mhardy6647
Señor Member
I wasn't disagreeing, just amplifying.
EPI Speakers
- Thread starter fiddlefye
- Start date
airdronian
Radar Member
That CA-410 - was the first integrated amp I purchased back in the day. Learned about clipping (took out a tweeter in my JBL L40) and then moved up the chain to the CA-810 which I had for a number of years.
HepcatWilly
Junior Member
Hmm. I'm really happy with my AR-LST2 right now, but I've got a pair of Epi 150 that I should pull out. Come to think of it, I've got a Genesis III+ that need a new crossover...
fiddlefye
Senior Member
I really do think that the choices of pairings were pretty regional, especially back in those days. Even between cities I noticed differences, probably due to the influence of whoever the local audio shops were.I wasn't disagreeing, just amplifying.
fiddlefye
Senior Member
I never managed to get mine to clip, even playing the little M50s so loudly that they would walk across shelf they were on and I'd have to catch them before they jumped right off! The CA-810 is a really nice amp, pretty durned close to the 1010 and (to my ears) a fairly big step up from the 610. I guess there were other similar models in different markets, but we had the 410, 610, 810, 1010 and the 2010 as well, though I never actually saw one in a shop for sale. I wanted the 1010, but could afford the 410. Funny thing is that my 1010 was a rescue, found just before it was headed to the dump.
fiddlefye
Senior Member
They really are incredibly low distortion amplifiers.
A buddy of mine had a pair of EPI 3-ways in college.
I no longer recall the exact model # or any other specifics on them except that they were 4 Ohms, and they played at concert level loudness driven by his 60 watt Adcom GFA-535 amp.
Unfortunately, he got talked into bringing them to his Rutgers University fraternity house for a party. After the drunkenness reached its typical over the top levels, one of his dumb-ass frat brothers pushed things too far and apparently the speakers were blown, or at least that was my buddy's summation at the time.
He for whatever reason instantly concluded they would never be useable ever again, no consideration for further testing or future repair was given. Instead, he and his frat brothers hauled them up onto the roof of the frat house in order to throw them off and smash them to pieces, and that's exactly what they did.
The story didn't quite end there, as apparently one of the speakers landed dangerously close to a campus police officer who had arrived on the scene, they were very lucky no one was hurt in tossing these speakers off the roof of that frat house. Miraculously, no one was hurt or arrested.
I no longer recall the exact model # or any other specifics on them except that they were 4 Ohms, and they played at concert level loudness driven by his 60 watt Adcom GFA-535 amp.
Unfortunately, he got talked into bringing them to his Rutgers University fraternity house for a party. After the drunkenness reached its typical over the top levels, one of his dumb-ass frat brothers pushed things too far and apparently the speakers were blown, or at least that was my buddy's summation at the time.
He for whatever reason instantly concluded they would never be useable ever again, no consideration for further testing or future repair was given. Instead, he and his frat brothers hauled them up onto the roof of the frat house in order to throw them off and smash them to pieces, and that's exactly what they did.
The story didn't quite end there, as apparently one of the speakers landed dangerously close to a campus police officer who had arrived on the scene, they were very lucky no one was hurt in tossing these speakers off the roof of that frat house. Miraculously, no one was hurt or arrested.
EPI Speakers... Yup they are something special... Bought my first pair in 1974. Went to a local "Tweeter" and fell in love with the EPI M100s and came close to walking out with a pair... Then I heard the EPI M150 with a slightly richer lower end (bigger cabinet) and ended up with them. Dragged them all over the world during my 25-years in the US Military. Last 10 years they sat forgotten in a storage closet with beat-up cabinets (movers can be brutal) and grills subjected to actions by several cats long gone.
COVID came along and I started dragging old gear out and going through them... The M150s were resurrected first... and then I got the bug. I soon rehabbed three EPI M180Vs, One EPI M100Ws, four EPI M50Ws (my new favorites) and two EPI M100s with water-damaged cabinets I am slowly pulling apart to try to restore.
The current stable is EPI heavy with a few Advents, AR, KLH, and a few other speakers hanging around.
COVID came along and I started dragging old gear out and going through them... The M150s were resurrected first... and then I got the bug. I soon rehabbed three EPI M180Vs, One EPI M100Ws, four EPI M50Ws (my new favorites) and two EPI M100s with water-damaged cabinets I am slowly pulling apart to try to restore.
The current stable is EPI heavy with a few Advents, AR, KLH, and a few other speakers hanging around.
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well ya... But there is at least one EPI in the photos too. even on the test bench, there is an EPI M180 (Center Channel) in the mix with some AR-18s... ok I'm sorry they snuck in there.
(The next evil project involves setting up a mostly all EPI and Denon 9.2 surround sound playroom with EPI M180s as the Front and Center, EPI M100 speakers as surround sides, and M150 as rear channels, and a pair of M50 as Front Highs. I have just restored a pair of Klipsch RPW-10 Subwoofers... ....not sure if they will add much to the overall presentation other than REALLY PISSING OFF MY BETTER HALF as she tries to watch TV in the room above)
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I think staking any speakers ALMOST doubles the entire sound field. This is a very subjective subject. I have been massing speakers down the end of my 30ftliving room all of them being driven as stereo using Niko Alpha 230 amplifiers. One Alpha is driving 8-ohm speaker pairs in A+B mode and the other Alpha driving 4-ohm speaker pairs in A or B mode (see diagram). This arrangement is fairly typical of most amplifiers that drive two sets of Primary speakers (A and B Front).
Stacking speakers in general on one wall increases the "Sound Stage" or overall "Presence". Advents were particularly impressive as many stereo shops did this before anyone else to showcase this phenomenon of "Sound Stage" to sell more speakers and thus the stacking legend began. Having stacked several different speakers myself, I do think the Large Advents, the NLA, and Advent/1 does sound a bit sweeter stacked than other speakers. Not sure why... but maybe living the "Legend" helps.
