Mopic5
Super Member
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.
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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