drbiggles
I like to pull weeds.
It's been a very long week, both in wet weather and navigating email to get a hold of these rare beasts. Even empty, I still wanted them.
For a handful of weeks on CL, then on ebay I noticed a very used pair of Rectilinear 7's for sale. They were way out of my price range and in pretty rough shape. Complete though, but rough. I let them slide for a long while, for the obvious reasons, but they were also a 3 hour roundtrip from me. A user PM'd me here and urged me to at least contact the seller to see if they had any room on the price. I fired off an email, the worst they could say is no, right?
He did come down a tad, but not even remotely to what I could afford. I didn't offer him a price, I told him I didn't want to insult him. But what I did ask him was that if he parted them out, could I have the enclosures? These are so darned rare, and in my estimation this doesn't equate to large volumes of cash for them in whole, or in part. They didn't sell in whole, so today my oldest boy and I headed out to pick up the empties.
Oddly enough, the 3 hour roundtrip went really quickly and without issue. Since I was on a Free Trip, he tossed in a 1963 Wharfedale 12" woofer that he'd dropped and broke the cast frame. We were loaded up and headed back in short order. I got 'em!
But now, what to do with them? Over the last 3 or 4 days, I figured I'd find parts and make myself another pair of III's. And that's probably what I'll do. They're the same size (haven't measured) as the III's and the driver layout is nearly the same. There's one less port and the baffle doesn't unscrew easily like the III. This seems like the smartest route.
History on the 7? I really suggest you read the following PDF files, they're really interesting. It looks as though there were two different versions. One had a woofer with pleated surrounds, could handle a peak of 1000 watts and had no crossover. It sported only a choke for the woofer, that's it. The second version had a foam surround woofer with a crossover, this is the version I have. Both version's exterior adjustments for the highs and mids were factory set and non-adjustable.
http://sportsbil.com/stereo/rectilinear-db/model-7-ad.pdf
http://sportsbil.com/stereo/rectilinear-db/model-7-7a-om.pdf
The veneer is fair and will refinish well enough for them to be inside without anyone complaining about them. But they do have their issues, missing little bits, and a slightly bashed front left corner. And the veneer was spliced together, fairly obvious. They aren't that wide, it's too bad they couldn't go full width on the veneer. I'm sure there's more, but I haven't spent any time with them. I do really really like the detail though, they're nice to look at, very very very solid. They've even got a nice front to back brace inside.
I'm sure this thread will lanquish for a while, I've go so many other projects to work on before this one gets on its way. I just wanted to share the pair with ya'll. It's fun.
Biggles