freeisforme
Member
A long time ago I trash picked a pair of old Zenith speakers, I don't think I even paid attention to what brand they were when I first got them, all I new was that they played and filled the need for sound in my shop.
I ran them off an old Harmon Kardon 730 at the time. Later I upgraded to an HK560 receiver. They always sounded good but were butt ugly. The cabinets were OK but the grills looked like they were used as scratching posts for a long time. In the process of moving stuff around I came across these speakers which had long since been put away in the storage room. Wanting to see if they still played I hauled them home, and to my surprise, they still sound good, better than just good, especially compared to many other speakers of that era.
I removed the back of each speaker to make sure I hadn't brought home any hitchhikers from the shop at work, and was surprised to see the size of the woofer magnet and that its got what appears to be a Foster horn tweeter or some sort. I replaced the single 4uF capacitor in each crossover and did away with the direct wire set up in favor of a recessed terminal plate.
I then went to work on figuring out what to do with the grills, the originals were too far gone, even the plastic mesh they were pressed out of was cracked and falling apart.
I decided to make a pair of simple wood grill frames similar to what other speakers used back then. Not being able to get decent 3/8" plywood, I got some birch/oak 5 mm plywood and glued to sheets together. I made a paper template first and transferred all the speaker and bass port locations to the new grill panels. After cutting out the holes and sanding everything smooth, I painted the panels flat black so they wouldn't show through the cloth mesh.
I thought about making the grills similar to how they were originally with the bass port protruding past the grill but decided on a cleaner look, I cut the bass ports back so they could fit under the grill, and cut the emblems down so they could be affixed to the front of the grills.
The bass port extents right up to the grill cloth, the grill cut out fits over the extended port.
Wanting these to look at least somewhat period correct, I hunted for some textured cloth, but found nothing locally or online that fit the bill. What I did find was that Walmart sells cheap drapes, and the material was perfect, (One style even supplied me with a near match for the grills on my vintage KLH 17's).
For under $5, both grills, and probably two or three others will have new grill cloth.
I attached the grills via Velcro tabs, much like the grills on my Avent 4002's. A quick cleaning, some furniture polish, and they look good again.
Sound wise, these are somewhere between my old KLH speakers and my old large Advents. The Advents have a bit more bass, but the Zenith speakers hold their own. I had really forgotten how good they did sound, especially for basically being department store fare back then. (Both speakers appear to have date codes stamped on the inside of the cabinet which read 8/73, which would probably mean these were new in or around 1974.
They aren't anything super fantastic but they aren't bad at all, I actually prefer their tone to my OLA's. They don't compete with my Boston A400's or T1000's but they aren't hard to listen to either.
Being these are 16 ohm speakers, they can be paired with another pair of speakers which compliment them. They sound great paired up A/B with a set of old Avid 101's I've got here.
I ran them off an old Harmon Kardon 730 at the time. Later I upgraded to an HK560 receiver. They always sounded good but were butt ugly. The cabinets were OK but the grills looked like they were used as scratching posts for a long time. In the process of moving stuff around I came across these speakers which had long since been put away in the storage room. Wanting to see if they still played I hauled them home, and to my surprise, they still sound good, better than just good, especially compared to many other speakers of that era.
I removed the back of each speaker to make sure I hadn't brought home any hitchhikers from the shop at work, and was surprised to see the size of the woofer magnet and that its got what appears to be a Foster horn tweeter or some sort. I replaced the single 4uF capacitor in each crossover and did away with the direct wire set up in favor of a recessed terminal plate.
I then went to work on figuring out what to do with the grills, the originals were too far gone, even the plastic mesh they were pressed out of was cracked and falling apart.
I decided to make a pair of simple wood grill frames similar to what other speakers used back then. Not being able to get decent 3/8" plywood, I got some birch/oak 5 mm plywood and glued to sheets together. I made a paper template first and transferred all the speaker and bass port locations to the new grill panels. After cutting out the holes and sanding everything smooth, I painted the panels flat black so they wouldn't show through the cloth mesh.
I thought about making the grills similar to how they were originally with the bass port protruding past the grill but decided on a cleaner look, I cut the bass ports back so they could fit under the grill, and cut the emblems down so they could be affixed to the front of the grills.
The bass port extents right up to the grill cloth, the grill cut out fits over the extended port.
Wanting these to look at least somewhat period correct, I hunted for some textured cloth, but found nothing locally or online that fit the bill. What I did find was that Walmart sells cheap drapes, and the material was perfect, (One style even supplied me with a near match for the grills on my vintage KLH 17's).
For under $5, both grills, and probably two or three others will have new grill cloth.
I attached the grills via Velcro tabs, much like the grills on my Avent 4002's. A quick cleaning, some furniture polish, and they look good again.
Sound wise, these are somewhere between my old KLH speakers and my old large Advents. The Advents have a bit more bass, but the Zenith speakers hold their own. I had really forgotten how good they did sound, especially for basically being department store fare back then. (Both speakers appear to have date codes stamped on the inside of the cabinet which read 8/73, which would probably mean these were new in or around 1974.
They aren't anything super fantastic but they aren't bad at all, I actually prefer their tone to my OLA's. They don't compete with my Boston A400's or T1000's but they aren't hard to listen to either.
Being these are 16 ohm speakers, they can be paired with another pair of speakers which compliment them. They sound great paired up A/B with a set of old Avid 101's I've got here.