Sony apm-22es mkii

cnzsystem

New Member
I recently acquired a pair of SONY APM-22ES MKII speaker (both bass driver rubber foam in perfect condition). Both are made in W Germany.

The MKII uses normal tweeter. Any difference compared to APM-22ES?

Anyone can suggest me a reasonbly priced amplifier (and yet sounds good) to drive this speaker?

I am in Auckland, New Zealand by the way, if there are anyone out there who can help me out.
 
I recently acquired a pair of SONY APM-22ES MKII speaker (both bass driver rubber foam in perfect condition). Both are made in W Germany.

The MKII uses normal tweeter. Any difference compared to APM-22ES?

Anyone can suggest me a reasonbly priced amplifier (and yet sounds good) to drive this speaker?

I am in Auckland, New Zealand by the way, if there are anyone out there who can help me out.


Normal Tweeter? You mean a paper cone type, instead of the flat honeycomb aluminum? I thought that only the APM 66ES got that "Cost-a-Down" treatment! (As the Sony factory engineers would say whenever management would ask them to take the value out of their designs...):no:

My APM-22ES run really good on generic Sony home theater amps. I've had mine running on Crown and Yamaha "Natural Sound" amplifiers before, but they've become my bedroom 5.1 system now, so the high power is no longer needed. For trade shows we used to use Bryston's with them, that sounded really nice. Followed by the Yamaha's.

I've been thinking if the tweets on mine ever start crackling again, I'm just going to put a 6"X6" waveguide in 'em!
 
Normal Tweeter? You mean a paper cone type, instead of the flat honeycomb aluminum? I thought that only the APM 66ES got that "Cost-a-Down" treatment! (As the Sony factory engineers would say whenever management would ask them to take the value out of their designs...):no:

My APM-22ES run really good on generic Sony home theater amps. I've had mine running on Crown and Yamaha "Natural Sound" amplifiers before, but they've become my bedroom 5.1 system now, so the high power is no longer needed. For trade shows we used to use Bryston's with them, that sounded really nice. Followed by the Yamaha's.

I've been thinking if the tweets on mine ever start crackling again, I'm just going to put a 6"X6" waveguide in 'em!

Normal tweeter i mean dome type that you would find on normal HiFi speakers. not paper cone type.
 
I have a pair of APM-22ES speakers that are configured like the one's on TVK, with square drivers for both woofer and tweeter.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/SONY/sonyes/APM22ES/APM22ES.html

As you can see on TVK, only three models of the 22ES are referenced - the ES, the ESB (black), and the ESV which used ferrite plugs to magnetically shield the speakers for use close to a television, so I am curious to see your II's.

The only references I can find to an APM-22ESII on the web are either in french or german so perhaps it was a model only sold in the EU.

Is it possible that the tweeters were replaced at some point? The crossover point between woofer and tweeter is pretty low because of an issue with the woofers. A 1986 Gramophone review put it this way:

"In the present case, for example, its behaviour is reasonably good up to about 2kHz. At just over 3kHz most of the radiation is taking place from the central area and but little from the outer edge, indicating that the flat plate is saucering, i.e. alternating between convex and concave. In order to minimize acoustical irregularities from this cause, it is desirable to cross over to a smaller unit quite early, giving the designer of a two unit system the difficult task of producing a tweeter which will reach down to meet it, and still behave well up to the highest audible frequencies."

I have an original service manual for the 22ES which gives the crossover frequency at 2KHZ but TVK states it at 1.3KHZ. In any event, it is pretty low giving the tweeter a lot of work to do and as a result, I have read that they were prone to failure. So possibly the original tweeters in your 22ES's got fried and were replaced with conventional drivers.

Another possibility comes from the service manual which, for the AEK, UK models (Made in W. Germany) lists two different part numbers for the tweeter as follows:

8-927-177-00 (Black)
8-927-197-00 (Walnut, Ebony)

The second part number (197) matches the one for the other model listed as the E Model (Made in Japan) in the manual and matches the part number on a loose spare driver that I have so it is definitely for the square tweeter. Check one of your tweeters to see if it might match the other number.

That's about all the help I can be for now. I have pictures I took of the crossover in one of my 22ES's as well as some shots of the back of the woofers showing the rather odd construction and how the VC is connected to the diaphram. If anyone is interested I can either post them on this thread or start a new one.
 
