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Electro-Voice Patrician 700

johnjhazel

johnjhazel

PhxJohn
I thought that I would post this review of the Electro-Voice Patrician 700 speaker. I felt it would be a bit of nostalgia for those of us who are older and a bit of a surprise to younger members. Back in the 60's and 70's there were many large speaker systems. Fisher was a respected name back then and some of their speakers had 18" woofers. This system has the largest woofer that I know of at 30" !! Enjoy:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/60s/Audio-1961-Jan.pdf
Page 39
 
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Thanks for the link. I was a freshman in high school in 1961. I love looking at the ads and brands. I used to visit Allied Radio at least once a month buying components for projects. Their audio rooms were to die for.
 
Browsing this reminds me of how society has transformed from hobbies which required an in-depth understanding to enjoy fully to where we are today ... where skills and knowledge have been displaced by perceived expertise.
 
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I was two when that was new. Love the sense of wonder I get when browsing that link. Saw many of the popular names and models we discuss here and a number of them that simply aren't. Maybe those that aren't didn't sell and thus they are not in front of us now.

The EV's are an interesting curiosity. I wonder how it sounds and what is result of using such an unusual sized woofer? 30 inches? Really? Does that work well or does a cone that large introduce other problems? Early breakup?
 
Tim D said:
I was two when that was new. Love the sense of wonder I get when browsing that link. Saw many of the popular names and models we discuss here and a number of them that simply aren't. Maybe those that aren't didn't sell and thus they are not in front of us now.

The EV's are an interesting curiosity. I wonder how it sounds and what is result of using such an unusual sized woofer? 30 inches? Really? Does that work well or does a cone that large introduce other problems? Early breakup?
Click to expand...
The Patrician was a corner speaker about half again as big as a Klipschorn. The cone of the 30W is styrofoam - very lightweight and rigid. This provided very high efficiency. 60W continuous was the power rating and they meant it. In the right setting, there's just
nothing like 'em.

Today, a single Parts Express Ultimax 18" has greater Vd but EV introduced the 30W decades earlier in the golden years of HiFi.
 
damacman said:
The Patrician was a corner speaker about half again as big as a Klipschorn. The cone of the 30W is styrofoam - very lightweight and rigid. This provided very high efficiency. 60W continuous was the power rating and they meant it. In the right setting, there's just
nothing like 'em.

Today, a single Parts Express Ultimax 18" has greater Vd but EV introduced the 30W decades earlier in the golden years of HiFi.
Click to expand...

Those were the Golden Years !!
 
Well this article just proves his thesis about Audio Magazine. Its basically more fiction than truth. We had customers that owned 700 and some who owned 800's and other the older models previous with the 18 inch woofers. Just ask Paul Klipsch about the tweeters and Don Davis of Altec about Audio's falsehoods . Paul specced them to only 17 KHZ where they nosed dived off the response Cliff and the T350 wasn't any better, just 3 db more efficient. It couldn't handle any more power either and is why Paul raised the crossover frequency to 4500 and went with 18 db crossover slopes to help protect the tweeter. The 250 Horn and driver lived up to the name of squawker perfectly. The mid woofer was nice but had a very lumpy response, and the 30 inch woofer was a sloppy mess. I had to install 1/3 octave room equalizers to get them to be any where near flat in either soft rooms or hard rooms. I will say they were efficient and 10 watts from a 2105 or 275 would blow you ought of a rather large room. The transient response of the system was poor and when better recordings came along in the late 60's and early 70's the Patricians colored them horribly even after correcting the frequency response. I'll take a pair of Klipsch Horns JBL Harts field or Bozak Concert Grands any day of the week. Of course the Grands and JBL needed to add super tweeters and JBL did while Bozak Up Graded to the 200 Z tweeter. I guess the 700 was OK for its time in the late 50's and middle 60's but by the 70's it was a real looser. The smaller Georgian wasn't any better. I guess you never forget a real lemon.
 
I had one of the EV 18" styrofoam woofers from the EV Six in an 18 cu ft enclosure for a while. It's bass was incredible.
 
I've never heard a set of these EV's, but would surely love to.

Also, those Western Electric horns from the 20's that all the enthusiasts rave about. I gotta hear what the fuss is about.

We live in the golden era of good sound (and on the cheap), but a healthy respect for the past is a good thing, when all they had were slide rulers, lab coats, and educated guesses.
 
They may not have perfect sound, but they have a certain je ne sais quoi, especially when matched with contemporary equipment and music. I really enjoy mine. To each his own, though. I do like the IV better.
 
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