Cizek brochure p1 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
Cizek brochure p2 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr


Agreed on the tweeter. They helped make a number of speakers from that era classics.

As previously stated the xxover is a major player here also.

Worth the time extremely neutral speaker.

_______________
* and awaiting and awaiting...
 
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Rainy weekend here, so I am able to put my time to good use and re-foam the Ciezek Model 2 speakers. I am listening to Miles Davis (Kind of Blue Album) now. The speakers sound good. They respond well to power. The woofers have an enormous magnet and deliver adequate bass. The original foam was secured with contact cement, cleaning it from the woofer cones was quite a chore. I decided to not monkey with the crossovers
 
As NAD80 has stated, "Would love to see pics of the crossover". Ditto from me, not sure I've ever seen the innards from a Cizek.
 
I've owned a pair of 2s since they were new. This is my experience: The reason I bought them in 1980 was because they were cheapest at a little startup hi-fi shop in Titusville Florida. that I went to to buy a system as a gift for my mother with whom i was living after getting out of the Marines. It's all I could afford and I had to finance the small Pioneer system they went with. Immediate impression: Sound good, but high end best (in retrospect I've every heard and I was all ready into hi fi car audio at that time before there was even 40 watt amplifiers available). Finish: utter and pure crap, nasty looking barely functional crapola. the looks belong in a singlewide trailer with a Sears "Hi-Fi". durability in unairconditioned home, not good.

Between a few to several years, this is what happened to them in no particular order: The foam woofer surrounds rotted out, the vinyl wood grain coverings started peeling and cracking. The foam covering on the stupid insulation over the woofer cone rotted out so I pulled it off and removed the stupid ugly ass fiberglass insulation on the cones that was underneath. The result of that: the woofers sounded better. The ugly foam grills attached by cheap Velcro strips fell apart. The thin ugly foam over the entire speaker faces started peeling off. Tweeter were the last to go.one crossover inside fell off it's mount. when I went to repair it and check the other, wires had come out of it and the other one came right off in my hand, so I had to reattach wires to one and hot glue both down again.

Repairs and remedies over the years in order replaced the rotted out woofers with cheap Lafyette ones. result, sounded better.Lafyettes rotted out as we3ll after about 3 years. I did not then know about being able to buy and install suspension replacement kits, though I have done it on other speakers since, removing used suspensions and replacing the bad suspensions of better sounding speakers). So I replaced the Lafyetts with Pioneer 4-ohm car woofers which i knew was wrong but the only brand I could find that was affordable and sounded good and looked good. I could not find at that time (before the internet as we know it today and cheap computers) about 1995 find (to this day) the 8 ohm models Pioneer had.

At that time, I Refinished fronts and sides with 1/4"x1q 1/2" red oak strips using contact cement (mistake using contact cement, more about that later);in the process because the woofers had outsized flanges I (had to shift the tweeter holed slightly. So i cut out the space I needed off the inside of the hole and glued it to the other side swith Elmers exterior wood glues. More recently, like 10 years ago, The Peerless tweeters gave out (at which time I found out they were Peerless brand, well respected, in many brands of loudspeakers AND no longer manufactured). I replaced them with 4 4ohm red dome Visonik car audio supposedly silk dome tweeters because home components are more expensive and often don't sound as good as car equipment does.which I have come to trust more. I'd have prefered Boston Acoustics, but they were out of business.In fact because of my my affinity and trust for what came to be known as "mobile audio" products, I had a $200 mobile pioneer active crossover subwoofer out graphic equalizer on my Yamaha 2020s that I replaced with a yamaha RXA-870 Yamaha and then sold the 20 year old car Eq for $200! I still have a subwoofer cabinet, finished to match my Cizeks with two Original Kicker 10" subs in them that rattle windows and move opened doors if I want them to. They are connected to an Onkyo M501 stereo amplifier.

Sso wired in series mounted in the original peerless plates. I

Most recently, decided to finish the the backs in the oak. I couldn't find the strips but I found 1/4" x 5" wide planks on Amazon, enough for just the backs, for the same price I paid for all of the rest of the wood 20 years earlier at Home Depot. however th is wood was much better quality because it was not warped, did not warp when cut into stips to match the rest and was all the same thickness as finish wood is gotten be everywhere EXCEPT AT HOME DEPOT.. I glued the old strips on the back down with Elmers exterior carpenter's glue,\. I nailed and glued the edges and gaps down the old strips that were lifting and separating, blending it all in to be more or less noticeable with Elmers glue fortified filler. I changed the ugly nasty wire mounts in the middle with unobtrusive banana jack mounts at the bottom. Then I replaced the Pioneer woofers with some coated paper, butyl rubber surround 8" Dayton woofers with flat flanges and recessed them into the 1/4" hardwood finish. Then I bought the Cizek repro badges on Ebay and made full face speaker grills out of 3/4" plywood with some very nice durable brown speaker grille cloth that is sold on Amazon. to replace the nasty looking round flat metal mesh grills (and the home made tweeter grills) that I had had over the woofers since the 90s. And Just recently, when I could afford it, I spent $100 on some original equipment used, nice shape Peerless tweeters. The resulting sound with the tweeters installed is the best that these speakers have ever sounded and looked (in my lay, untested opinion).

Miscellaneous: having messed with the cabinets so much and having them in bad environments for so long made them swell and get spongy on the edges, especially at the speaker holes. I rebuilt those areas with Elmers glue, which drys into a somewhat flexible and nearly indestructible plastic like material that is water proof and sticks to wood and wood composites like proverbial glue and is stronger than wood. In fact, I make stuff out of it.

The upshot: I \ have always loved these speakers because they were a gift to my mother and she loved them. Plus, they they sounded good, but they were always crap to look at. It was said when i bought them that Roy Cizek (and in contemporary articles) that when I bought them Roy Cizek was trying to make a high quality sound speaker for people with a budget when he chose the cheapo, barely functional finish materials. Well that 's been my experience to a T and I want to add that I changed them because I have zero respect for any "original finish" vintage collectibles that were crap to begin with. So I improved mine, am very proud of them, love to look at them now and would only traded them for newly OED refinished ones if they gave me at least $1500 cash on top. Then I would take the newly acquired ones, sell the stupid foam grills, keep the logos, make new grills, strip all the vinyl and foam off, replace that with my hardwood using elmer's glue and take the woofers out, sell them on Ebay and buy the Daytons and install them. in fact I am in the market right now for some Cizek 2's in need of repair to make a matching pair to what I have for my system because with the Peerless tweeters back in my Cizeks, my Polk signature series two ways, sound like crap. The Polks sounded better than the Yamaha surround speakers I got with the receiver and better than the Cizeks with the Pioneer woofers and visonik tweeters. BTW I sold the Pioneers on Ebay for what I bough them for 24 years ago. I'm selling the Isoniks too, in the Peerless plates.
 
Heckuva first post - - that's about all I can say right now. My head is still spinning.....

Oh...and welcome to AK.
thank you. since I've pout all my experience with my Cizeks up here and my thoughts about it, then i don't have to post anymore!
 
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Rainy weekend here, so I am able to put my time to good use and re-foam the Ciezek Model 2 speakers. I am listening to Miles Davis (Kind of Blue Album) now. The speakers sound good. They respond well to power. The woofers have an enormous magnet and deliver adequate bass. The original foam was secured with contact cement, cleaning it from the woofer cones was quite a chore. I decided to not monkey with the crossovers

Good plan since the crossover design is unique and what Cizek is noted for. But if the either of the crossover fell off the inside wall like mine did, glue them back after making sure , makes sure all the components and wires are still attached. mine weren't.
 
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