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High Energy Emim Mod

okeeteekid

okeeteekid

Well-Known Member
When i bought my epsilons the guy gave me one of the older style Emim but new replacement diaphragm's from Graz, it's a little wrinkled from him playing around with it but still works fine, i modded it to fit the newer High Energy Emim, i had to trim it a bit and add a few holes for the screws to go through and add a thin plastic gasket so that the front magnets sat at the proper height as the plastic that the Graz diaphram is mounted to is a little thinner, well sure enough it works, i compared it to a stock HE Emim and they play about the same loudness, i used my receiver with only the mid capacitor for a ren 80 to cross them over so not to allow the bass to go through, to me the original stock Emim goes deeper and sounds more up front but the Graz modded Emim sounds like it has more detail with an airiness about it and maybe slightly less coloration, who knows what it will sound like if you put it in the speaker and did an a and b test, might just sound better, here it is.
 

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Wow, that Graz diaphragm looks pretty mangled. They have pleats with a specific depth and pattern to provide damping - if that pattern is changed then they will not be operating as designed, and all bets are off as far as the sound. Maybe they will sound OK, maybe not. You seem to like the sound, though.
 
Maxamillion said:
Wow, that Graz diaphragm looks pretty mangled. They have pleats with a specific depth and pattern to provide damping - if that pattern is changed then they will not be operating as designed, and all bets are off as far as the sound. Maybe they will sound OK, maybe not. You seem to like the sound, though.
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It's not as mangled as it looks in the pic, the pic over exaggerates it with the flash, there are only a few of the pleats that are distorted and you would have to have a golden ear to hear a few distorted pleats, if i can make this fit the newer Emim with minimal mods i bet Graz could make them very easy.
 
My Nad 214 took out the top section of my 2.5's on Sun night.Can you point me toward someone who can repair EMIMs/EMITs.
Thanks:tears:
 
Well, it's good to know that we have another option regarding diaphragms. If EMIMs are rare, High Energy ones are like the Loch Ness monster...
 
Blackbeerd said:
Well, it's good to know that we have another option regarding diaphragms. If EMIMs are rare, High Energy ones are like the Loch Ness monster...
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You got that right, i only wish that the guy i bought the epsilons from didn't trash the other Graz diaphragm, would have been nice to make a pair, he told me that he paid $500.00 shipped for the two Graz diaphragm's.
 
Yeah, I remember that those were $250 each. Heck, I paid $350 for my Kappa 8s...

Fortunately, it seems that the HE EMITs and EMIMs may be more reliable - perhaps they refined the protection circuits to the point where blown out diaphragms became very rare.

At least I thought they incorporated protection circuits - that's why they got rid of the fuzes, right?

The lack of blown out drivers could just be their relative popularity too, I guess.
 
Blackbeerd said:
Yeah, I remember that those were $250 each. Heck, I paid $350 for my Kappa 8s...

Fortunately, it seems that the HE EMITs and EMIMs may be more reliable - perhaps they refined the protection circuits to the point where blown out diaphragms became very rare.

At least I thought they incorporated protection circuits - that's why they got rid of the fuzes, right?

The lack of blown out drivers could just be their relative popularity too, I guess.
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HE EMIMs? As in louder maybe?
Will they fit in the 2.5's?
One yardstick I like to measure speakers by is "Do your ears get tired or do you find yourself turning it up a little then a little bit more" Maybe that's not such a good idea with some speakers. My other speakers are almost loud enough (see attachment)
 

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ray135 said:
HE EMIMs? As in louder maybe?
Will they fit in the 2.5's?
One yardstick I like to measure speakers by is "Do your ears get tired or do you find yourself turning it up a little then a little bit more" Maybe that's not such a good idea with some speakers. My other speakers are almost loud enough (see attachment)
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HE = High Energy. I don't know how different they measure from the original EMIMs. I would venture to say that the probably aren't an electrical match for the originals.

They supposedly sound slightly better, although the speakers that have them are much smaller than the earlier Infinities - there's a very similar design philosophy from the Renaissance 80 & 90 all the way through the IRS Epsilon, Sigma, and Omega.

Most of the changes were ease of manufacturing related, although it seems like Infinity had already made most of the EMIMs that they would at that point. I believe there were also changes to the magnet layout that made the magnetic field more uniform.