I might add the biggest factors are: *stacking at the best height for the listening position, *the position (finding the SWEET SPOT) of the stack relative to the room layout, and the *acoustics of the listening space.
*Note: these three factors impact any speaker "soundstage" within a given "room" A speaker pair, setup, or stack that is poorly placed, at the wrong height relative to the primary listening position, and placed in a room with bad acoustics (clutter, a low ceiling, too much furniture, or no acoustical dampening, and lots of wall angles will end up sounding like crap.
One of to results of speaker placement that knocked me off my feet was placing a pair of the smaller EPI M50's up high in the corner near the ceiling in my living room. The corner of the ceiling and long walls made these small amazing little speakers sound "ENORMOUS" with some of the instruments seeming to come at me from the sides. Quite by accident, I had found the sweet spot for these little mites. It is interesting that low tone frequencies generate a sound wave that can be 20 to 30 feet long. This placement of the "Mites" allows the walls and ceilings to enhance these lower frequency sine waves to "emerge" from a speaker that does not have the adequate cabinet volume to reproduce these frequencies without outside help.
This is why speaker designers use specific cabinet volumes to match the characteristics of the low-frequency driver system to tune at 1/8 wave, 1/4 wave, 1/2 wave harmonic levels in an attempt to reproduce "some" of these lower frequency sine waves. Frequencies that far exceed the capability of a given speaker to reproduce a full sine wave at frequencies less than 50hz.
Many speaker designers us larger cabinets with chambers and baffles in an attempt to recreate and enhance the woofer's ability to reproduce these lower frequencies. Klipsch uses these design principles with great success in the LaScala and Klipschhorn high-end speaker lines for instance. The ESS AMT-1 Tower speakers use a 6ft long "linear transmission line". (see the second diagram) to also perform this feat.
Sorry I am not even sure that I answered your question at this point... I got carried away. There are folks in this forum that know far more about these elements of speaker design and placement that I do. Maybe they will jump in to add or correct things on this subject I was not clear on.
Stacking speakers in general on one wall increases the "Sound Stage" or overall "Presence". Advents were particularly impressive as many stereo shops did this before anyone else to showcase this phenomenon of "Sound Stage" to sell more speakers and thus the stacking legend began. Having stacked several different speakers myself, I do think the Large Advents, the NLA, and Advent/1 does sound a bit sweeter stacked than other speakers. Not sure why... but maybe living the "Legend" helps.
I might add the biggest factors are: *stacking at the best height for the listening position, *the position (finding the SWEET SPOT) of the stack relative to the room layout, and the *acoustics of the listening space.
*Note: these three factors impact any speaker "soundstage" within a given "room" A speaker pair, setup, or stack that is poorly placed, at the wrong height relative to the primary listening position, and placed in a room with bad acoustics (clutter, a low ceiling, too much furniture, or no acoustical dampening, and lots of wall angles will end up sounding like crap.
One of to results of speaker placement that knocked me off my feet was placing a pair of the smaller EPI M50's up high in the corner near the ceiling in my living room. The corner of the ceiling and long walls made these small amazing little speakers sound "ENORMOUS" with some of the instruments seeming to come at me from the sides. Quite by accident, I had found the sweet spot for these little mites. It is interesting that low tone frequencies generate a sound wave that can be 20 to 30 feet long. This placement of the "Mites" allows the walls and ceilings to enhance these lower frequency sine waves to "emerge" from a speaker that does not have the adequate cabinet volume to reproduce these frequencies without outside help.
This is why speaker designers use specific cabinet volumes to match the characteristics of the low-frequency driver system to tune at 1/8 wave, 1/4 wave, 1/2 wave harmonic levels in an attempt to reproduce "some" of these lower frequency sine waves. Frequencies that far exceed the capability of a given speaker to reproduce a full sine wave at frequencies less than 50hz.
Many speaker designers us larger cabinets with chambers and baffles in an attempt to recreate and enhance the woofer's ability to reproduce these lower frequencies. Klipsch uses these design principles with great success in the LaScala and Klipschhorn high-end speaker lines for instance. The ESS AMT-1 Tower speakers use a 6ft long "linear transmission line". (see the second diagram) to also perform this feat.
Sorry I am not even sure that I answered your question at this point... I got carried away. There are folks in this forum that know far more about these elements of speaker design and placement that I do. Maybe they will jump in to add or correct things on this subject I was not clear on.
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To a degree you are correct. The downside of this arrangement is each speaker pair is sharing the same cabinet space. Since these designs are acoustically sealed, while they do work together to move air or double the sound presence, they are fighting each other to a small degree as they attempt to reproduce a given tone.
If we focus on the Earlier EPIs that I am interested in... the ones famous for the original "New England Sound". The M50, M100, M150 used a two-way setup. The M180, M201, M201A, and M202/M250 are double "module" eight-inch two-way systems. The rare M400 (a quadruple "module" six-inch two-way omnidirectional system), and very rare M601/M602 (have two angled, rear-firing eight-inch two-way modules combined with a six-inch two-way on the front). Lastly, we have the amazing EPI M350 ( this critter has a triple module, eight-inch two-way speaker. One woofer/tweeter module is mounted on the top). There is no way to stack this one... lol
MikeT.
Senior Member
When & where I came from (Baltimore), the canonical pairing was Yamaha and Polk Audio.
When I was selling hifi, let’s not talk about how long ago, our competition was a store that probably sold a bazillion Yamaha/Advent combinations. Tough to compete with but we did carry EPI for a while and the 100’s were/are very special loudspeakers. Beautiful, accurate, moving, emotional and all from a very small package.
