Allied Radio 2385 Speakers

jhoyt

Incomprehensible space llama
Today I found a pair of these Allied 2385 speakers in a thrift shop. The cabinets are absolutely beautiful--dang near perfect walnut veneer, and perfect brown grillecloth. The only cosmetic problem is someone stacked other dirty speakers on top of one, and scratched the top! But my secret wood restorer made the scratches just about disappear.

Opening them up was a mixed experience for me. The cabinets are relatively well made; solid, but not internally braced. The driver complement is all Jensen: 15" woofer, 4x10 horn mid, and nice-looking dome tweeter. Most of the drivers were missing a mounting nut or two, and one cabinet was missing the port tube! And, no damping material whatsoever. So, I stuffed the horn throats with polyfil, and damped the daylights out of the cabinets with the same stuff. And glued in a pvc port tube, leftover from my Barzilay E-Wave project.

Another interesting thing: the back of the cabinet and the "crossover" is stamped with the same mfg. and date code as the drivers--220007. Could the cabinets have been built by Jensen as well?

Anyway, I haven't hooked them up yet, as the glue is still curing for the port tube. But when I do, it will be with a Pioneer SX-737. I'm not expecting to catch "lightning in a bottle" with these, but I would like them to sound at least halfway decent! If they sound like complete crap, I could gut them, sell the drivers, and build another E-wave! Oh, the possibilities... :scratch2:
 
They're playing right now. Great bass, non-existent mids and highs--do ya think 40 year old level control pots might have something to do with that? :D I happen to have another set of 3-way crossovers looking for a home...and 3-way speakers looking for crossovers...
 
haha definatley could need some deoxit sprayed in there.Also check the capacitors out.

I wouldn't switch out the crossover until I at least heard it in working order. Unless it clearly looks like Cr*p. Sounds like a nice find, enjoy!

Rudy
 
Well, this evening I did the crossover switcheroo. I had gutted a pair of Scott 3-ways, that had pretty decent looking crossovers. It looks like some thought and engineering had gone into them, rather than simply throwing a couple capacitors and pots at the drivers. Obviously, these are not tailor-made for the Jensen drivers. But they brought the midrange horn and tweeter to life.

I padded down the mids by 3 dB, to compensate for the horn configuration. Not a scientific thing, just a WAG. So, these speakers aren't complete dogs. They're not crisp and accurate, but definitely listenable. I haven't felt the urge to run from the room! I'll give them a couple days to let the drivers re-acclimate themselves to doing their thing, before I make a more definite decision on their fate.

Did I mention the cabinets are gorgeous?
 
I could never do a proper listening test unless I had the orginal crossovers fix and working. Makes a huge differemce.
 
I could never do a proper listening test unless I had the orginal crossovers fix and working. Makes a huge differemce.

The original "crossover" consists of a 1.8 uF and 8.2 uF caps, and two pots. If you're fond of 15" woofers running full-range, then the original crossover would be fine. I've been-there-done-that in the past (JBL L100), and it was NOT pleasant.
 
I got 'em going, at least for now. And if I say so, I think they sound pretty good! I didn't re-cap the Scott crossovers, so there's even more improvement to be had...sometime. The final adjustments were to set the midrange level flat, and take most of the fiberfil out of the mid horn throat. I also pulled some of the fill out of the cabinet, as I had it stuffed in there pretty good before.

Now, they sound pretty good. They're warm, but not tubby. Then again, I haven't listened to bass-heavy music. Acoustic music was downright beautiful, with no obvious colorations from the horn or anything else.

I feel much better about buying these, now that they're playing nicely. I just have to find a place in the stable for another set of large speakers! I'll snap a few pics later on, and get them up to show 'em off.
 
I just picked a pair of these up, their in really nice shape! I would like to get the backs off n deoxit the pots as their very suspect, the one horn barely plays, n if I turn pot it goes out, I've had all the screws out of the back, but it won't come off, n I don't want to damage them as I'm second owner. Any help would be great, also what your thoughts are on these? I think they sound pretty good in the condidtion their in.
 
grandville45, did you ever get the backs off? I just pulled my 2385's out from storage and want to check out the insides. Tried to "gently" pry off the backs but no go.

Tanks!
 
grandville45, did you ever get the backs off? I just pulled my 2385's out from storage and want to check out the insides. Tried to "gently" pry off the backs but no go.

Tanks!
When I have trouble with a stubborn speaker as far as taking the back off , I rigged a drawer pull that's 3 inches wide. Obviously its rigged to screw from the outside. Screw it in the upper 1/3 center of speaker and pull.
 
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