Marantz Imperial 6G - woofer cloth surround

Tomkatoz

Tomkatoz

New Member
Hi everyone,

New here and new to the world of vintage hi-fi.

I recently picked up a pair of Marantz Imperial 6G's. They are in very good condition for their age.

I've recapped the crossovers and replaced the stuffing as the original stuffing had become crumble.

I've read that the woofer cloth surrounds can be treated with dope. Is this required (or beneficial) for speakers that aren't accoustic suspension style?
 

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The cloth surrounds seem to be in very good condition, so you should not need to apply new dope. Both my pairs are also fine in this regard.
However, you should consider turning the woofers 180 degrees if you have not already done so, as the surrounds can settle over the years. I notice a bit of a crinckle on the upper half and what seems compression on the lower half, and both can be remedied by simply turning the woofer.
Nice find:)
 
Nice speakers. I purchased a pair back in 1973, the drivers were blue. I should have never sold them. I used them with a Model 15 amplifier during college.

I read years ago that there was a product available in camera or photo shops that was similar to, or the stuff CTS who made the drivers used back then. Perhaps you could find information online.
 
Cloth surrounds? Mine have rubber surrounds. So do the Imperial 5's I hqv3 and q pair of 7's that I had for a short while. The original replacement woofer I got for my 6's, and a pair of woofers I still have for the 7's have rubber surrounds also. They don't need any treatment. Just rotate the woofers 180°.
The rubber surrounds can sag over all these years and the voice coil could start rubbing. Flip the woofers and call it good. :thumbsup:
 
Lavane said:
Cloth surrounds? Mine have rubber surrounds. So do the Imperial 5's I hqv3 and q pair of 7's that I had for a short while. The original replacement woofer I got for my 6's, and a pair of woofers I still have for the 7's have rubber surrounds also. They don't need any treatment. Just rotate the woofers 180°.
The rubber surrounds can sag over all these years and the voice coil could start rubbing. Flip the woofers and call it good. :thumbsup:
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Mine are the type with the blue cones and the surrounds are definitely rubberized/doped cloth, but if these have rubber surrounds it's exactly as Lavane says. They may benefit from some rubber conditioner but that's about it.
 
Jens Sinding said:
Mine are the type with the blue cones and the surrounds are definitely rubberized/doped cloth, but if these have rubber surrounds it's exactly as Lavane says. They may benefit from some rubber conditioner but that's about it.
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I had one blown woofer when I got my 6's. I got them real cheap so I jumped on them. I found another original woofer and tweeter at a very reasonable price on ebay. So I have one speaker with black cones, and one with brown.
Both are the earlier versions of the 6's. The blown black cone woofer had a rubber surround. It looked like the brown cone replacement was rubber also.
Same with the bad black cone woofer in the 7's I had. I still have one good woofer and one with a bad voice coil for 7's. I did notice one of the surrounds on the 6's was sagging a little and thats why I rotated the woofers. Sagging surrounds may had been the reason the voice coils would start popping when the volume was turned up past around 10:00 on the two bad woofers I had? The sagging surrounds might have caused the coils to rubber enough to to short some of the windings. So I always suggest rotating the woofers in the 6's and 7's to prevent a problem.
I really like the 6's a lot. Easy to drive and sound good. I have better speakers, but the 6's ain't going anywhere.
 
Lavane said:
Cloth surrounds? Mine have rubber surrounds. So do the Imperial 5's I hqv3 and q pair of 7's that I had for a short while. The original replacement woofer I got for my 6's, and a pair of woofers I still have for the 7's have rubber surrounds also. They don't need any treatment. Just rotate the woofers 180°.
The rubber surrounds can sag over all these years and the voice coil could start rubbing. Flip the woofers and call it good. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Thanks Lavane. I must admit I thought the same, however much of the reading I have done talks about the Imperials having cloth surrounds. Thanks for steering me in the right direction. I'll rotate the woofers and leave them be.
 
Tomkatoz said:
Thanks Lavane. I must admit I thought the same, however much of the reading I have done talks about the Imperials having cloth surrounds. Thanks for steering me in the right direction. I'll rotate the woofers and leave them be.
Click to expand...
These speakers also have a single wwaxand paper electrolytic capacitor in the crossover. Its a 7uf non polar capacitor. 7uf is an arcane value.
Replacing it with a 6.8uf polypropylene film cap of your choise is close enough to the original 7uf. The tolerances of those old electrolytic caps were pretty sloppy anyway.
 
