My picker friend called me a few weeks ago asking if I'd be interested in a pair of Frazier speakers, so being a Frazier fan I had to say yes. Turns out they are early consecutive serial # Manhattan's done in a cherry or a mahogany finish. These are very simplistic speakers sporting an 8" woofer, small tweeter, and tweeter control, crossover is comprised of a single 3MF capacitor. The back panels were particle board that had become crumbly from soaking up humidity over the years, they fell apart after trying to remove them.
Restoration was very simple on these, cabinets needed a bit of steel wool and feed and wax to look absolutely beautiful. I replaced the old wax ended capacitor with a nice Dayton 3 uf, replaced the cheap screw terminals with Dayton premium binding posts, Deoxed the high frequency control pot, and cut new particle board back panels for each speaker.
Initial listening impressions are that they have a very pronounced midrange sound, bass is decent but not all that deep, highs are clean but not up to par with the midrange. I am going to try them with some of my Fisher tube equipment, I have a feeling they will really match up well. Not sure what year these were made, but I would guess early 60's. The builder signed his name in both cabinets which was pretty much the norm for Frazier, his name was Sammy.
Restoration was very simple on these, cabinets needed a bit of steel wool and feed and wax to look absolutely beautiful. I replaced the old wax ended capacitor with a nice Dayton 3 uf, replaced the cheap screw terminals with Dayton premium binding posts, Deoxed the high frequency control pot, and cut new particle board back panels for each speaker.
Initial listening impressions are that they have a very pronounced midrange sound, bass is decent but not all that deep, highs are clean but not up to par with the midrange. I am going to try them with some of my Fisher tube equipment, I have a feeling they will really match up well. Not sure what year these were made, but I would guess early 60's. The builder signed his name in both cabinets which was pretty much the norm for Frazier, his name was Sammy.