IMF owners thread!

Does anyone have more of an idea as to what this set of "so Called" IMF's are ?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IMF-Teak...066711?hash=item4d68488c17:g:v4AAAOSwZqZaGdfj

The following points are what I've observed,

They have no ID on them whatsoever,
They have recessed timber finished rear panels on them, something that was only done on the Upper Level speakers such as the Mk IV's, HPCM, SACM's etc.
They are of a size and appearance similar to the Super Compact,
These are of a conventional ported design and not like the SC's,
The Tweeters are cone type and not dome type as IMF traditionally used,
The Woofer is a definitely a substitution for an original blown unit.

Lastly the price is well out of this world for what's been presented.

Love to hear some ideas what fellow IMF followers think.


Cheers.
 
Hi, if you look at IMF ELECTRONICS Website you will see this model (compact).It is probably the first small model IMF have produce,look like phillips woofer-tweeter's and 4" Emi midranges use an other IMF models like tls 50 and als 40.
 
Good Spotting YD, why didn't I see that ? I guess because the poor image on the IMF site just shows the drivers and baffle board, not the boxes and their appearance on the whole.
Anyway as stated the price is just way over the top.

Cheers.
 
Merry christmas all IMF entusiasts :) I did buy a pair on MK.VII early December. This is probably 1 of 3 pairs mk.VII in Norway. This pair was private imported by previous owner from Germany. So now there are two pairs of MK.VII in the same small town in North Norway.

Havent heard them yet since im at sea, but will do in a week. And ofcourse post more pictures of them.

6F510F0A-4022-4C61-9E0C-AFA198088C3E.jpeg
 
Hi Tor-S,

Firstly congratulations are in order.

There's not many Mk VII's out there as the size of them went out of fashion at the time with many more slimline cabinets appearing over the market in general. I guess that the new styling was more in vogue with apartment living which had limited space and also WAF was also much higher than the Mk VII sizing.

One thing I could never get my head around and that was the Midrange / Tweeter inversion. I know why it was done (so-called better cabinet geometry) but imaging of the music just didn't cut it for me. I had a set of Bailey's TL (my first ever TL's) and they had the midrange over the tweeter and I always found it odd sounding, thus why I parted with them once I got my TLS-80 Mk II's, what a massive improvement that was.

I will be really interested in your opinion once you've spent some time with them how you feel about the imaging as a complete package.

Cheers.
 
Thanks for answer IMF_Pioneer

No theres not many of them out there, i also have RSPM MK IV and TLS 80 Mk.II
Im really intresting how they sound compared to the MK IV’s. Lets see ☺️
 
Hi Tor,

An A~B Comparison would be really great to hear the outcome of. There's not many people that have ever had those two model RSPM's side by side. Admittedly there are a lot of differences amongst all the Mk IV's that were issued over the many years it ran for and the changes that were made in their driver line up and crossover modifications that were made along the way.

Must admit that I always preferred the discreteness of the Mk IV's lower black panel opposed to the "really out there" Mk VII's silver unit, but hey, that's just IMHO. Horses for courses I always say. If we were all the same the world would be a boring place.

I guess all you need now is a set of SACM's and HPCM's.

Cheers.
 
Will do some A-B ofcourse :)
Actually all the drivers are different on MK.VII compared to MK.IV. Different position on the drivers as you say, and completely different crossover design. MK.VII crossover looks more like the TLS 80-2 crossover.

In some way i agree on the discreteness on the black plate on the MK.IV, the silver plate is a bit wow, but its a original design so will keep it like that. I tho like the cabinet colour and finish on MK.VII better than IV.

