Electro-Voice EVS-16B - A review, of sorts

Mopic5

Super Member
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They had nagged at my conscience for a long while, like hungry children ignored on the streets - decrepit gray-brown shells with vaporized surrounds exposed, grilleless on the dusty warehouse floor. They’d been passed over for weeks by even the most intrepid eBay flippers. For lack of information and a couple of “jury still out” threads posted to this forum a few years back, I also walked on by – several times. But the front-loaders were circling at this municipal Re-Cycle/Re-Use center for a house clearing and these EVs were about to be crushed and separated into wood and metal. $3 spared them both.
$35 went out for foam surrounds, dustcaps, upgraded internal wiring and replacement capacitors. To keep my rescue investment down with these “unknowns”, I went with (4) Dayton, audio-grade cap replacements and (2) matching wire-wound resistors.
Once dusted off, the full size 12” cones proved crisp and clean for 40-year-old paper and showed no signs of moisture holding. The refoams came off fine with no rubbing in the either throw. The stock dustcaps were made of coarse black felt, which was more of a maze for dust, than a true barrier, so off they came.

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Now, into that subjective world of how they sound… It might help in gauging taste to disclose what I’ve liked in my short vintage speaker rescue/restore history. Recently, I re-foamed a pair of Advents Ones that I like very much. While I admit to being a sucker for bass, I’m not a fan of “Wooly Mammoths”. The Large Advents plumb the low-end depths very well – with only a hint of muddy control. (Note: they didn’t get recapped.) Also snagged a pair of Rectilinears (unknown Model) a couple of years back, which remain my workshop speakers and will not be replaced in my lifetime. By far, the Rectilinears are the most controlled, responsive, full-range vintage speaker that I’ve listening to – although there’s a lot out there that I haven’t heard.
The Electro-Voice EVS-16B actually is an extra large shelf-speaker that is designed to be placed lengthwise (same with my Rectalinears.) At 45 lbs each, and dimensionally larger than a Sansui SP-2500, they’d need Army engineered shelving, but probably can easily masquerade as floorstanders with no problem. It’s a sealed three-way with tweeter level control. Out of the gate, and up to ten hours into burn-in, they revealed themselves as keepers. The high-end is crystal clear, with no harshness or grain, and the mid-range driver masters its two-octave run with great presence, despite having substantially less moving paper area than its 5” basket suggests. The low-end arrives with controlled authority when it decides to pump in, although it initially seems to hold back on a bit of the sharing duties. I suspect a fuller richness, with more woofer participation, will come as the cross-overs & wiring burn in after 50-100 hours. This I expect would bring them close to, if not on par with the Advent One. Right now they’re a little bright, but not unpleasantly so.
Grille work and refinishing are yet to be tackled, although I’ll hold off on this project until I know more about the home they’re headed for. I’ve found that sometimes a wall-matching paint and cream-colored grille fabric can go a long way toward smoothing vintage entrances into coupled households.
All best,
Mario
 
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Cool. I rescued some EV interface 2's that I really like. Got any shots of the assembles speakers with the grills off so we can see what we are dealing with?
 
Cool. I rescued some EV interface 2's that I really like. Got any shots of the assembles speakers with the grills off so we can see what we are dealing with?

Thanks guys. Some detailed pictures….

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The box is constructed of ¾” medium-density particle board and was well sealed, with the exterior receiving vinyl walnut veneer. The cone tweeter rested in a foam gasket while the mid and woofer baskets were sealed with pliable glue.

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The 12” woofers looked a lot like the older Advent Ones with the square magnets, but up front, the foam surrounds needed to be angled and were face fitting.

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The sweet midrange is stamped “Made in Denmark”

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- Mario
 
Cab, back plate and controls look very much like my interface 2's The original tweeter looked just like yours as well. Must be from the same time and target customer. There is a possibility i still have the tweeter if you need one.

- Just looked and i do have that exact same tweeter if you need one. free, you pay shipping.

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Kfa888,
Thanks for the kind offer! So far so good with these stock ones. Can't believe that in their cast-off state everything came up on line. My theories on that....
1-The guy who had 'em was attached to them, otherwise they'd have been trashed a long time ago. And may he rest in peace, 'cause invariably its the "other half" that expunges this kind of gear.
2-They'd been off line long enough to avoid exposure to hard-clipping, high watt SS.
But thanks for the offer - I'll keep it in mind if I ever get careless and blow one.
Did you renew or enhance the batting on your EV-i2s?
- Mario
 
Cab, back plate and controls look very much like my interface 2's The original tweeter looked just like yours as well. Must be from the same time and target customer. There is a possibility i still have the tweeter if you need one.

- Just looked and i do have that exact same tweeter if you need one. free, you pay shipping.

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woah woah what do i see down there??
is that a 4ohm bose subwoofer??
out of a cadillac catera?? :scratch2: :scratch2:
 
That EV looks very much like the Royals that my freshman year roommate had -- I believe Royal was EV's low end brand, with vinyl and plain jane grill. But he got his for free (took them home on approval, and the store closed for good that week), and they sounded good to our ears, so we were all big fans -- my memory is that Wishbone Ash and Pink Floyd sounded pretty good on them.
 
I think the sweet midrange and tweeter are from PEERLESS.
EV has often used PEERLESS drivers for example later in Interface A, Interface A SERII & B SERII PEERLESS tweeters.

Michael-Otto
 
Looking For Replacement Speakers

Hello everyone. This is my first post, discovering this site after searching for EVS-16B info. Now, let's see if I can revive this thread . . . After my wife and I moved into our first house back in 1975, we looked around in and out of town for suitable speakers and came upon these from Electro-Voice at the local Lafayette Electronics store. They've been with us playing the music ever since. In 10/89, I replaced the woofers with new stock direct from E-V, Niles, MI, due to deteriorating foam surrounds. Now, once again the foam surrounds are crumbling. Would any of you have any recommendations as far as replacements and/or source, keeping in mind the listed specs and the 11-inch holes to fill? I'm playing mostly blues, classic R&B, and soul, along with some surf, rockabilly, and Mitch Ryder.
 
Refoam them. It's not hard, it's cheap, and it will keep the drivers with the correct specs. There are a variety of sources for surrounds, but AKer reedger seems to have a good reputation for being helpful and reasonably priced.
 
I recently got a pair of these also. They were re-foamed. The high end is harsher than I recall, so I definitely want to re-cap them. I 'm able to read the lower cap but not the top. Does anyone know the values for that one? Or can they recommend specific caps?
Also, what would be some good replacement tweeters? My sound preference for high end is smooth and well dispersed, as opposed to hot detail and beaming.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
 
I just passed on a pair of these at my local re-use store. The woofer surrounds were "fixed" with rubber cement and paper towels. Yes, they "doped" the paper towels in glue. Was still somewhat interested until I saw one of the cabinets had a busted and poorly-repaired-with-elmer's corner... and the $50 price tag. Ouch! I can fix the cabinet, I can fix the woofers... but those are $15 speakers in that shape, not $50. They also had a nice pair of Mission Model 70 bookshelf speakers, but I don't need another pair of small bookshelf speakers, and especially not at $40.

Charles.
 
Just picked a pair of these off my local clist. Everything seems in order and they have fresh foam on the 12" woofers, only potential issue is that the new foam was installed on the backside of the cone, as opposed to the front. They sound pretty good, anyone know if the surround installed on back of cone as opposed to front is an issue, besides it not looking original.
 
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