Vintage Empire Stereo Speakers(Grenadier)Model 8000

[USA Soccer]

http://sandiego.backpage.com/Electro...Ad?oid=1692666

Not mine, what is the deal with these? I have never heard of the brand.

[RWFE]

My friend had a pair of that brand but his were lower, also round, and were meant to double as end tables.

[ARRAY]

$500? Pleasant dreams...

[Nat]

Empire was a long established Long Island manufacturer of turntables and cartridges which also sold a series of speakers which were almost all designed not to look much like speakers, instead being columnar with marble tops and so on so that they could function and look like end tables or pedestals for whatever. The had downward facing woofers which coupled them nicely to the floor boundary, and used high dispersion drivers for the upper end, coupled to acoustic lenses. The sonic results were mixed -- some people liked them, and others didn't care for them. Probably depended on how you used them -- location, location, location. The aesthetics were also a mixed bag -- the wood column was nice, but the metal acoustic lenses stuck out like a sore thumb in my opinion. And the woofers tend to sag over time, which can be a problem.

[mhardy6647]

Not held in much esteem today, but they were expensive and not cheaply made in any sense.

I can post some catalog info if you're really interested...

[USA Soccer]

Originally Posted by mhardy6647

Not held in much esteem today, but they were expensive and not cheaply made in any sense.

I can post some catalog info if you're really interested...

Hi, not at all, I just have never heard of them.

[Brian]

These are early series 8000. Note that they are not the 8000 with the accessory marble top. $500, is more than the average going price for the 9000M that were the TOTL with the marble top.

[70salesguy]

We used to sell these in my store.

I didn't care much for them, but their WAF was very high!

Probably the reason most pairs were purchased.

[hammr7]

Here's a pair of 9000's that ended on that site a few days ago.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Empire-Royal-Gre...QQcmdZViewItem

[audio-ed]

I have a pair of 8000P 's .The cabinets are different like a colonial collumn .I've tried them with several amps and receivers .The one thing I noticed was that they were power hungry .I think that the metal speaker grills should be angled to the corner or back wall . Always though they sounded pretty good I picked them up a few years back with a empire 698 turntable .