Utah Heritage HS1-C thrift find

winters860

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
I scored a pair of these wood-veneered monstrosities yesterday. They're a 3-way ported design with a 12" woofer (as I understand, the same one used in some vintage Fender guitar amps), a 4" midrange, and a horn tweeter.

I tried them out last night and found that the woofer and mid on one didn't work. Tested the drivers today and they all seem okay. It'll take $25 to refurb the crossover, which will consist of modern binding posts, new caps, new resistors, new L-pads, and if I splurge, 16-gauge speaker wire for the internal connections. Does anyone know what I should expect?

I really like the look of these cabinets and the drivers have a rugged, professional appearance. That being said, they seem really cheaply put together. Perhaps that just amounts to them being old designs, but I'd imagine they're pretty far from airtight and I bet the cabs ring like a bell. Any advice for tweaks? I'd imagine that new gasket material for the back of the cabinets would probably help, along with perhaps some internal bracing, and better acoustic dampening. If they're keepers, they might get refinished.

Any advice on how/whether I should repair or tweak these? Does anyone remember them? They have a recommended 40w maximum power. Perhaps they'd make a good excuse to press the Marantz 2220 into service.

Pics tomorrow.
 
DavidLD at AA is the Utah speaker maven.
I have a pair of Utah's, the 12-inch WD-90, and they are a comfortable sounding speaker system. Solid cabinet. DavidLD suggests replacing the tweeter with a newer model, I CRS which one, but think he suggests a Pioneer model. Anyway, they sound nice stock.
 
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