Ampex Speakers..Good or CRAP???

Ed White

Ed White

The Nightfly
Check these out...They are for sale and local to me. They have 15" woofer, a 3"x9" Heppner horn midrange and 2 piezo tweeters. They are 26x21x15 are really heavy, and are called MK IV rated at 100 watt RMS

Good, Bad, Junk, or Hoo baby, Alriiiiiight?

Any idea?
 

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I've only ever personally owned Ampex cassette tapes. The quality of which resembled a thin layer of excrement wrapped around a plastic hub and sold as a Blank Tape.
To get the best from the format some cassette decks of the period had settings choices for Metal-FeCr-Normal-Excrement.
 
Personally, something does not look right about those Ampex speakers. The Ampex I remember did not go in for the kabuki-style chrome trim on their speakers. They were rather cosmetically uninspired but used quality drivers. I'd be looking for evidence that these are, indeed, Ampex speakers outside of a logo on the front of the cabinet.

Suspeciously,

David
 
Ampex made some high quality stuff. They are worth a look.
Although, all the Ampex speakers I've seen were really plain looking like dshoaf says.
 
I had Ampex 715's. i was told these were to go with a mixing console they sold. I thought the sounds was quite good. CTS drivers. Nothing like yours obviously but if you find a set of them cheap i would be tempted. Not crap by any means and very well built cabs etc.

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As for Ampex R2R tape it used to be the standard consumer stuff when I was multitracking to tape.
 
They made some really excellent tape equipment and tube amps (see the threads in the Tube forum). These speakers almost look like 70s vintage, I'm not even sure what Ampex was doing then. Their golden age was around 1960. Maybe they went downhill, or someone bought the name and made kabuki with it. Happens alla time.

But, if they're heavy, well made and sound good, go for it.
 
Dunno...they are supposedly from 1978...trying to find out what they cost back then...that oughta be a tip-off. If they were a whopping 199.95 then, fughetaboudit....if they were pricy....that's another story.
 
the impression i got from the ampex speakers is that up until mid to late 60's they've used other brand drivers like GE and JBL which were superb. by the time they made their own drivers, i think the quality went downhill, and that particular speakers, which looks to be from the mid 70's, do not look to be of great quality.
 
jeffn said:
I've only ever personally owned Ampex cassette tapes. The quality of which resembled a thin layer of excrement wrapped around a plastic hub and sold as a Blank Tape.
To get the best from the format some cassette decks of the period had settings choices for Metal-FeCr-Normal-Excrement.
Click to expand...

But wasn't Ampex R2R tape stock kind of an industry standard? Although the 456 did turn out to have SSS...
 
I've seen a couple of those Ampex MK !V's but I haven't heard one. I would like to think the Heppner horn in them would sound good. The piezos fit right into the period.
 
The professional monitor speakers using JBL drivers were quite good matching up with PR-10 and AG 500 professional portable tape machines. What you are showing was made by some else to be sold by the consumer division of Ampex which was sold to and operated by some one else. I have forgotten. Most of their products were poor at best. Just like their cassette machines and cassette and R2R tape was very sub standard. Their tape cartridges got so bad we switched to Maxell, with sometimes BASF and sometimes Sony being our second line of tape. TDK tape was very good. In all the years I used cassette tapes for cars I only had one Maxell UD tape be compromised. It was replaced at no charge. Sony, Basf and Ampex reps would just laugh at me and ask what was wrong with my tape machines. Nothing, it was the tape they were selling. So I wouldn't put much value on the speakers you bought.
 
I acquired a pair of Ampex model 710 with an EV SP 8 and a Calrad horn tweeter. There is not a crossover in the cabinet which I find odd.
8 ohm at 30 watts max. Seems low to me considering the EV woofer. The Calrad model 20-259 is rated at 30 watts.
Cabinets are decent fairly well built but are bland to look at for sure. Currently trying to make a crossover as the full range to both speakers does not work for me.
Anyone come across a pair of these? Definitely 1960 early 1970 vintage.
 
This is a zombie thread, but that label says it all: 'Ampex Branded Speaker' made by Wald. In the house speaker world, Walds are fine, but as representative of Ampex speakers, no. Even though the Ampex speakers I've had have been conventional old style speakers with cone tweeters (and the three way I've seen actually just has two seemingly identical cone tweeters, but with different frequency ranges). They usually look nice, though, and this Waldex is kind of ugly.
But how a speaker sounds doesn't always match how they look, so who knows.
 
Nat said:
.. that label says it all: 'Ampex Branded Speaker' made by Wald. In the house speaker world, Walds are fine, but as representative of Ampex speakers, no.
Click to expand...

^ This!!!

See post # 2

Wald Sound Model 800C... Anyone know what these are?

First time poster here! Been collecting records for about 15 years now, but just recently got into the speaker/gear side of things so if anyone could help me out here that'd be awesome. Was out hunting for equipment this morning and found an old vintage pair of speakers, "Wald Model 800C", at a...
audiokarma.org
 
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