Hales Revelation 3, a quest for answers

hiFi DAD

Active Member
Not long ago I was very excited to learn that my company was sending me out to the east coast for a few days. I wasn't particularly excited to leave the family but I was excided because I knew that within about an hour or so of where I was going someone had what appeared to be a pristine set of Hales revelation 3's for sale. After a few emails back and forth to the seller I found a time that I could pick them up while I was out there and I pulled the trigger on them. Well, that short drive turned into a long drive due to some traffic accidents and I was running short on day and I was staring at an 11 hour drive to get back home. So, in an effort to save time I didn't listen to the speakers before I brought them home. Big mistake!

After lugging those 100+lb behemoths downstairs to the basement I found out that one of the woofers was not working. WHAT! How could this be?!?! Surely a fellow audiophile would have mentioned this. I double checked the listing for the speakers, nope, it clearly state "Excellent condition" and never mentions a driver not working. I quickly tried to contact the seller and had to settle for leaving a message. Maybe something came loose internally during the trip, unlikely, but I guess it is possible, I thought to myself.

I set off to remove the grill, which if you are not familiar with these specific speakers, is a pain in the A**! The grill cloth is held to the speakers in a similar fashion as a screen is to your door or window. There is a small channel cut into the outside of the speaker cabinet. The cloth is stretched over the speaker and a small rubber cord is jammed into the groove to make a friction fit. Hales did a better job on the fit and finish than what I just described but in a nut shell that's what's going on. A word on removing the grills. lay the speaker on its back and start from the bottom. The two ends of the rubber cord come together and overlap at the bottom of the speaker near the center. Use a high powered flashlight to find the two ends of the cord and a skinny screwdriver, dental or O-ring pick to start working out the ends of the cord. BE CAREFUL! There will be about 4-5" of extra cord at both ends before it enters the sewn pocket in the cloth itself. This rubber is old and will break if you pull too hard on it. Using your pick slowly work out the cord and cloth at this seam at the bottom of the speaker. Once you have an inch or two of cloth out you can pull on that and work your way around the speaker.

Once I removed the cloth I found out that the woofer was frozen in place and It wouldn't budge by pushing on the cone. I removed the driver and didn't notice anything else that was wrong apart from that. buy this time the seller had called me and was very confused. He said that he was just listening to them yesterday and that they sounded awesome. Nothing smelt burnt, maybe the magnet shifted during transportation? After looking at the driver a little closer I noticed that it was stuck with the voice coil in about a half inch or so from its resting position. Crap.. I'm going to need a new woofer.

I started searching for a replacement. Nothing came up on the bay or on Hifi Shark. After doing some research I found a lot of theories about who made them, who had parts and who might have bought old stock. One forum post suggested that QSC audio acquired hales and their old stock in the early 2000's. I contacted QSC and explained my situation. The gentleman on the phone did not know of any mergers of the two companies so I asked him to ask some people that have been at the company since the 90's. a few hours later he contacted me and let me know that QSC audio did in fact not buy out or buy the remaining stock from Hales Audio. He was able to confirm that Paul Hales did do some consulting work for the company in the early 2000's but that was it.

Another theory was that the drivers were made by Vifa. I contacted Vifa and they replied back with, in short, "Vifa does no longer sell separate part units for other companies or end-users, neither do we stock any parts earlier sold or manuals." "As we understand, some Vifa units have been “reborn” under the name Peerless, so maybe they can help". They also provided me with some links to some parts supply places.

Someone else suggested that the woofers were custom made by Gefco per Hales specs and the mid and tweeters were Vifa. I found 3 different Phone numbers and email addresses for Gefco. Gefco has been out of business for a while but I thought I would still give contacting them a shot. To no one's surprise I haven't got a response to any of my emails and the phone numbers are all disconnected. I did find out that Gefco was bought by Misco but that they don't have any old stock.

