UREI Speaker Project

hjames

We are all just walking each other home.
Staff member
Super Mod
Subscriber
A new Beginning for these blonde cabinets I got from Hammr7 at Ohighway's Fall party 2 years ago!
I believe they originally held Stephens Trusonics (sp?) but those were long gone when I saw the boxes.
When I got them I tossed a pair of JBL 12 inch 2214 woofers in them and stacked a pair of M&K satellites on top,
That was nice but nothing magical, so I shortly put them into basement storage.

I used the M&K satellites to set up a bedroom music system last fall, but the blonde cabinets remained in basement storage.

Last month I heard a pair of restored UREI 813C speakers - they have coaxial 15 with a 2nd 15" helper woofer!!.
I was flat-out amazed at the sound, and imaging of the systems. A lot is also due to the Time Aligned crossover system.
UREI built large, really dense deadened cabinets for them. Heavy cabinets are expensive to ship!
So I did more research on UREI Monitors and discovered they made smaller models - including the 12 inch coaxial based
809 model.

I wanted to investigate further, and last weekend a friend told me about a pair of UREI 809 monitors in WV.
I called and spoke to the seller - turns out he was selling just the drivers and crossovers, no cabinets ...
Tried to figure what I could mount them in for eval purposes - the UREI 12 has the bluefoam covered horn in the center -
so any cabinet I mount them in has to have clearance for that sticking out the front!

Nobody had any reasonable 12 inch cabinets for sale - then I remember the blond cabinets with the bronze grill cloth.
I pulled out the old cabinets, removed the JBL 12 inch woofers, and found out the baffleboard was just screwed into place -
I pulled the curved internal brace and all the screws and was able to remove the bronze grill cloth. I reassembled everything
and figure I'll stuff the lower area under the curved brace full of Dacron to block the "ports" on the front.

They aren't the best cabinets in the world, but they'll fine do while I experiment with the drivers!

Now I just have to wait patiently for my FedEx package of parts!


More pix as the project develops!

attachment.php


And some pictures from the Cabinet thread Nov 2013 - (I put the 5 way banana cups on the bottom)
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=555301

attachment.php

attachment.php

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • 12in-Cabinets_9147.jpg
    12in-Cabinets_9147.jpg
    92.5 KB · Views: 578
Last edited:
I just won a pair of complete UREI 809As from the auction place. No grills but good cabinets & crossovers.
The drivers will need new surrounds, of course, but thats not a big deal once the weather warms up a bit.
I'm told they take the standard JBL 2214 surrounds - I've redone them before so I'll order a Rick Cobb kit tomorrow ...

The other pair of drivers and crossovers (without cabinets) will arrive later this week!

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • 809A-pair.jpg
    809A-pair.jpg
    176.3 KB · Views: 505
Last edited:
Looks like you are in for a treat soon Heather. Love those blonde cabinets.
 
Just got them home. I hooked them up to the Jolida tube amp, played a few songs at low volume, just to test them out. A bit of Bryan Ferry, then Anuna, then CSN - Cathedral - they play beautifully - amazing bass even like that! Amazing for 12 inch speakers! I turned them off until I get them repaired.

I checked with a pro and apparently the foam surround kit for JBL 2214s should fit this perfectly. I'll order a set from Rick Cobb tomorrow.

In real life, They are about the same width as my L200, tho I'll need to get them up off the floor when I use them for real.
Or stand them on end, tilt them back and spin the horns 90 degrees

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • UREI-809A_9159.jpg
    UREI-809A_9159.jpg
    91.2 KB · Views: 469
Got the second part of the project Tuesday - the drivers and crossovers for a pair of UREI 809s I got from a studio in WV.
The woofers looked to be similar to what's in the 809As, so I swapped their Horn drivers and put them on the woofers
I just got with good surrounds, and tossed them into the cabinets in vertical mode.

Then we played some tracks ...
Again, Cathedral from CSN, some tracks from AJA, some old Louis Armstrong tracks ...
then a few tracks here and there from other artists ... these are very, very nice.

I ordered enough surrounds from Rick Cobb so I can redo all 4 woofers (the "good" ones look like they may need it shortly, too).
I hauled the blonde cabinets upstairs as "stands" for now - I'll install the 12mh chokes and 2214s in them over the weekend and try them as "helper woofers".

... more fun is coming!

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • UREI-809A-test_9165.jpg
    UREI-809A-test_9165.jpg
    101.9 KB · Views: 76
  • UREI-809xovers_9169.jpg
    UREI-809xovers_9169.jpg
    114.7 KB · Views: 89
  • UREI-809-A_9161.jpg
    UREI-809-A_9161.jpg
    96.4 KB · Views: 88
  • UREI-809a-Pedestals_9170.jpg
    UREI-809a-Pedestals_9170.jpg
    85.5 KB · Views: 752
Last edited:
At the next stage in this project.
Based on comments from Subwoof at the Lansing site on how to integrate a pair of 2214s as Helper Woofers
(similar to what the UREI 813C does), I got a pair of 12mH chokes from Madisound this week.


After Emma and I had nice Valentine's Day Dim Sum, I found some really nice fabric from "G-Street Fabrics" this morning - not quite JBL Monitor blue - but darned close!

Anyway, when I got home I popped the baffle boards, glued the cloth to it, mounted the 2214 drivers to each one, jammed some polyfill into the oversize ports, then screwed a choke down near the 5 way cups in installed in the bottom.
Rigged a dual banana pomona cable between the bass cab and the UREI 809A terminal cups, and turned on the Jolida 502 tube amp.
Nice, but not as much bass as I thought.