I don't know if they will fit - but good luck trying to find any... I haven't seen any on eBay for six months. There was a pair on Audiogon a few months ago, but I hesitated because I don't really have the money right now... Well, they were gone in a few days.
 
okeeteekid said:
Look at this http://www.audioworld.com/sw/Forum1/HTML/008160.html this guy makes replacements for your speaker, they say they sound better than the originals.
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I chased it down and responded to his request to be put on his pre-order list but somehow the count got missed. Makes sense to replace as a set so I need 4.
If you read this Graz could you give me an idea how to correct this please?
Just curiosity but looking at the EMIMs it seems they are strips of Mylar? glued over a grid. Am I right in assuming that with age the adhesive gets tired and lets go? It would do so of course while attempting to get the volume up. If I'm close to correct then it is silly to buy used EMIMs.
Anyway I need 4.
Thanks
 
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ray135 said:
My Nad 214 took out the top section of my 2.5's on Sun night.Can you point me toward someone who can repair EMIMs/EMITs.
Thanks:tears:
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Please, for the sake of your drivers, and very likely your amp, get something more appropriate than that NAD, to drive those speakers! You need a relatively HIGH CURRENT CAPABLE amp to drive these bigger Infinities, and using something for power that is not up to the low-impedance demands these speaker place on amps is just ASKING FOR this kind of problem. Even if you get the EMIMs/EMITs repaired this time around, if you don't upgrade that NAD to something more appropriate, you'll be right back where you are now, very soon, with fried drivers again. It's like trying to power a Humvee with a Volkswagen Beetle engine; you might get it to move down the road for a while, but it won't be long before there is a breakdown again. Sorry if that is bad news, but facts are facts.
 
ray135 said:
I have replaced an EMIM with a used EMIM but it didn't last very long. I think these things die from age as much as use or even hard use. If this is true used EMIMs are overpriced at any price.
:thumbsdn:
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Arkay said:
Please, for the sake of your drivers, and very likely your amp, get something more appropriate than that NAD, to drive those speakers! You need a relatively HIGH CURRENT CAPABLE amp to drive these bigger Infinities, and using something for power that is not up to the low-impedance demands these speaker place on amps is just ASKING FOR this kind of problem. Even if you get the EMIMs/EMITs repaired this time around, if you don't upgrade that NAD to something more appropriate, you'll be right back where you are now, very soon, with fried drivers again. It's like trying to power a Humvee with a Volkswagen Beetle engine; you might get it to move down the road for a while, but it won't be long before there is a breakdown again. Sorry if that is bad news, but facts are facts.
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Yeah, abuse from overdriving with underpowered amps (leading to clipping) kills EMIMs and EMITs, not really just being old or being used...

You were driving RS 2.5s with an NAD 214?!? (I missed that the first time.) No wonder you blew them again right away. Especially with your "turn it up a little" philosophy...

The only age-related problems I've heard of are deteriorating foam along the edges, and solder connection issues (which can lead to the driver cutting in and out). Both are cheap repairs in comparison to replacing the diaphragms.
 
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ray135 said:
I have replaced an EMIM with a used EMIM but it didn't last very long. I think these things die from age as much as use or even hard use. If this is true used EMIMs are overpriced at any price.
:thumbsdn:
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A couple years ago on, I sold an EMIM on Audiogon to someone with screen name like yours, differeing only by the last digit. Was that you? If that was the driver I sold you, I'm sorry to hear that it died. It was quite a nice EMIM, and I did some work on that one to spruce it up and make sure everything was just fine on it.

But, the guys are right. Over-volume and under-power is a recipe for failure, especially in the RS2.5 configuration. Graz actually had a nice explanation of this, concerning excursion requirements of the driver at the 2.5's crossover frequency, plus the fact that there are only two of them to do the work. I don't know where that post was, maybe in one of the threads that got deleted.

I stopped listening to my 2.5's in the stock configuration. Frankly, this speaker just wasn't meant to be played in a large room or at the full-scale dynamics of a rock concert. I had them hooked up to a McIntosh 6900 (200wpc) for a while, and those little "anti-clipping" lights made a much more frequent showing than with any other speakers I own. For reference, the amplifier section of that unit has (I believe) 2.5dB of dynamic headroom.

Eventually, I am going to change the configuration of those 2.5's, and try to resolve some of the obvious power handling problems and the audible discontinuity between the midrange and bass.
 
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