I did a little more digging in an effort to hopefully contact Paul Hales directly. I found that he has since created two other companies Pro Audio Technologies and Theory Audio Design. Through these companies I was able to speak to Paul directly over the phone. I said "I know this is a long shot but do you happen to know where I might be able to find any parts for your Rev 3's?" He said "no". I explained what had happened and I asked if he might still have the specs. he said "that was 20 years ago" and he was "sure the documentation was long gone". He said that the best option would be to find a beat up pair and buy them for the parts. (easier said than done I thought.) I asked if he might know a suitable replacement driver for them and if he could confirm that the drivers were made by Gefco. he said that the drivers were indeed made by Gefco and that they were custom. He said he didn't know of any drivers off hand to use but recommended that I take some measurements off of the one good driver and I should be able to find something close, but that it will never be exact as the magic of these speakers are the crossovers which were painstakingly made for these drivers. He said I need to find a 10" 4-ohm driver with a resonance of 20hz or lower and that the most important values to match are Sensitivity, FS, Total Q and VAS values. He also suggested using the Parts express DATS system to measure the speakers.

While doing my research on Gefco I ran across a business in Chicago, Van L Speakerworks. The owner John was very helpful and is actually the one who informed me that Misco bought Gefco, as he used to have his drivers made by Gefco (and now Misco). It just so happened that I was going to be going through the area on my way back from @Leben s Cornstock 2018 event. I was able to drop off both drivers on Sunday and yesterday I got the bad news. John was not able to free the voice coil after removing the surround and spider. even with two people pulling on it won't budge. I believe that he is going to try to remove the back plate but he isn't confident he can get it apart without damaging the VC.

I am going to have him send the good driver to Misco and have them measured. I plan to post that information once I have it and keep updating this post as the project comes along. So far I haven't found anyone suggesting alternative drivers for these nor have I seen any specs on the drivers. The one thing I can say is that the speaker is sealed and that the internal volume of the woofers enclosure is 1.6875 cubic ft minus the displacement of the crossover and the woofer itself. When I get a few extra minutes I will model the enclosure in 3d with the crossover and woofer and provide a more exact number for box volume.

If anyone has or knows of someone who has an extra woofer for one of these, send them my way!
 

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Well you've really done your footwork on this one! I can't think of anything else you can possibly try. Other than an auto keyword search and notification thingy on ebay.

Edit: This is why it's always a good idea to listen before you buy and make sure every driver is working. I'm sure you don't need anyone to tell you that NOW. :cool:
 
Well that's a sad story. I'd recommend (if you haven't already done so) setting up automated searches on Craigslist and eBay. Maybe something will turn up.
 
I haven't set up any automated searches or notifications yet, frankly I didn't even think of it until you both mentioned it, thanks! :thumbsup:

I did see a pair of concept 5's on the bay for parts. Funny story, my dad actually bought those and the guy dropped them trying to get them outside for my friend to pick up. It shattered the front baffle (which is made of concrete) when he dropped them. Maybe my family just isn't meant to have the top offerings from Hales.:dunno:
 
With Craigslist, if you click on "include nearby areas", it allows you to increase your search radius quite a bit (you have to do it several times). There are some web pages that allow you to search all US Craigslist sites, but I don't know if they allow you to set up an automated search.
 
have you considered that the magnet has shifted and can be re-glued to the frame and re-aligned?

And good research. thank you!
 
have you considered that the magnet has shifted and can be re-glued to the frame and re-aligned?

Agreed and in fact the seller suggested this and the description of the woofer supports it. Search on here for threads on how to fix this. Also check the driver for continuity, if the coil is still good this may not be too hard to repair.
 
When I spoke to john originally that was his though as well. He has since informed me that the magnet is fine and that someone played it way to loud. Another thing to add is that the seller mentioned that he had a big lightning strike hit his house around the same time he first bought the speakers. this strike knocked out most of the electronics in his home and was powerful enough to blow apart DC transformers of other devices, crack most of the walls in his home and blow the windows out. My hunch it that this fried the woofer as well and he never noticed that it wasn't working. I will double check with john though and verify that he tore the speaker down far enough to eliminate a magnet shift as a possibility.
 
If you hit a brick wall reach out to AK member Gordonw. He’s a master on this type of stuff.
 
I sent him a pm before I started the thread but i haven’t heard anything as of yet. I’m sure he will chime in at some point. ;)
He can be slow to respond at times. I live near where he is and he can get quite busy at times.
 
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