EMI speakers

[Nat]

Oval drivers are tarred by association with car speakers, but the shape makes sense -- it has most of the rigidity of standard cone speakers, but the cone resonances are spread out so less audible. They also have better dispersion in one plane than the other, which can be useful, and in the plane of greater dispersion (perpendicular to the long axis) they have greater dispersion than a round cone with the equivalent area.
KEF's B 139, the styrofoam/foil racetrack shaped woofer bears some resemblance, and the ELAC driver ithe stiffening ribs that IMF and TDL used subsequently is even closer to elliptical. I used to have a pair of unknown maker German speakers with a big elliptical and there were quite a few small ones used in consoles (Grundigs, Nordmendes and the like) and TV sets etc.
But the EMI is superior to the simple cone ones because of its composite construction with paper outer cone/aluminum inner which gives better control and deep bass, and unlike the (excellent for their application) KEF and ELAC, they go fairly far up the frequency scale so can be used in two ways effectively (and yes I know KEF sold a B139 two way, and its kind of proof of my point -- very odd polar pattern and difficulty with integration of the drivers.)

 

[motorstereo]

One of my winter's projects has been recapping these old emi's. This simple mod made these guys into keepers in my ever dwindling speaker collection.

I'm still pretty green at recapping and I didn't do the neatest job but it works and it's a nice upgrade over the old caps. I tried them out on my newest t amp and that combo was ok. Next up was some separates, a nad pre amp and a yammy power amp. Again the sound was ok at best. I swapped those out for an sx1010 and wow what a difference. This is a damn nice sounding combination. The bass response is really what surprised me

One thing I really like about these old emi's is that they're really quite efficient. I have them stacked on a pair of klh 5's right now for comparison purposes. The emi's totally drown out the 5's. Doing a quick down and dirty comparison with my eq it seems they're about 4 db more efficient.

A question; Would anyone have a decent scan of the emi badges? The cabs are in very nice shape and I'd like to have some badges made up if I can find a copy of the emi logo. There seems to be very little info online about them and I'd like to have them as original as possible.

 

[Cogsinister]

Great recap job there !

 

[eurasian]

I think Ted Jordan may have a hand in designing the woofers in these -- anybody know for sure?

 

[motorstereo]

Great recap job there !

Thanks; I tried but I'm nowhere near as good as some of the nice crossover rebuilds that I've seen some guys do. The bypass cap really helped brighten the top end up. I really wasn't expecting much out of them but I'm quite happy with the overall sound.

 

[kreichenbach]

One of my winter's projects has been recapping these old emi's. This simple mod made these guys into keepers in my ever dwindling speaker collection.

I'm still pretty green at recapping and I didn't do the neatest job but it works and it's a nice upgrade over the old caps. I tried them out on my newest t amp and that combo was ok. Next up was some separates, a nad pre amp and a yammy power amp. Again the sound was ok at best. I swapped those out for an sx1010 and wow what a difference. This is a damn nice sounding combination. The bass response is really what surprised me

One thing I really like about these old emi's is that they're really quite efficient. I have them stacked on a pair of klh 5's right now for comparison purposes. The emi's totally drown out the 5's. Doing a quick down and dirty comparison with my eq it seems they're about 4 db more efficient.

A question; Would anyone have a decent scan of the emi badges? The cabs are in very nice shape and I'd like to have some badges made up if I can find a copy of the emi logo. There seems to be very little info online about them and I'd like to have them as original as possible.

Thanks for posting an update. Based on your review it looks like I will have to put a Cap & resistor order together, dig mine out from the perpetual project pile, and bring them up to date as well. I hope my SX-525 can provide the same synergy that your SX-1010 does. What are the cap and resistor values you used?

 

[Joe Deegan]

EMI is a british company. The DLS series were the (ahem) 'Dangerous Loud Speaker', so called because they would embarass any of the competition. Didn't seem to be an effective marketing ploy because too many buyers listen with their eyes and not ears -- they looked at that elliptical driver, and the realistic specifications, and thought car audio and went and bought something else with a round woofer and overstated specs. But the EMIs are very nice sounding -- the elliptical woofer spreads cone resonances, and the central dual layer construction damps resonances and provides pistonic motion at higher frequencies.
Probably worth replacing the capacitors in the crossover -- I think they are old electrolytics.

I have a pair of EMI 62 speakers with the 6x9 oval woofer and concentric tweeter. They sound very natural and are very efficent. I have developed huge respect for British speakers over the years. I wonder who designed these for EMI. It could be someone already well known for their designs, sort of like a 1960 version of Andrew Jones?

 

[jcidave]

I have a pair of EMI 62 speakers with the 6x9 oval woofer and concentric tweeter. They sound very natural and are very efficent. I have developed huge respect for British speakers over the years. I wonder who designed these for EMI. It could be someone already well known for their designs, sort of like a 1960 version of Andrew Jones?

First, Welcome to AK. This is a pretty old thread you jumped on. Our first household pair of component quality speakers were EMIs. Something like a model 95 or 102. A very small 2 way with an oval woofer. Punched way above their weight in sound quality. Long gone and wish I still had them. Enjoy your pair.