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Ampex 2011 Full Range Speaker System = Really Good and Slightly Mysterious

zim bida

zim bida

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Hi everyone, wonder if anyone can fill me in on the drivers in these little guys.

They popped up semi-near me, and based on what I read here:
http://www.laventure.net/tourist/good_sound2.htm

I thought they would have the ampex spec'ed JBL d208 in them, so I had a buddy who was right near them pick them up for me, thinking they'd be fun to play with it, and also if I didn't like the drivers they were cool looking as a test bed for other similar sized drivers I wanted to test out.

Anyway, I met up with my buddy and picked them up and they had been sitting for a little while, but I got around to opening them up. I wasn't expecting two drivers in each, there was the 8", but also a little tweeter in there in a ported two way system.

So... before trying out the 8" as a full range, I thought I'd take a listen to them as they were intended, and took off the 1/4 inch jack so i could hook them up to my amp (they were originally intended to be used as extension speakers for an Ampex RtR I think) and was really shocked by how nice they are. As you might expect, not a huge amount of bass, but what there was, was pretty tight and tuneful. The highs were slightly rolled off, but with a lot of detail, and they image incredibly.

Soooo, can anyone tell me about who might have made the drivers in these? There seem to be conflicting info on whether the 8" drivers are actually JBL's, to me they look more similar to EV's? Also from the construction of the tweeter, it seems whoever made the full-ranger, also made the tweeters.

Thanks

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zim bida said:
? - didn't have caps lock on, but I decreased the font size, if that helps, sorry if the larger font for my aging eyes was a problem
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Zim, modify your browser or computer's display settings to increase the font size, this way you can see it larger but everyone else will see it normally.
 
There's another thread on these speakers from 2013.
Or at least, looks like it to me. Blurred out Photobucket pics don't help.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/anything-special-ampex-bookshelves.530357/

Because there seems to be some confusion, seems worthwhile to point out that the 8 in drivers in your speakers are not the same as found in the powered Ampex 2010 suitcase models. In fact, I can't actually imagine how a passive speaker could've been connected to that unit at all.

Imo, the most important post in the other thread is by janikphoto, "they were part of a R2R and am/fm setup. It looked like an early SS unit, bigger than most tabletop units, but smaller than a console unit." In other words, not the original 2010....but something else.

I am by no means a whiz at driver codes, but is there any chance the smaller stamping on those drivers reads 1056?
If so, that may point to Fisher.
 
Thanks for that link - Those do look similar and apparently also sounded great - I *think* though that those are a different model, it seems like there were a few different evolutions of these

I think those might be the ones in the catalogue shot at the bottom of the page here
https://www.rewindmuseum.com/ampex.htm

just judging by the logo plate on my pair, I think they are the same as the 2010 just the cane grill version, but don't really know that "system" at all well, did it have I/4 inch input jacks? if so these could have been connected that way, similar to some other RtR's I've seen

doesn't mean the drivers aren't the same. The stamping does read 1056, is that Fisher? I know Ampex RTR were in Fisher consoles and Fisher made tuners for some of the Ampex consoles so there is a history there, but honestly these sound better than the other Fisher speakers I've heard.

anyway, these are highly recommended if you see 'em around at the right price, honestly they are a little better than I wanted them to be...now it's going to be hard to let them go (and given space constraints, probaby should)
 
zim bida said:
Thanks for that link - Those do look similar and apparently also sounded great - I *think* though that those are a different model, it seems like there were a few different evolutions of these

I think those might be the ones in the catalogue shot at the bottom of the page here
https://www.rewindmuseum.com/ampex.htm

just judging by the logo plate on my pair, I think they are the same as the 2010 just the cane grill version, but don't really know that "system" at all well, did it have I/4 inch input jacks? if so these could have been connected that way, similar to some other RtR's I've seen

doesn't mean the drivers aren't the same. The stamping does read 1056, is that Fisher? I know Ampex RTR were in Fisher consoles and Fisher made tuners for some of the Ampex consoles so there is a history there, but honestly these sound better than the other Fisher speakers I've heard.

anyway, these are highly recommended if you see 'em around at the right price, honestly they are a little better than I wanted them to be...now it's going to be hard to let them go (and given space constraints, probaby should)
Click to expand...

Yes, 1056 is Fisher.
 