Lavane said:
These speakers also have a single wwaxand paper electrolytic capacitor in the crossover. Its a 7uf non polar capacitor. 7uf is an arcane value.
Replacing it with a 6.8uf polypropylene film cap of your choise is close enough to the original 7uf. The tolerances of those old electrolytic caps were pretty sloppy anyway.
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Thanks. I recapped using some Dayton Audio replacements. The old caps were WAY out of spec, which is to be expected after 50 years I suppose.
 
Lavane said:
Cloth surrounds? Mine have rubber surrounds. So do the Imperial 5's I hqv3 and q pair of 7's that I had for a short while. The original replacement woofer I got for my 6's, and a pair of woofers I still have for the 7's have rubber surrounds also. They don't need any treatment. Just rotate the woofers 180°.
The rubber surrounds can sag over all these years and the voice coil could start rubbing. Flip the woofers and call it good. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
The mystery solved. I took the woofers out to rotate them, and upon closer inspection the surrounds are cloth after all. Some photos attached which shows light passing through to the back of the surrounds.

They certainly do look like rubber from the front, but definitely cloth.
 

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Tomkatoz said:
The mystery solved. I took the woofers out to rotate them, and upon closer inspection the surrounds are cloth after all. Some photos attached which shows light passing through to the back of the surrounds.

They certainly do look like rubber from the front, but definitely cloth.
Click to expand...
Having brown cones, those speakers must have the nice woven brown grill cloth. I really liked the earlierngrill cloth before they went with black, then foam grills. Since the grill backing were in sad shape with the pair I have, I used grill kits from Partsexpress, and reproduction Marantz badges.
 

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Thats a nice looking pair of speakers. Like others have said you shouldn't have to do anything to those other than what you have already done. Re-cap and rotate. I did upgrade the terminals and wiring on some of mine, but not necessary.
Nice score. I've got several Marantz Imperial speakers, and they do sound nice. Just easy to listen to. They just don't like a lot of power.
 
Lavane said:
Having brown cones, those speakers must have the nice woven brown grill cloth. I really liked the earlierngrill cloth before they went with black, then foam grills. Since the grill backing were in sad shape with the pair I have, I used grill kits from Partsexpress, and reproduction Marantz badges.
Click to expand...
Yes they have they do have the brown woven grills.
 
Old-School said:
Thats a nice looking pair of speakers. Like others have said you shouldn't have to do anything to those other than what you have already done. Re-cap and rotate. I did upgrade the terminals and wiring on some of mine, but not necessary.
Nice score. I've got several Marantz Imperial speakers, and they do sound nice. Just easy to listen to. They just don't like a lot of power.
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They do sound good to my ears. I'm running a Pioneer SX-535, a good match I feel.
 
Old-School said:
Thats a nice looking pair of speakers. Like others have said you shouldn't have to do anything to those other than what you have already done. Re-cap and rotate. I did upgrade the terminals and wiring on some of mine, but not necessary.
Nice score. I've got several Marantz Imperial speakers, and they do sound nice. Just easy to listen to. They just don't like a lot of power.
Click to expand...
They're easy to drive too. I have a bunch tube amps from 3.5wpc to 125 watt mono blocks along with a couple SS power amps. I tried a 5.5wpc tube amp I built connected to the Imperial 6's and while that amp didn't drive the speakers to really loud volumes, it was loud enough, and sounded good.
At the moment I have my Dynakit ST-35 17wpc tube amp connected to the 6's and it pushes the speakers plenty loud and sounds great. My tube preamp doesn't have tone controls, but I rarely feel the need for them with the 6's.
Below are pictures of the 5.5wpc sweep tube amp and ST-35.
The ST-35 and 6's are a great combo. :music:
 

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Jens Sinding said:
I found some three way binding posts that can replace the dinky screw terminals and still allow bringing them back to the original design.
I just drilled out the rivets and screwed the new ones on after a bit of soldering
View attachment 3740342View attachment 3740341
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That's a neat job. I'm ok with screw terminals but they are quite close together and like your first photo, there is risk that wire strands could touch.

I've kept the originals but have screwed some spade to banana adaptors which seems to work ok.
 
Tomkatoz said:
That's a neat job. I'm ok with screw terminals but they are quite close together and like your first photo, there is risk that wire strands could touch.

I've kept the originals but have screwed some spade to banana adaptors which seems to work ok.
Click to expand...
I just crimp forked connectors to the speaker wire. The little ST-35 amp I built has screw terminals and I just crimp forked connectors on that end of the speaker wire as well. The chassis is pretty shallow to begin with.
Screw terminals are a bit of a pain, but with forked connectors instead of bare wire the wires stay good and secure.
 
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