bowtie427ss
Lunatic Member
Actually i parted them after i couldn't get a 9.99 bid for them, and my only regret is of not taking pics before. I believe mine were very early as they had two triangular openings for ports, one on either side of the woofer at the bottom of the baffle. There is no cut-out or recess in the rear panel, just a simple screw terminal and one still had the paper label attached above the terminals identifying them as Gauguin III's. The grills were also a project in and of themselves to remove as they were held on by 8 screws thru the back side of the baffle.
One of the mid horns played significantly louder than the other indicating a problem, and beyond that i just couldn't hear much potential with what was in them for a load. The woofers in the later ones you fellas all have are a much better looking unit than the Oxfords that were in mine.
However, the cabinets and rich walnut veneer were begging for some type of "Frankenspeaker" project. I had a pair and a spare of some fairly ignored but excellent sounding Oaktron full range 12's that have found their new homes in the Aztec cabinets with HF extension helped by a pair of hard to find Coral aluminum prhagm'd horn tweeters. The oaktrons run wide open with the tweeter coming in at 7-7.5khz. Someday i'll revisit them and probably move the cutoff for the tweet up to 8-10khz and get it properly padded down. Even as they sit now, they're a far cry better than they were with their factory components. These are all 16 ohm components and love tube gear as equally as solid state.
