Aztec Sound "Picasso" speakers

[noprayer]

I picked these terribly beaten up speakers at a flea market last weekend and can find nothing at all about them. I've been listening to them for an hour or so and they sound pretty decent. Alot like the old BIC venturi 4's with the horn tweeter. Anyone know what the frequency response or power handling might be?

Thanks,

NoPrayer

 

[bakes]

Never heard of them but that mid looks like an old Radio Shack 6" whizzer cone full range.

 

[noprayer]

I'm pretty sure the mids are original. The speakers had nearly non-removable grills that were both screwed and glued down.

 

[Ficklistnr]

The mid looks like a Duotone full range, tho im sure it cant be. The bass driver cant be original.
That horn appears identical to the horn in a pair of Aztec "Cezanne I" two ways I picked up yesterday. See thread just a few below your own. I can find NOTHING about the Cezanne I , however theres plenty of info and photos here and elsewhere regarding Cezanne II which feature 3 black paper cone deivers. Mine have a 1.5 x 3 rectangular front port as well. No doubt in my mind everything inside is original and untouched. Just got them hooked up to an HH Scott Tube amp, 20 minutes from auditioning these Aztecs with Kenny Burrell on vinyl.

 

[noprayer]

I found a pic on the interwebs of a pair of Cezanne II's and the woofer looks the same as in my Picassos.

 

[noprayer]

And then i found this thread with a pic of a pair of Aztec Matisse speakers and the mid in those is pretty much the same as whats in Picassos.
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index....-cs-a22-all-followed-me-home-this-week.69934/

 

[noprayer]

I'm reeally starting to like these! Listening to Chromakey from the pc through an ht omega sound card piped out to an old Kenwood KR-5150 Receiver running as a preamp through a Hafler SE120 Amp. Nice and punchy!

 

[Ficklistnr]

Youre right, woofers look identical. My statement was more of surprise and disbelief that they could be original because they look somewhat modern, and quite clean in the photo. Mids just remind me of Duotone 4 and 6 inch full range drivers with the whizzer cone. Fond memories of an incredible chambered tower with a single Duotone 6 inch experimental build.
Anyway, back to Aztec. Im not surprised youre enjoying yours. I was just floored by the Cezanne I. Two way ported bass reflex, oiled cloth suspension, pink paper cone, aluminum dust cap, horn tweeter, 2 resistors and a small cap. They desperately need oil on the suspension and spyder so I couldnt open then up at all. Back to the bench for a fresh network and K&N filter oil on the suspensions/spyder believe it or not. Nothing better for cloth suspensions and spyders in my opinion.

Kenwood reciever preamp to a Hafler SE120? really? Not sure Id have ever considered pairing the two for serving the Aztecs. How does the setup perform in middle frequencies? Piano? Sax, trumpet? Snare?open toms? Vocal realism?
Enjoy.
With the 8 ohm impededence I may have to give the Sansui AU919 a go with these Cezanne I's Cant imagine them sounding bad, just not sure 100 watts from the giant caps and a DCDC torroidal power supply wouldnt be the end of these Aztecs

 

[Galaxie65]

These actually a some nice speakers, they catch a bad rap based on the company. Aztec speakers was based out of Colorado and was very popular for making furniture grade cabinets and outsourcing some drivers. I believe if I recall that they got into some trouble after attempting to use drivers from JBL and Altec and were told to stop. So they ended up using what they could get and honestly they don't sound bad at all. I have a pair of the Aztec Coquette's which I hear are pretty hard to find. They are in nice shape and remind me of your speakers with the design. Like yours my grills are just a bear to get off and I've yet to do much with them because I don't want to bust them up.

 

[noprayer]

I think (no, I KNOW) I am going to pull the woofers today to get a look at the crossovers if time permits. Still listening to them though!

 

[noprayer]

This is my 1000th post.

 

[4343]

So it is, Nanook!

Nanook is also my favorite sushi, buttered salmon over rice, then seared with a little torch...

Don't eat the snow where the huskies go...

 

[noprayer]

Youre right, woofers look identical. My statement was more of surprise and disbelief that they could be original because they look somewhat modern, and quite clean in the photo. Mids just remind me of Duotone 4 and 6 inch full range drivers with the whizzer cone. Fond memories of an incredible chambered tower with a single Duotone 6 inch experimental build.
Anyway, back to Aztec. Im not surprised youre enjoying yours. I was just floored by the Cezanne I. Two way ported bass reflex, oiled cloth suspension, pink paper cone, aluminum dust cap, horn tweeter, 2 resistors and a small cap. They desperately need oil on the suspension and spyder so I couldnt open then up at all. Back to the bench for a fresh network and K&N filter oil on the suspensions/spyder believe it or not. Nothing better for cloth suspensions and spyders in my opinion.

