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any info on IMF speakers?

mhardy6647

mhardy6647

Lunatic Member
Found a pair of IMF speakers today at the dump. These are small three-ways with wood-veneered cabinets (looks like chipboard rather than MDF or plywood). Woofer is plastic coned and looks like a KEF driver. MR has a lumpy, coated paper cone and the tweeter is soft dome (silk?). A piece of very dense foam at the bottom of the driver mounting board suggests maybe these are aperiodically damped?

I know IMF is (was?) a British company, but I don't know anything else about them. Anyone here recognize the model, and/or have any opinion about them? I haven't tried them yet...

Thanks as always for your attention!
 
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A place here in Saginaw used to sell them.....I think mainly because the Home office for the United States was here also

That was a long time ago...havent seen any lately...From what I remember hearin'... they were fantastic sounding....nice crisp top end and the bottom was also there ....that was for the 'Professional models'...and the RSPM....which were I believe the 'Reference Model'....

Anyway ....that was a great find....everybody should be that lucky....

Post picts if you can.......
 
I have a pair of ALS40II's. They have decent bass but lack the midrange so I team them up with a pair of JBL99's. I drive them with my Pioneer 1050 and the whole set sounds great. The strange thing is these speakers with 8" woofers can deliver more bass than the JBL with 12" woofer!
 
In practice, they sound a lot like the Polk Monitor 7's (albeit they are much smaller). Something's a little fritzy with those cone MR's (related, I suspect, to their foam surrounds), but these are dang pleasant. I think the back label said "Super Compact" or "Compact Monitor" or something like that, which I guess is the model(?).

Actually I do have a couple of photos... AOL was (is) being most uncooperative at home. Here's one...
 
IMF Super Compact update

Listened to some CD's on these last night using a very old HH Scott (ss) 357 receiver I recently found. These things sound very, very good. I am concerned about the health and longevity of those foam-surrounded MR's though. One of 'em gets a little kazoo-y sounding, but gentle manipulation of the cone :-) will make it right again.
 
I have a pair of the Super Compacts,purchased them fairly cheap.
Impressions?- Very good,great bass, and crisp trebles.A speaker that you could listen to for hours, i am wondering though whether an upgrade on cross-overs etc may improve things any further. They say-if it aint broke..........,but has anyone upgraded IMF's and if so,your comments would be most welcome.

Chris:)
 
had a pair of tls 50 mk 2. great sound and great tight bass for an eight inch woofer, transmission line systems sound great if they are designed correctly. i drove them with a pioneer sx-1250. found the mids a little fragile. seemed to toast the voice coils. i would figure out a way to fuse the mids if you like volumn.
 
IMF was one of the premier UK speaker companies in the late sixites and seventies. I believe they were founded by John Wright in collaboration with Irving M. Fried (hence the name) who ran a pioneering audio store in Philadelphia. They specialized in transmission lines and their larger (very large) speakers were very much state of the art. Their smaller models used variants -- heavily damped resistance lines like the super compact or active lines (where two woofers each drove each other a little like passive radiators at either end of a line). They went out of business in the late seventies -- I heard they were bought by a swimming pool chemical company and simply shut down, but this may be nonsense. Wright went on to start TDL and Fried started Fried. Both companies were very well regarded, but both ceased operating a few years ago, though there is a new Fried company run by someone else now.
Both Wright and Fried were/are (Bud Fried is still alive, I believe) major figure in early audio. I think Wright also designed the A&D arm which was one of the first low mass arms (and became the Keith Monks arm later maybe?). Fried was important in raising american interest in british audio equipment (Decca, Goldring, and others). He has a website with his old news letters downloadable. They are fascinating reading, provocative still fourty years later.
I would doubt if it would be easy to tweak IMF crossovers -- they are very complex, and Fried was one of the few designers to understand and use series crossovers. Maybe bypass caps might work, but otherwise I would be very hesitant to start changing things.
 
Thanks Nat,

I might just get them checked over by a reputable Speaker repairer here, but leave them as is if everythings fine.

They do sound great, I just thought I would pose the question because I seen an Australian forum here where other users were discussing upgrades to some of the IMF models.

:)
Chris
 
Do you have any addresses for these IMF modification sites? I'd be curious even though I don't have any IMFs right now.
 
It's interesting to see that this thread has rekindled itself -- sort of like embers in the fireplace :-)

I've been using the Super Compacts virtually exclusively for several weeks with the Paramour. I love the way they sound; way nonfatiguing. The fuzzy MR in one speaker has settled in to a listenable groove... I am sure the surrounds' days are numbered, but for free I'll use 'em while I can (sounds like a Bruce Cockburn lyric). The quality and quantity of the bass these small speakers produce is remarkable... and the fact that 3.5 watts drives 'em to reasonable volume with every kind of music I've tried is actually heretical (they're not rated to be terribly efficient).

It would be very interesting to hear a pair of IMF's BIG TL's.

BTW, my understanding was that I. M. (Bud) Fried had no connection with IMF (except the initials). IMF certainly WAS a British company, FWIW.
 
IMF TLS 50

Hey MRH ... If you're ever in Calgary, let me know. I have a set of IMF TLS 50 MK 11 I think. Similiar driver configuration to yours but with the addition of a Coles super tweeter. Not sure what difference it makes as the Peerless tweeter is pretty capable. Mine came with a set of old Rat shck woofers but I do have a set of Kef c 30 woofers I was going to implant. Even with the old rat shack woofers the bass just seemed to roll out of these things. When I got them I was told the cabs were probaly the most desirable part of these speakers. I've been holding on to them just for that reason. a little piece of audio history....
 
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