It will be fun to hear them, its a hard time waiting

A01B4B40-5B96-46E9-B8D2-0B2E3BDF0F40.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Hi Tor,

I suppose that they had to make some changes with the Mk VII as the Mk IV had been around for quite a number of years by that stage (Note the filter removal). I must admit that the crossover on the Mk IV looks a lot more technical & professionally made opposed to the 7 as the above photo shows it look a lot more like a kit put together by an owner in their garage. Nothing looks nicely set out nor uniform does it ? This really is starting to show up the corner / cost cutting that went on in the early 1980's to try and stay competitive with the rest of the industry that was already struggling to stay afloat by that time and mass production being streamlined.

One thing that was really evident was the cabinetry and how the attention to overall appearance was ramped up. The later IMF's certainly looked much nicer to the eye than the early drab looking lacquer stains and timber selections that were being used, I did hear that they bought out their cabinet maker and thus did all timber work in house but off site from their Westbourne Street premises. The colouring and timber matching was certainly a step up in the later years and far more enticing when it was sitting alongside other manufacturers products on the showrooms of Hi-Fi dealers.

BTW the line up of drivers were pretty much identical in both models by the end of Mk IV production as the Mk IV was a continuing evolution along its timeline with so many running changes being made. The last issue sounded so much different to the early ones made with it's full contingent of Elac drivers opposed to KEF / Celestion units being used. Some say that the earlier ones sounded far more musical while that later ones were far more clinical, especially with the full Elac top end.

That's progress I guess.

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
Hi Peter,

I guess you want my ID now ? LOL !

Those photos are just gorgeous. The Mk IV's are just the right height alongside the Pioneer Rack.

The rack itself is the only thing I'm missing as there were hardly any JA-R2S's that made it into Australia when they were new, there's hardly any top end stuff here compared to the USA where it was rather plentiful. Only the top end of town could afford items like the Spec series and the high end SX's. I guess I've been rather lucky to amass what I've collected over many years and now is my time to enjoy it all. I can't see me hunting anything more down, but then if a set of SACM's were to appear then I'd come out of hunting retirement for a short time. Don't know where I'd put them though as every room in the house has got a system of some sorts in it.

BTW Peter your stands look just like the ones that came out of an IMF box. Very nicely done indeed.


Cheers.
 
Hi Peter,

I guess you want my ID now ? LOL !

Those photos are just gorgeous. The Mk IV's are just the right height alongside the Pioneer Rack.

The rack itself is the only thing I'm missing as there were hardly any JA-R2S's that made it into Australia when they were new, there's hardly any top end stuff here compared to the USA where it was rather plentiful. Only the top end of town could afford items like the Spec series and the high end SX's. I guess I've been rather lucky to amass what I've collected over many years and now is my time to enjoy it all. I can't see me hunting anything more down, but then if a set of SACM's were to appear then I'd come out of hunting retirement for a short time. Don't know where I'd put them though as every room in the house has got a system of some sorts in it.

BTW Peter your stands look just like the ones that came out of an IMF box. Very nicely done indeed.


Cheers.
hi IMF_Pioneer,

The RSPM's are a nice match with the SPEC system, I used to have HPM-150's but really didn't like their sound so I sold them to finance the RSPM's, one of the best decisions of my life :)
The JA-R racks are not too rare in the Netherlands, every year a few are sold on our Dutch 'marketplace', bought mine about 10 years ago for a bargain price but had to drive about 350 miles to pick it up, it was worth the effort!

The stands came out nice indeed, I think the rods (?) are bit more rounded than the orignal but it would only be visible if you have them side-by-side, for people in metric land, here's my drawing:

have a nice weekend, Peter
 

Attachments

  • PvV IMF RSPM Mk IV stands.pdf
    238 KB · Views: 29
Hi Peter,

Sadly the only way these racks find their way into Australia is from private sales overseas and then shipped here at the buyers expense, something which is just not viable anymore with International shipping prices or money is no object, if that's the case one wouldn't be playing with Pioneer stuff. I've got most of my Pioneer gear packed away in their respective boxes and would dearly love to get it all out and display it all in one place. The Rack with the correct bolts (with nylon protective inserts) is the only way I would do it.

