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Dueling speakers: Vintage Electro Voice EVS 16B drivers verses modern drivers

MRX37

MRX37

Super Member
I found a pair of late 70's Electro Voice EVS 16B speakers on the curbside. The foam surrounds had rotted away, no surprise there. However all the drivers were working otherwise, so I decided to refoam the woofers. My first ever refoam job, and while it ain't pretty, the woofers function fine now.

However I plan to keep these for awhile and want to use them as daily drivers, and don't really want to subject 45 year old speakers to a whole lot of bass heavy music, so I decided to throw in some modern replacement drivers that I bought from amazon.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to do a side by side comparison and make a video. Vintage high end American made speakers, verses $20 -$30 replacement speakers that were made in China.

 
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First off, your vintage "high end" isn't. Compare those to a vintage JBL (3" and 4" edge-wound voice coils) or Altec (3" square-wound voice coils) both with big azz AlNiCo magnets and cast, rather than stamped, baskets.

Second, as bad and old as those are, they sound better than the newer stuff, which doesn't have the presence or clarity. And I don't know that the modern bass driver is really any better or just a bit louder and more present because of the lack of presence from the other drivers.

Maybe it's more of a balance issue. Did you properly match the effeciencies of the new drivers to the old, or at least to each other when considering any losses through the crossover?
 
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I would say compared to some of the junk that was made in the 70's, these were high end. Maybe not top of the line, but not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

And I never, not once, stated that the old drivers were in any way "bad." They're just less suited to my preferences.

And as stated, both drivers got the same audio signal, through the same stereo channel. I did way more testing than what was shown in the video, and as stated in the video, the camera's microphone does not make for accurate reproduction.

To be honest seeing as I changed only the drivers I was expecting little change because they were running through the same crossovers.
 
The Peerless (of Denmark, not EV, and, also presumably not US-made) cone tweeter and cone MR used in the above-mentioned EV consumer loudspeakers were quite good.
 
Mmm... Good for their time perhaps, but they shriek now. The high end is pretty pronounced at low to moderate volumes, and it just screams when you crank it. You can hear it on camera, but it's much more pronounced in person.

Now on the other hand, they were made for different music. The "loudness war" hadn't happened yet. So yes, good for their time.
 
Try comparing old to new replacement drivers using ElectroVoices similar to these. Now we're talking more "high end" for the day.

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toddalin said:
Try comparing old to new replacement drivers using ElectroVoices similar to these. Now we're talking more "high end" for the day.
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Sure. Care to send me some to compare?


Really I made this video more for fun than as some sort of scientific assessment. Though I did learn a lot from this:

1: Yes Grampa I know you spent a lot of money on these speakers, and yes I know they don't make em like this anymore. You obviously cherished them as they're in great shape for being 40-45 years old. However vintage does not always equal superior.

2: The results I got make more sense the more I think about them. These speakers were made just before the Loudness War of the 1980's began. People weren't yet using dynamic range compression and other tricks to make their songs as loud as they could. So the modern mids and tweeters being more subdued is likely a wise move to prevent ears from bleeding.

3: We love our bass nowadays. You can see the differences in the spiders on the old verses the new woofers. We like our 12's to thump, whereas the EV's were specifically made to minimize that.

4: Thanks to modern manufacturing technology, it's surprisingly cheap to purchase speaker drivers that perform well. I don't have a price for the EV's, but given I got comparable if not better modern drivers for $20 to $30 a pop, that is kind of amazing.
 
MRX37 said:
Sure. Care to send me some to compare?


Really I made this video more for fun than as some sort of scientific assessment. Though I did learn a lot from this:


2: The results I got make more sense the more I think about them. These speakers were made just before the Loudness War of the 1980's began. People weren't yet using dynamic range compression and other tricks to make their songs as loud as they could. So the modern mids and tweeters being more subdued is likely a wise move to prevent ears from bleeding.

3: We love our bass nowadays. You can see the differences in the spiders on the old verses the new woofers. We like our 12's to thump, whereas the EV's were specifically made to minimize that.
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I don't think so. I just think that your selected components were mismatched to each other and/or the crossovers. You can't simply select components because they fit the existing holes and/or cabinet volume. There is a relationship between the crossover points and drive levels relative to the proper working/optimal working range for every speaker, and you just haven't found it yet.
 
There are so many variables in this "Experiment.

To me, honestly the newer speakers sound worse. The EV ones are not great even for their time, but were far from junk also.
The variables, I see instantly include,

1. No matching of Box volume for new bass driver.
2. No level matching overall between old and new.
3. New speakers sound like too much treble or upper midrange, at least on this recording.
4. No changing of original crossover to match new drivers to each other in level or frequency response.
5. The new bass driver may have more mid bass sound at the expense of deep bass, but hard to tell on video.
 
Well maybe some day I'll have the resources to address all those issues. Or you know, you could make your own video and show us all how to do it right...

To be honest I figured that since the drivers were running on the original cabinets and crossovers, that there would be little change. That there was this much change from old to new is amazing.

And for whatever tier the EV's were back in their day, they went up against the cheapest 8 ohm drivers I could find on Amazon. So I stand by my High end comment as they went up against speakers that were much cheaper to buy with or without taking inflation into account.
 