Kenwood reciever preamp to a Hafler SE120? really? Not sure Id have ever considered pairing the two for serving the Aztecs. How does the setup perform in middle frequencies? Piano? Sax, trumpet? Snare?open toms? Vocal realism?
Enjoy.
With the 8 ohm impededence I may have to give the Sansui AU919 a go with these Cezanne I's Cant imagine them sounding bad, just not sure 100 watts from the giant caps and a DCDC torroidal power supply wouldnt be the end of these Aztecs

I'm not generally into all the really subtle nuances of what speakers can or cannot do well. To me either the sound i like is there or it's not. And I'm not well versed on all the terms that go with these analysis but to me the bass is a flatter punchy kind of bass, not the softer smoother bass of say, the ADS L570/2. More like the old BIC Venturi speakers. The mid-range is smooth and clear and my favorite tracks do not appear to be lacking anything in detail. The horn tweeters are suprisingly smooth and remind me of the old Magnavox box speakers back in the 60's with the 12" woofer and a 12", horn. I like them well enough that I'm leaving them hooked up for the foreseeable future.

 

[noprayer]

Just had a go at one of the woofers only to find it quite firmly glued in place with some wicked strong black glue of some sort. They sound good so no NEED to see inside for now. But i REALLY want to see the crossover setup.

 

[Ziinda]

I picked these terribly beaten up speakers at a flea market last weekend and can find nothing at all about them. I've been listening to them for an hour or so and they sound pretty decent. Alot like the old BIC venturi 4's with the horn tweeter. Anyone know what the frequency response or power handling might be?

Thanks,

NoPrayerView attachment 742424 View attachment 742425 View attachment 742426

This is how they look stock!


These survived a fire, only some water damage to the cabinets and one woofers ended up with a tear that was easily fixed. All magnets are AlNiCo, I think, I know the woofers is for sure since I had it out. What caught me off guard was the thinnest solid wire was used inside. Like 22 or 24ga! I took a little bit of time and sanded the sides somewhat level and smooth but there was one side on both that was really water damaged and it cupped and pulled away from the top and bottom enough that I had to use some pipe clamps cranked tight and shot a ton of glue in the open gap. Drilled pilot holes on a slight angle leaning towards the outside.

I drilled the holes about ⅝" in from the edge and slightly tipped the drill towards the side, then counter sunk the top just enough that the head of a drywall screw would end up just below the surface. First one I did I drilled straight down at ⅜" in from the edge and the 45 degree cut on the corners just pulled the screw head right down to the lower board and bulged the side wood out a bit even though I had a good pilot hole.

There were spots where the wood must have separated internally and the bit went right into it with no resistance. I used fatter longer screws since the ones I was using wouldn't bite. Of course the sides had a very slight bulge from that. I used wood shavings dumped on top of the glue to help fill the gaps and hold the glue in place.

Filled with glue 3 or 4 times adding more saw dust on top each time to build up the edges and corners. My main concern was really to make sure the cabinets didn't vibrate and look so terrible. I was going to wrap them in vinyl woodgrain but the veneer wasn't as terribly awful looking as I suspected it would end up after such a major repair. They're far from good, they were like new prior to the water damage.

There's spots on the seams where the cupping was bad enough that the veneer wore through from sanding, but it really isn't as bad as I had expected and just rubbed some Wesson oil on them. Playing them right now and they sound surprisingly very acceptable!

Going to run a sweep and see where they're at. Ill return.

Here's the first run with no EQ just running my phone into a Bluetooth external sound card and put the cards RCA outputs via a custom made RCA to XLR cable, then into a dual 31 band EQ with all controls flat then out XLR to vintage BGW amps that will only work with balanced connections.

I'll have to start another post to get the plots posted.

 

[Ziinda]

Here's without any EQ.

Sorry about the way the screenshot turned out, the program runs in landscape mode and when I screen shot results it sometimes is gray like that there is a reference line that runs through the plot and is set to be the perfect sound. That line disappears when the screenshot is gray. I forgot to check it before I moved on to adjusting.

This is after 5 sweeps with correction.


The big peak at 110 simply will not comply with any corrections. I aimed the mic at the right speaker about 6ft away aimed at the center of the box.

You can see that the paper tweeter is doing a far better job than just about every dome tweeter I've ever tested. Every Infinity and JBL dome had a huge peak at 10KHz then rolls off fast with nothing over 15KHz. I have run hundreds of sweeps on domes and they all do the same thing.

Normal main speakers are electrostatics and I have a set of modified Hersey series 1s in theiving room that show very similar smooth response. The Heresys have a very similar revealing mid and high range to Electrostats. I'm working on making them completely active with 6 channels of power. 50w x2 +100W per side. I'll be making new cabinets and making them a 4 way after they're done. I'll run the stock analog crossovers on the horns, I'll active the woofer and active to sub.

The Heresys lived through the fire as well with minimal damage to cabinets, just a little bit of water settled in one woofers edge attachment about 1 inch of the glue came loose.

I'm selling the Aztecs and a mountain of other speakers, up next is a set of 1971 infinity 3000, 12" 3 ways that are in excellent overall shape but need new grills.

Oh, the grills on the Aztecs are not stock, the originals buckled under the water and I had to remake them. Can anyone tell which vintage speaker donated the cloth on the Aztecs?

The tone changes as it wrapped around 3 sides of the floor standing cabinet, that's my hint.