Is the EPI 70 any good? collectible?

[lordfoo]

Here are some pictures of the Pair I got.

I opened them up and glued additional wood support inside but forgot to take pictures of the woofer while the pair was opened up. There was only one simple capacitor serving as the crossover.
I am listening to them right now and I am quite happy with the musical output. Grateful Dead's jamming sessions, Guitarworks of Segovia, Jansch, Paco De Lucia, Jazz tracks, piano, specially sound great. Yes the midrange clarity is very noticeable.

One use I have for these bookshelves is in my wood work area. Before I start working on weekends, I just plunk them on a tiny chair slightly tilted up and i have music while i work on wood. I just shroud the speakers with a piece of cloth whenever I do sanding.

 

[BrocLuno]

The design has the woofer roll off mechanically around 2 KHz. the Tweeter starts to come in at around 1.8KHz based on that single cap. You can improve the sound by replacing that electrolytic cap with a poly/foil cap. This is one place where 1 -5% components make a good bit of difference

 

[Aerobat]

I just dug a pair of EPI 70s from my basement. They were bought new in the mid-70s by my dad. The woofer surrounds are completely gone, and I went ahead and ordered a replacement kit from Speakerworks. I didn't know these were decent speakers and I'm looking forward to putting them into a vintage home office system.

You can see where one of the terminals is broken off a tweeter and someone attempted a half-assed fix. I'll have to put a screw through or something - any suggestions?

 

[Ohighway]

If there are vented EPIs I would be surprised- the classic models were all acoustic suspension.

My Epicure 11 speakers are ported. 6" woofer and 1" inverted dome tweeter. Superb sound....

EDIT: Here they are. The ones on the left are my originals bought in 1978. The ones on the right I dug up used in the late 90's.

http://www.humanspeakers.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?page=e/epicure-11.txt

 

[frperdurabo]

For their time they were an excellent value for the money, uncolored sounding and with flatish frequency response. The woofer is run full-range and there's a single cap on the tweeter, IIRC. If sensibly priced, they're definitely worth the money.

 

[Gang-Twanger]

For their time they were an excellent value for the money, uncolored sounding and with flatish frequency response. The woofer is run full-range and there's a single cap on the tweeter, IIRC. If sensibly priced, they're definitely worth the money.

The smaller Epis are one of several brands I'm considering for a vintage system I'm looking to put together for my mother. She grew up using an old tube all-in-one that had great sound, and I'd like to put together a small bookshelf system with a smooth, lifelike sound. Excellent mids are a must, and that's one of Epi's strong points.

I didn't realize how many speaker-designs have the woofer running full-range, especially vintage speakers (I think my W90's run the two 12" woofers full-range... There are only two caps per cab, so I assume that means yes, right? I mean, they wouldn't be running the mids in full-range, would they? Anyway...).

 

[cablephil212]

I just dug a pair of EPI 70s from my basement. They were bought new in the mid-70s by my dad. The woofer surrounds are completely gone, and I went ahead and ordered a replacement kit from Speakerworks. I didn't know these were decent speakers and I'm looking forward to putting them into a vintage home office system.

You can see where one of the terminals is broken off a tweeter and someone attempted a half-assed fix. I'll have to put a screw through or something - any suggestions?

Clean off the lug, solder a pigtail on it, and hot-glue it back in. Make the new connection on the front of the tweeter. Hot-glue the joint so it doesn't rattle. Simple fix.

While you have the drivers out, hot-glue around the magnet/frame area. The glue that was used dries out, and the magnets fall off. This is a well known problem, so take preventive steps while the drivers are still in working order.

 

[JarredCrowe]

I use a pair of EPI 70c as my main speakers. I would absolutely recommend them. As soon as I got over my CV phase I just fell for the little things. Those tweeters are what sold me over over some similar speakers I was comparing at the time. Now I want more EPIs they just seem hard to come by in these parts.

 

[ggeorge]

I have two pairs of the T/E 70s, both needing surrounds...

How do they compare to the earlier EPI 70? I have had two pairs of EPI 100s and really like them. Gave one pair to a friend and just finished refoaming the others.

 

[cnh2]

Congrats. Those look very nice. Very much like the 100Vs but in a smaller package, as said, with a smaller bass driver.