Hmmmm. On a hunch, I reversed the polarity to the bass cab and thats it!

See - the JBL woofers that are part of the UREI coaxial drivers are connected backwards from their original marked polarity.
I thought if I flipped apparent polarity to the "helper woofers", they might then match the actual polarity - and they seem to. Bass is boosted and sounds fine!

Now I have to go downstairs and play some tunes!

attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • 2214H_9179.jpg
    2214H_9179.jpg
    104.5 KB · Views: 414
  • Bass-Peds-interior_9182.jpg
    Bass-Peds-interior_9182.jpg
    81.2 KB · Views: 418
  • UREI-Bass-Peds_9186.jpg
    UREI-Bass-Peds_9186.jpg
    98.4 KB · Views: 416
Last edited:
Hiya Heather!

Awesome project and a great grab. I'm fascinated by the "mini-813" concept.

Love my 809's - And they have the somewhat rare grills. Let me know if you need a pattern. They're deep, and a little odd looking.

P1000852_zps240badf4.jpg
 
Last edited:
You do know that you can also turn the crossover boards on their sides to match the orientation of the drivers?

I also swapped out the caps in the crossover in mine.

Cheers,

David
 
VERY cool, thanks for the info guys!
Someone had a pair of grills on ebay yesterday so when I got home from a church meeting
late last night I just ordered them. Should have them by next weekend!

I'm debating on rotating the cabinets 180 degrees to put the coaxials lower,
so they are more like ear level - I haven't played with that yet.

Its very cool to hear I can rotate the crossovers! I did not know that - thanks David!
I figured a recap would be in order at some point ...
- but I really just got it all going this afternoon.

So far its been amazing fun!

Hiya Heather!

Awesome project and a great grab. I'm fascinated by the "mini-813" concept.

Love my 809's - And they have the somewhat rare grills. Let me know if you need a pattern. They're deep, and a little odd looking.
 
Last edited:
Back when I had both the UREI 809s and a set of UREI 813s (similar to those JBL 4435s in Hjames pics), I ran a few listening tests to see which ones sounded 'better' in some way. What I discovered, however, was quite unexpected:

- The UREI 813s would play louder before beginning to compress. That is, the SPL level in the room was higher before adding more power did nothing more to the SPL levels.

- The 809s would begin to compress before the 813s. This made sense since the larger formats speakers were intended to recreate accurate SPL levels in larger rooms than the 809s.

The unexpected parts was that, in all other respects: presentation, frequency response, voicing, etc, the 2 speakers systems were _exactly_ the same. What is impressive about this is that the 813s being used had Altec 604s in them while the 809s used a combination of a 12" woofer with a JBL coaxial horn tweeter combo. The crossovers, clearly, were the part that made the difference - or should I say, non-difference in the way the musical content was presented. This feat of engineering is, IMHO, often overlooked and discussed here at AK. I have no idea why, too.

BTW, to discover the 813's compression limits took a 300 watt/channel amp in a single car garage. I used a set of Dave Clark headphones as ear muffs along with the SPL meter. It was impressive!

Cheers,

David
 
Oh - one question - how do the grills mount?
I have 4 holes drilled in a square pattern around the coaxial on the baffleboard.
But the grills I bought look to come with velcro squares.
Guess I have to decide - I can get 8 delrin pins like the old JBls use -
that would be pretty solid.

Oh - and I did rotate them (and the crossovers) this morning -
need more detailed listening to verify if anything changed.

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • UREI-809A-and-Helpers_9188.jpg
    UREI-809A-and-Helpers_9188.jpg
    93 KB · Views: 342
Last edited:
On mine, the pins are mounted on the baffleboard, the grill frame is MDF with the matching holes drilled. Looks like you lack pins, but I'm sure you can rig something up no problem. Seems like you'd need a lot of velcro to hold them securely.
 
On mine, the pins are mounted on the baffleboard, the grill frame is MDF with the matching holes drilled. Looks like you lack pins, but I'm sure you can rig something up no problem. Seems like you'd need a lot of velcro to hold them securely.

Do the look like the delrin pins (as used on the old JBLs) that sign--shop sells on ebay?
My L36, B380 sub and a few others have those pins on the baffleboard.
8 of them may be a bit pricey - I'll wait for the grills to arrive and see if they are drilled for pins before I order any.

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • Delrin Pins_12.JPG
    Delrin Pins_12.JPG
    12.3 KB · Views: 326
Last edited:
They're not exactly like that version, though those may work. The holes in the grill are about 7/16" in diameter, the pins are glued into similar holes in the baffle and have a "ball clip" type head, similar to door panel clips on some cars.

P1000875_zps58e20209.jpg


P1000879_zpsc71b6eec.jpg
 
Ahh - my M&K Volkswoofer has a kind of ball-end dowel pins - a couple were broken
but a neighbor put speakers on the curb that had the same pins
so I stripped his cabinets of them and left the cabinets behind ...
Can't recall the brand tho - Mission maybe?
 
Oh - one question - how do the grills mount?
I have 4 holes drilled in a square pattern around the coaxial on the baffleboard.
But the grills I bought look to come with velcro squares.

Mine have 4 velcro strips that _sort of_ hold the grills in place. They're pretty weak and leave the grill sort of floppy. There are no strikes as is being discussed so I'd expect those to have been installed at a later time after shipment.

Cheers,

David
 
IIRC, the grills were an optional kit, which likely came with the pins for the user to install.

I'd imagine that plain dowel pins, in partnership with the velcro, should get it done.
 
Thanks guys - appreciate the grill tips -
I got an ebay notice overnight that they have shipped from CA -
I should know more by the weekend ...
 
Back
Top Bottom