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EPI m180

S

Shnert

New Member
I picked up a pair of EPI m180s at goodwill for cheap, decent shape. Unfortunately somehow the surrounds(rubber) were glued to the top of the gasket and is a little janked because of it. These are the earlier models with the ugly tweeter. Is this normal? and epi thing or something. Im thinking that maybe whoever refoamed them did a dumb job though the actual gluing is very good.
 
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I had an early pair of m180s until last year, when a move forced me to reduce my speaker count.

The rubber gasket on top of the gasket is "stock". Two of the four surrounds on my speakers were like this. I replaced all of the rubber surrounds with foam because the rubber was cracking, and put the new surrounds to the frames.
 
Huh weird never seen that before. yea i like them a lot unfortunately the vinyl is starting to peel off so im thinking i'll just pull it all off and do some paint magic on them. Any recommendations? i know that the caps need a replace usually and the Lpad can be cleaned/bypassed. Tons of good clean bass, i like :p
 
I agree some pics are in order. I would replace all of the woofer surrounds with the correct foam ones sold by some of the members on here such as Rick cobb.
 
Ok i'll get some pics up soon, my camera is at a friends so i'll post some shoddy phone camera pics in the mean time. So here's the pics. I pulled one of the speakers looking for a date, but no luck
 

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Agreed. I found the best bang for the buck in the Dayton polypropylene 1% caps. You could also take the opportunity to replace the hookup wire, and install some real binding posts.
 
What about the L pads? Should i just bypass them? They are pretty dirty and tight, one was frozen when i bought them
 
Ok so i opened them up and need help with the wiring, according to the HUMAN speakers site, they are wired in series with a single 10uf cap and an lpad, but on mine it seems the positive is wired directly to the tweeters, woofers, and the negative for the tweeters is run back through the lpad and through 2 10uf caps. Is this normal or am i crazy? I can post pics if it helps
 
I just refoamed and recapped a pair of M180 two weeks ago. All they had was a 16uf cap. I used a 1uf and 15uf Dayton. I don't use the 1% caps because I have never heard a difference between them and the 10%. I use Rick Cobb for all my surrounds. Remember one very important thing. You must make sure the drivers are sealed well. The flimsy gasket that was on there shouldn't be reused. It will leak. I use a product called "strip caulk" from 3m. You can get it from O'Rieleys auto parts for about $23.00 a box and you get 60 feet. Some use mortite.
 
Shnert said:
Ok so i opened them up and need help with the wiring, according to the HUMAN speakers site, they are wired in series with a single 10uf cap and an lpad, but on mine it seems the positive is wired directly to the tweeters, woofers, and the negative for the tweeters is run back through the lpad and through 2 10uf caps. Is this normal or am i crazy? I can post pics if it helps
Click to expand...

Electrically, it's equivalent whether you have the cap before or after the tweeter in a first order network.

Good find. It's normal and you're not crazy. I'll bet a bunch were wired this way depending on who assembled them. My EPI-100's are.
 
Shnert said:
Ok so i opened them up and need help with the wiring, according to the HUMAN speakers site, they are wired in series with a single 10uf cap and an lpad, but on mine it seems the positive is wired directly to the tweeters, woofers, and the negative for the tweeters is run back through the lpad and through 2 10uf caps. Is this normal or am i crazy? I can post pics if it helps
Click to expand...

Huw takes a bit of license with his schematics. When he sells crossovers he wires them for 4 OHM in multiple Burhoe Modules EPI like your's, 201, 202... My 202's have 2 caps also.

Not sure I'd take L-Pad out completely without offsetting with a resistor but that's just me.

Edit - I sdee yours do not have a 4-16 OHM switch like my 202 so I may be off base on 2 cap explanation.

IMGP1063.jpg

IMGP8962.jpg
 
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The caps are made by unicon and and still look new, is it worth replacing them? I have new foam to put on, just working to get all that damn glue off :(
 
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