"Vintage" Electro Voice Speakers

[tom snyder]

Hi,

I recently aquired a pair of EV "Sentry IIA" speakers, they are old and have
a nasty looking 70's style orange cloth covering on the front. Does anyone
remember these or have any spec's?? I checked out EV's website and Deja and
found nothing. These were used in a PA system at my old high school, when I
quit working there I got the speakers and a marantz 2270 stereo reciever.
Like I said these were used in a PA system so I thought this would be the
place to ask. Think the EV's are worth anything??

thanks,
tom

[Robert S Ely]

Tom,
They must have been made long before 1980. 1981 MSRP pricing for these is listed below. I have a bunch of literature from 1981. The
closest I have is Sentry III series 11 (1349.00), Sentry IVB (which I used in one install back in the late 70's) 1045.00, Sentry V
429.00, Sentry 100A 219.00 and Sentry SRB7 18.00 (rack mount speaker (interesting))
--
Robert S Ely
rse...@optonline.net
rober...@dhs.state.nj.us
Work Phone: 1-609-894-4057
Work FAX: 1-609-894-4048
ICQ: 33390750
Yahoo Messenger: rsely74

[John Halliburton]

Don't discount the Marantz unit, they apparantly have some collectable
value, especially in very good shape.

John Halliburton

[Mike Tulley]

I couldn't tell you what price they might fetch, but I used to use
them for radio broadcast monitors back in the 1970's. I thought they
were decent monitors, back then.
Mike T.

[tom snyder]

I'm currently using the marantz as a amp and the Ev's as subs for my home
stereo. All my friends are impressed that these old speakers put out as much
low end as they do. (for home use anyhow) Actually when I took one of my
friends to this large outdoor rock concert last month I had to make the
comment that the P.A. speakers that they were using were made by the same
company that made my old speakers. The SR company at the concert I think was
using the EV X-array alothough I didn't care for the sound of these as much
as the EAW system they had a few years back. p.s. yes I do know that the my
mid 70's EV's arent in the same world as the newer ones so no need to make
that comment. Thanks for all the great info thus far. I've learned alot just
from lurking.....

tom

[ChuxGarage]

The Sentry's were pretty common in TV and radio studios back in the 60's &
70's. I remember them sounding reasonably good. They are also pretty
efficient, but I don't think you should try using them for any serious PA
application, or you may blow them up.

Back when these speakers were new, 35-40 watts was considered to be a big amp,
with 100 watts being a HUGE amplifier. The Sentry's were designed to work
adequately off a power amp of the type typically built into broadcast consoles.
These were no power houses, usually 10 watts or less.

If you connect these speakers up to one of todays high powered amps and run the
gain up until the clip lights come on you'll be able to permanently hear the
"sounds of silence" from your vintage speakers.

My suggestion is run them on a decent 100 watt amplifier (for headroom), play
music through them at modest levels, and enjoy.

Just a cautionary tale.

Chuck

[tom snyder]

I forgot to mention that the woofers are the only parts of the speaker
system that isn't blown (that's why i'm just using them for a little extra
bass) the rest was fried before I got them. The way these cabs were
assembled is that the speakers are mounted to a rectangular piece of plywood
(with the nasty orange fabric cover) that is just screwed into the rest of
the "shell" of the cab. What I was thinking I could do is to go get a piece
of plywood the same size cut two holes in it and mount in some new drivers.
I was thinking of converting them each into a dual 12" subwoofer cabniet.
any suggestions?

"ChuxGarage" <chuxg...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020715184239...@mb-fy.aol.com...

[Mike Tulley]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:01:35 -0400, "tom snyder"
<toms...@chartermi.net> wrote:

>I forgot to mention that the woofers are the only parts of the speaker
>system that isn't blown (that's why i'm just using them for a little extra
>bass) the rest was fried before I got them. The way these cabs were
>assembled is that the speakers are mounted to a rectangular piece of plywood
>(with the nasty orange fabric cover) that is just screwed into the rest of
>the "shell" of the cab. What I was thinking I could do is to go get a piece
>of plywood the same size cut two holes in it and mount in some new drivers.
>I was thinking of converting them each into a dual 12" subwoofer cabniet.
>any suggestions?

Don't do that. If all you want is a plywood box with veneer, that is
easily arranged. It takes a lot of arithmetic to design a speaker
cabinet, and it would be just too unlikely that you would pick a pair
of 12" drivers that would actually WORK with the Sentry IIA box.

Instead, see if you can find a pair of EV T35 tweeters and bring the
Sentry's back to their original sound. If you don't like that sound,
sell them to someone who does and use the money fo buy something you
like for a sub.

Mike T.

[ChuxGarage]

If you want to make some bass bins, try to find some plans for the EV "TL "
series cabinets. Back in the 1970s, the TL-606 was a favorite. It's not too
hard to build, and they work quite well, even by todays standards. You will
need to find loudspeakers that have similar Thiel-Small Parameters as the EVM
series speakers of the era. You will probably be shopping for EV or Eminence
speakers.

EV used to give out the plans for free, so I'm sure a Google search will yield
results. Then go to Home Depot, buy some plywood and follow the instructions
exactly. Good speaker cabinet design is not a random thing.

The Sentry's are probably best left alone. If you have no interest in fixing
them, give them to someone who will appreciate them. Your chances of making
them work correctly with a new bafle board and a couple of randomly selected
speakers is pretty unlikely. It is also doubtful that the cabinet is braced
well enough to be useful with today's high powered drivers.