I would love to hear the difference but I found the music used to be unlistenable and just sounded like distortion on an old 8 track running slow
 
NH-MAN said:
I would love to hear the difference but I found the music used to be unlistenable and just sounded like distortion on an old 8 track running slow
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Yeah. While I personally like the song, I would have liked to go with something more well known. But, ah, YouTube and their insane Copyright policies.

For example I would have loved to play music from the 70's and early 80's in the video, but if I had, then... well you all prolly know what happened to Jordan Pier's YouTube channel, and that was just a glitch, far as I know. He got his channel back. I'd probably lose mine if I played even one second of "Disco Inferno".

But hey, knowing that these EV's aren't some super desirable collectable actually makes me feel better. Because now I feel less guilty about enlarging the hole so the new tweeter will fit.
 
MRX37 said:
Yeah. While I personally like the song, I would have liked to go with something more well known. But, ah, YouTube and their insane Copyright policies.

For example I would have loved to play music from the 70's and early 80's in the video, but if I had, then... well you all prolly know what happened to Jordan Pier's YouTube channel, and that was just a glitch, far as I know. He got his channel back. I'd probably lose mine if I played even one second of "Disco Inferno".

But hey, knowing that these EV's aren't some super desirable collectable actually makes me feel better. Because now I feel less guilty about enlarging the hole so the new tweeter will fit.
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If there is a copyright on a song you record, YouTube may block it, but that's it. They will not pull your privilages. I have had many videos blocked, but that's all they've done.

Just go to this thread and anything you hear, and tons you don't, is fair game. Also, YouTube recently relaxed many of the copyright claims and stuff that used to be blocked is no longer blocked (e.g., the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer collection).

https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/i...-of-your-systems-lets-see-and-hear-it.782592/
 
MRX37 said:
Well maybe some day I'll have the resources to address all those issues. Or you know, you could make your own video and show us all how to do it right...

To be honest I figured that since the drivers were running on the original cabinets and crossovers, that there would be little change. That there was this much change from old to new is amazing.

And for whatever tier the EV's were back in their day, they went up against the cheapest 8 ohm drivers I could find on Amazon. So I stand by my High end comment as they went up against speakers that were much cheaper to buy with or without taking inflation into account.
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Hey, did not mean to offend you, but was just offering up some reasons why things could sound different.
I have owned EV stuff in the past, and these speakers were NOT one of their best or even anything special. By this time, some of their stuff was quite low cost.

I was not trying to defend EV, as that speaker is not one of their golden age speakers (from trhe 50s and 60s ) that did sound great.

The tweeter (EV) alone is quite telling. It is a very cheapo unit.
My point was just that there are a lot of variables in doing this.
I am not certain still after listening again that the new speakers truly sound better. It may be the recording obviously, but hard to say.

Looks like you have fun. I applaud any experimentation in the future!
 
Well I switched both cabinets to the modern drivers and I have been auditioning them with one of my good receivers. (The Kenwood you see in the video is some garbagepicked 50 WPC amp that I don't care about.

I have more auditioning to do, but I do like how these modern drivers sound. I was thinking of adding ports for more bass, but they don't need them. I like how the cabinets sound as is.

Even though I didn't take into account things like cabinet volume, or driver efficiency, or about a dozen other things that go into speaker design... I still like how they sound.
 
infullview said:
The modern drivers sounded a lot less clear to me from your video. What microphones did you use to record this music?
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Just the one on my phone.

While it's hard to describe, the audio compressor in my phone's camera really does not like a lot of bass, and it mutes the sound ranges.

To me, to my ears, the modern drivers sound better at louder volumes. The mids and tweeters come alive, but don't shriek at me.


Edit: So I have been able to audition these modern drivers for a few hours, and I did find some chinks in the armor.

Overall I am satisfied with the bass, but I don't think it's as tight as it could be. I noticed one part in one song that didn't sound *quite* right. Otherwise I'm happy with the bass.

The mids and tweeters I'm more 50/50 on. Overall I like them better than the vintage ones, but there are some instruments that are quieter than they should be, and some that are louder than should be. They are running on crossovers that weren't designed for them. I'm sure tweaking capacitor values would take care of that.

My final verdict is they are not replacing my Welton towers

But I should have no problem selling them.
 
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Well yeah, kinda. I never refoamed a set of speakers before these, and on one of them I used way too much glue and it ran down the cone. The speaker works, but it's ugly.

But hey, you have to learn somehow.
 
I had a roommate who had a pair of Royals (EV's cheapo brand) that were rather similar, and sounded great. No, they (and these) were not high end, but for what people had in college back then, they were just fine - you could play them at room filling volume with low distortion and satisfying bass. To the degree that rock albums had left/right separation, they did well, but I don't remember even asking myself if they had depth and imaging - it simply wasn't on the horizon of most listeners of the time.
But no - they weren't Quads, IMFs, Fultons, or KLH 9s. And the drivers were not Peerless, if I am not mistaken. Peerless was a competitor of EVs - they both primarily made raw drivers - and the Peerless tweeters had the impedance printed on the cone, which I don't see there (but my eyesight isn't what is was).
Having said this - I think this is a very interesting thread idea. I recognize that its implementation isn't perfect, but as a start, it is worthwhile.
Speaker design and building is complex, and everyone goes through the randowm swapping drivers phase, but I think the original question is intriguing - would a modern speaker sound better than an older one of the same price adjusted price? And I like the fact that the OP didn't take a well known outstanding vintage speaker as the standard.
 
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