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I have a pair of APM-22ES speakers that are configured like the one's on TVK, with square drivers for both woofer and tweeter.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/SONY/sonyes/APM22ES/APM22ES.html

As you can see on TVK, only three models of the 22ES are referenced - the ES, the ESB (black), and the ESV which used ferrite plugs to magnetically shield the speakers for use close to a television, so I am curious to see your II's.

The only references I can find to an APM-22ESII on the web are either in french or german so perhaps it was a model only sold in the EU.

Is it possible that the tweeters were replaced at some point? The crossover point between woofer and tweeter is pretty low because of an issue with the woofers. A 1986 Gramophone review put it this way:

"In the present case, for example, its behaviour is reasonably good up to about 2kHz. At just over 3kHz most of the radiation is taking place from the central area and but little from the outer edge, indicating that the flat plate is saucering, i.e. alternating between convex and concave. In order to minimize acoustical irregularities from this cause, it is desirable to cross over to a smaller unit quite early, giving the designer of a two unit system the difficult task of producing a tweeter which will reach down to meet it, and still behave well up to the highest audible frequencies."

I have an original service manual for the 22ES which gives the crossover frequency at 2KHZ but TVK states it at 1.3KHZ. In any event, it is pretty low giving the tweeter a lot of work to do and as a result, I have read that they were prone to failure. So possibly the original tweeters in your 22ES's got fried and were replaced with conventional drivers.

Another possibility comes from the service manual which, for the AEK, UK models (Made in W. Germany) lists two different part numbers for the tweeter as follows:

8-927-177-00 (Black)
8-927-197-00 (Walnut, Ebony)

The second part number (197) matches the one for the other model listed as the E Model (Made in Japan) in the manual and matches the part number on a loose spare driver that I have so it is definitely for the square tweeter. Check one of your tweeters to see if it might match the other number.

That's about all the help I can be for now. I have pictures I took of the crossover in one of my 22ES's as well as some shots of the back of the woofers showing the rather odd construction and how the VC is connected to the diaphram. If anyone is interested I can either post them on this thread or start a new one.

Could you please send all the manual/pictures about APM-22ES?

I am thinking of driving APM-22ES MKII with SONY TA-FA3ES. Is it enough power wise?
 
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Could you please send all the manual/pictures about APM-22ES to yuhuichen@xtra.co.nz?

I am thinking of driving APM-22ES MKII with SONY TA-FA3ES. Is it enough power wise?

I'll have to size some of the photos but will get them off to you by the weekend.

I believe the TA-F3ES is 75WPC which should be plenty. I have my 22ES's set up with most of my Sony ES gear with everything switched through everything else with the smallest amp in that array being a 100WPC TA-N90ES, but I also have a separate TA-F444ES that I use for testing that is rated at 80WPC with which I tested the APM-22ES's when I got them and it provided sufficient power as well.
 
APM-22ES photos and etc.

I figured I'd post the photos here in case anyone else is interested. They are pretty much self explanatory.

I believe the woofers in the high end APM's were more complicated, having multiple voice coils each with a separate attachment to the back of the diaphragm, and those on the low end less so having only a single voice coil and connection point, with the APM-22ES falling in the middle with a single VC but multiple connection points as shown in the photos. If anyone has more accurate information than my over simplified explanation I would welcome it.

If your APM's are of West German manufacture which I suspect they are, you might find that the crossover is a single block with the circuit board and components potted or cast together as there is only a single part number listed for the crossover which is described as a network assembly, whereas with the Japanese manufactured speakers, the circuit board and each component of the crossover is listed separately.

I am going to search for a photo of the high end woofers as I do recall seeing one somewhere on the web and didn't have the presence of mind to download or otherwise capture it.
 

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I figured I'd post the photos here in case anyone else is interested. They are pretty much self explanatory.

I believe the woofers in the high end APM's were more complicated, having multiple voice coils each with a separate attachment to the back of the diaphragm, and those on the low end less so having only a single voice coil and connection point, with the APM-22ES falling in the middle with a single VC but multiple connection points as shown in the photos. If anyone has more accurate information than my over simplified explanation I would welcome it.