I've never heard an EPI from that era that did not sound good! (Have the 100Vs and the larger 120Cs and have heard a number of other models).

Enjoy!

cnh

 

[Robie]

Congrats, those are very nice speakers!!!!! I've got a pair driven by a Sherwood S-7200 in the living room of my get-away cabin. They beat out my AR4xs for that position. IMO, they are a bit more forward than most "East Coast" speakers from that era but keepers for sure.

 

[Aerobat]

Clean off the lug, solder a pigtail on it, and hot-glue it back in. Make the new connection on the front of the tweeter. Hot-glue the joint so it doesn't rattle. Simple fix.

While you have the drivers out, hot-glue around the magnet/frame area. The glue that was used dries out, and the magnets fall off. This is a well known problem, so take preventive steps while the drivers are still in working order.

I'm not sure I'm following you. Which piece is the lug? I see a rivet with the back broken off that was holding the L-shaped connector. Should I remove the rivet and disconnect the wire on the front side?

 

[Putterman]

I just got a pair of Genesis 22 http://www.humanspeakers.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?page=genesis/gen22.txt for $70, a 6 in. woofer and 8 in. passive. EPI made an equivalent model, the Epicure 14/EPI 140. There is one major difference, however. According the Human website, the crossover is 1500 hz rather than at 1800 hz and it uses two 4.7 mf caps vs. a single 10 for the EPI. Note that both models use an air core choke. That description was from the Human website. It actually has two 5 mfd caps. It also has braces between the woofer/tweeter cutouts and the woofer/passive cutouts.

Although I'm not all that into imaging, it appears to be somewhat better than the EPI 70 or Genesis 6 and based on listening to The Wall CD, it has better clarity. Also the woofer, again according to Human is butyl rubber, although to me it appears more like the 'lifetime' Radio Shack foam. In any case it doesn't appear to need refoaming any time soon, although I may want to recap.

 

[69chargerse]

I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. I snagged a pair of Epi 70's last year. House around the corner from me had them at the curb for the trash. Woofer surrounds were rotted, and the cabs were in decent condition. I installed Dayton Classic woofers and they sound nice. Going to use them in my garage with my Scott Stereomaster 382B. But like a fool I mistakenly tossed the original woofers in the trash. UGH!

 

[Aerobat]

Here's the refoamed woofer back in action. I also replaced the xover caps with 5% film. These speakers sound quite good and produce a surprising amount of bass for such a small package. Next I need some stands to get them off the floor.

 

[cipriano]

I love my pair of 70C's. I have been considering totally replacing the crossover and terminal plate with Human Speaker Crossovers. One speaker is a little livelier than the other so I was wondering if it could be the cap slowly going bad. Human charges $60 for the two crossover assemblies on Ebay - what do you think? Worth it or should I put the $ into my future speaker fund?

 

[Aerobat]

Two $5 caps will do the same thing.

 

[cipriano]

I'm still learning DIY stuff. How difficult/easy is a cap replacement? I would imagine it's pulling the woofer and stuffing. Soldering off the old cap and soldering in the new. Is that pretty much it? Any recommendations for a Parts Express cap that'll work on the Epi 70C's? Thanks.

 

[notdigital]

I just recapped a EPI T/E 70 II. If the 70 is the same, it's just one cap.

I mounted the new cap on the terminal cup where the old cap lived. I did it that way because I didn't want to lengthen the leads. Obviously that will prevent me from removing the cup from the outside but hey.

 

[Aerobat]

I'm still learning DIY stuff. How difficult/easy is a cap replacement? I would imagine it's pulling the woofer and stuffing. Soldering off the old cap and soldering in the new. Is that pretty much it? Any recommendations for a Parts Express cap that'll work on the Epi 70C's? Thanks.

It's easy if you can do basic soldering, but it's a tight space to get in to. Remove the woofer. I snipped off the old cap, leaving the old wire protruding from the blob of glue. Then bend hooks into the wires, hook them together and squeeze with pliers. Then solder.

I assume the cap is a 10uf, but you need to check. Use an audio-grade non-polarized electrolytic or a polyester film cap. As I said, I used a 5% polyester, kind of expensive at $5 each.