Regardless the Mk IV's are a great match to the Spec 4 Power Amp I've always found, they certainly compliment each other well.

I'm still running my Mk IV's in after recapping them, but I'll have to say that I'm not hearing a huge difference like so many other people have claimed after doing the work. The only reason I went through the process is because I was losing my top end after about 15 minutes if running them at a higher volume level when the wife and kids were out of the house on Saturday mornings and that being the only time to have the whole house to myself and enjoy it all and also evaluate it more carefully.

Cheers.
 
Ok finally had some time to spend on my newly acquired TLS80 Mk 11.
Left Chanel was making sound, but not much of it. Right channel was sounding ok. I swapped XO from right channel to,left just make sure there wasn’t a driver issue- it sounded fine. I also found quite a scorch mark under the 15 ohm resistor on the XO board , the foam underneath was scorched too (both XO were like this). It’s the original resistor I assume complete with a coloured dot on it. I will replace both of these with some Mills 1% , 12 w and mount them raised off the board. Both resistors metered ok, but I’d like to see them gone.
Have ordered the recap kit from Falcon and will recap both boards when they arrive. Will also replace the 4 resistors in each attenuators on the speaker terminals. Some photos attached sorry for varied exposure.
Cheers for now ,Mike
 

Attachments

  • 41254AAA-F355-4196-8FDE-35FA53D3AD2F.jpeg
    41254AAA-F355-4196-8FDE-35FA53D3AD2F.jpeg
    32.9 KB · Views: 36
  • 14259A4A-674C-457C-A5C0-F7D123FD14E8.jpeg
    14259A4A-674C-457C-A5C0-F7D123FD14E8.jpeg
    34.5 KB · Views: 32
  • 2C9FA216-AAEF-4A5F-A716-E47209B86FE5.jpeg
    2C9FA216-AAEF-4A5F-A716-E47209B86FE5.jpeg
    34.4 KB · Views: 32
  • DCD67033-4BA5-40A9-97B7-94984441E099.jpeg
    DCD67033-4BA5-40A9-97B7-94984441E099.jpeg
    104.4 KB · Views: 37
  • 4CD45F49-60D2-4146-82FB-22E619804B08.jpeg
    4CD45F49-60D2-4146-82FB-22E619804B08.jpeg
    113.2 KB · Views: 36
  • 7DB136C5-905E-401A-BB6A-7244F1B9A715.jpeg
    7DB136C5-905E-401A-BB6A-7244F1B9A715.jpeg
    57.1 KB · Views: 35
  • 42D4280E-E6FF-48B8-81F6-275237399F98.jpeg
    42D4280E-E6FF-48B8-81F6-275237399F98.jpeg
    58.4 KB · Views: 35
Last edited:
Hi. Finally i got my new speakers.
The boxes looks almost new. Nearly mint condition.
Have listend to them now for a week and they sound really amazing.
The general improwements from mk.IV to mk. VII is that they play the sound of instruments much clearer. Cymbals, Drums, Blowing instruments, Bass.... and so on, everything is so much more refined. Little less bass, as expected, but just perfect. Not as "boomy" as the mk IV.

The tweeters is just on a another level delivering smooth heights, they are just in the sound image, nothing peaks out. My mother was listening to them and she said: You can clearly hear every instrument in this song, i have never head this song like this before.

They play music in a great way, and yes, they are musical!


Bilde 05.01.2018, 20 31 22.jpg

Bilde 05.01.2018, 20 31 31.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 50 34.jpg


Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 50 54.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 51 04.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 51 37.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 51 44.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 52 01.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 52 13.jpg

Bilde 07.01.2018, 13 52 36.jpg
 
Hi,so the fact for these tweeter's install lower of the midranges have no effect on the dispersion compare to the old way,later in the production,it was very professionnal the way IMF use to send all info's for their top of the line speaker's.Lucky you the owner kept everything,nice.
 
Back
Top Bottom