The woofer looks a lot like the woofer in my Empire Grenadier 6000.

IMG_1541.JPG

The HF also looks close to my Empire:

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Although the EIA Code speaker manufacturer lists say Fisher for 1056 top speaker guru on this forum Mr. Hardy says that code was adopted by GEFCO (a US Division of Philips) back in the early to mid 1970's.

That tweeter looks absolutely unique for a Gefco sourced driver as it appears to be a modern copy of the GE A-1 404 cone tweeters with an aluminum center post where a dust cap would be on normal cone tweeters. The actual GE sourced tweeters were used in some earlier models of AMPEX speakers and also had the thin cloth over the front to help keep dust out of the voice coil gap. Before this posting I had never seen a Gefco manufactured tweeter that looked even remotely like that after almost 20 years of scanning eBay on a regular basis looking at speaker drivers and tweeters and midrange drivers in particular. I love oddball tweeters and these definitely qualify.
 
zim bida said:

So... before trying out the 8" as a full range, I thought I'd take a listen to them as they were intended, and took off the 1/4 inch jack so i could hook them up to my amp (they were originally intended to be used as extension speakers for an Ampex RtR I think) and was really shocked by how nice they are. As you might expect, not a huge amount of bass, but what there was, was pretty tight and tuneful. The highs were slightly rolled off, but with a lot of detail, and they image incredibly.
Click to expand...

That is almost exactly how I have been describing my 1965 Shure speakers. They sound wonderful with jazz recordings. I was not expecting much, but wow, they sound wonderful.
These were also extension speakers, made for a high-end "Library" system.

Some similarity to my Fisher (1056) drivers.

shure woof.jpg
IMG_5936.JPG IMG_5959.jpg
 
stickman said:
Although the EIA Code speaker manufacturer lists say Fisher for 1056 top speaker guru on this forum Mr. Hardy says that code was adopted by GEFCO (a US Division of Philips) back in the early to mid 1970's.

That tweeter looks absolutely unique for a Gefco sourced driver as it appears to be a modern copy of the GE A-1 404 cone tweeters with an aluminum center post where a dust cap would be on normal cone tweeters. The actual GE sourced tweeters were used in some earlier models of AMPEX speakers and also had the thin cloth over the front to help keep dust out of the voice coil gap. Before this posting I had never seen a Gefco manufactured tweeter that looked even remotely like that after almost 20 years of scanning eBay on a regular basis looking at speaker drivers and tweeters and midrange drivers in particular. I love oddball tweeters and these definitely qualify.
Click to expand...

Ah, that makes sense especially in conjunction with the information about the Shure speakers that @Cadillac Kid provided. I'm not a speaker guru, not nearly on the level as the much esteemed Mr. Hardy (Hi Mark!), but they didn't look like any Fisher's I had seen. Doing a little bit of googling on Gefco, it seems they were using the 1056 code as far back as 1961:
https://www.ecianow.org/assets/docs/EIAStandards/1.7.4_EIAcodes1961.pdf

Cadillac Kid said:
That is almost exactly how I have been describing my 1965 Shure speakers. They sound wonderful with jazz recordings. I was not expecting much, but wow, they sound wonderful.
These were also extension speakers, made for a high-end "Library" system.

Some similarity to my Fisher (1056) drivers.

View attachment 1679569
View attachment 1679557 View attachment 1679561
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Hey those are great, and I agree with you on how they sound with jazz - was listening to some Horace Silver as I typed up my post. I actually almost bought a pair of very similar Shure speakers in a system with a dual turntable on the auction site - they just looked great, and they were made in my town - do yours have a manufacturing location of Evanston, IL?

Given that Ampex was in Elk Grove Village (about 10 miles from there) and Gefco was in Grayslake (maybe 25 miles away), I think GEFCO makes complete sense, for both my set and the Shure's.
 
Cadillac Kid said:
Yes, Evanston.
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That's really neat, The father of one of my son's best friends used to work at Shure when they were still located here in Evanston.

I did a little more digging with the Gefco knowledge and found a couple other threads with similar drivers, so it seems like the "mystery" has been somewhat solved, though the Fisher/GEFCO code thing to me seems still odd, as to when the changeover of the code occurred

here are those drivers/threads
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/help-needed-with-vintage-speaker-id.601888/
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/nishaminy.604000/
 
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