If your APM's are of West German manufacture which I suspect they are, you might find that the crossover is a single block with the circuit board and components potted or cast together as there is only a single part number listed for the crossover which is described as a network assembly, whereas with the Japanese manufactured speakers, the circuit board and each component of the crossover is listed separately.

I am going to search for a photo of the high end woofers as I do recall seeing one somewhere on the web and didn't have the presence of mind to download or otherwise capture it.

My APM-22MKII are exactly same as the attached AD. Will upload actual photo soon.
 

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Very Interesting and likely you have a pretty rare pair of APM's. Late in the production run I'd guess and probably only produced in West Germany for the European market. Sony probably had so many of the square tweeters dying in 22's because of the low crossover point that they replaced it with a driver that could better nandle the job. Great find. I guess I bailed out too soon in my search after the second or third page of "other than English" links.
 
Very Interesting and likely you have a pretty rare pair of APM's. Late in the production run I'd guess and probably only produced in West Germany for the European market. Sony probably had so many of the square tweeters dying in 22's because of the low crossover point that they replaced it with a driver that could better nandle the job. Great find. I guess I bailed out too soon in my search after the second or third page of "other than English" links.

I have a SONY midi system (bought in 2001) and it states 120W RMS power. Driving this speaker sounds pretty crap, could it be because not enough power (and hence current)?

The bass is pretty lifeless when using the SONY midi system
 
OK got my SONY FA30ES to drive APM-22ES MKII. Sounds really nice. I do notice, however, when playing some music, the tweeter sounds a bit crackly. For example when playing first 10 seconds of Rocket Man from MFSL Honkey Cheateu CD, the tweeter occationally makes a "crackle" noise when the piano starts to play.

Mine MKII 2 model had the normal dome tweeter as shown above, could it be the cooling fluid is dry or something?

It only happens with certain musics, at small/loud volume.
 
22es mkii

Guess that's what I picked up last night. They look like the version in that German Ad. Mine are made in west Germany and have the 1" dome tweeter as opposed to the square tweeter.

part # on my tweeter is SONY T-8110-335-1. it looks to have the extra magnet on it for shielding.

they are sitting atop my 77ES now and sound just fine:yes:

Nice Bass from a smallish driver.
 
Guess that's what I picked up last night. They look like the version in that German Ad. Mine are made in west Germany and have the 1" dome tweeter as opposed to the square tweeter.

part # on my tweeter is SONY T-8110-335-1. it looks to have the extra magnet on it for shielding.

they are sitting atop my 77ES now and sound just fine:yes:

Nice Bass from a smallish driver.

Does it have crackling treble? esp when playing sounds like electric guitar.
Also I noticed this model lacks mid.
 
Guess that's what I picked up last night. They look like the version in that German Ad. Mine are made in west Germany and have the 1" dome tweeter as opposed to the square tweeter.

part # on my tweeter is SONY T-8110-335-1. it looks to have the extra magnet on it for shielding.

they are sitting atop my 77ES now and sound just fine:yes:

Nice Bass from a smallish driver.

Can you please take a photo of the tweeter front and back? Also do you sell those?
 
Over at "Agoraquest.com" forum, that I also visit from time to time, someone successfully experimented and came up with an alternative tweeter replacement that seems to work very well with the APM-22 series (according to them) I have neither tried nor own that particular APM model. So I can't guarantee its suitability.

Just google it and if you have problems finding it please let me know.

Perhaps if your tweeter is going bad or has failed, this could be worth a try - as far as I remember it's a dome tweeter from PE, and only required new mounting holes.
 
I have a question. I may have a chance to buy a pair of APM 22's and if I do I'd like to replace the crossovers to reduce the risk of tweeter damage. Maybe from the standard 2.2 kHz to 2.5 kHz. Question is, since they are 6ohm speakers, if I buy a pair of generic crossovers primarily designed for use at 8 ohms, then how would that effect the performance of the crossover? What crossover would be a good choice. Thanks in advance.
 
You mean affect, not effect... and, that's a bad idea. I'd suggest adding a fuse to the tweeter, instead. It's a much better way of protecting the driver.
 
Thanks for the grammar lesson, I'm a simple screw turner. Anyhow, what type of fuse might be appropriate if I may ask?
 
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