Leak Sandwich loudspeakers.

[spaceman]

I finally found the pic again, that I misplaced awhile back after a HDD format. This is supposed to be Syd Barrett with his Leaks, that he apparently REALLY liked. I also found a couple nice pics that show the drivers & grilles better. I think I'm gonna bring mine up from the basement & hook them up to my Fisher 600, with an Eico MPX adaptor, for some real vintage listening. These are 15 Ohm speakers, so should sound best on the 16 Ohm taps of tubed gear. I got to thinking about them again, after listening to Think Pink last night (an hour of Pink Floyd on my radio station).

 

[Flatwounds]

Very cool!

 

[spartanmanor]

You learn something new everyday around here. Thanks for the post.

 

[sealy]

I've never seen mids/tweeters attached in that manner before. What the.......!!?!!

 

[spaceman]

I've never seen mids/tweeters attached in that manner before. What the.......!!?!!

Yep, they're definitely "unique". I dunno if you can tell from the pic, but the tweeter sits inside of a plastic housing, that's just stapled to the baffle, with that foam inside the housing. Obviously that's meant to isolate it from the vibrations of the woofer, at least somewhat, & it actually works pretty well. Another weird thing is, there's a length of threaded "pipe" I guess you'd call it, welded to the center of the woofer, and that's threaded on the end & secured through the back of the cabinet, to strengthen the whole thing & hold the woofer still, I guess. :scratch2: These early ones are kinda lacking in the high end, but the mids are really sweet, & the bass is pretty darn good too. I read that a lot of British radio stations used them as monitors back then, so they must have liked them.

 

[Nakdoc]

Is that the Warfedale cone tweeter mebee? IIRC it had a cloth edge and a big magnet like that.

 

[Saint Johnny]

I've got pair of those. Unfortunately the woofers are frozen, and they're missing the proprietary plugs/cables. Other than that they're in great shape! :thmbsp:

 

[spaceman]

Man, it took forever to get them dialed in right, but I think it was worth the trouble, they sound awesome now. I used my little 8 Ohm Atomix horns, with some good L-Pads & caps, & on the proprietary speaker terminals, I got some crimp-on butt connectors from ratshack. These ones are 10-12 gauge, but could definitely be a bit smaller. I had to crimp them snug enough to hold without making it too permanent. I had the Yamaha NS-1000Ms hooked up before, & had to adjust everything on the amp differently with the Leaks, but once I got it, I found that sweet midrange I mentioned, plus the missing highs. The 2 sets of speakers are entirely different, but both VERY nice, just in different ways, that'd be hard to describe.

 

[spaceman]

I've got pair of those. Unfortunately the woofers are frozen, and they're missing the proprietary plugs/cables. Other than that they're in great shape! :thmbsp:

BTW, are you sure they're frozen? Mine don't have much give at all, when I try to flex them, but they play fine. Maybe you should get some of those crimp-ons, & try them on an "inexpensive" amp. :scratch2:

 

[sealy]

I've got the exact same horns. A clear mylar dome lurks behind the horn assembly. They actually sound nice without the horns attached.

 

[Nat]

I've had two sets, and in both the woofers had sagged so much that they were inoperable, and even unrepairable as far as I could tell (though I've hung on to the drivers of the three way version for some reason). The doped cloth surround doesn't seem strong enough to counteract the weight of the cone -- I think its less the styrofoam/foil composite than it is the bitumenous felt weight in the end of the voice coil. But all four woofers had severely distorted surrounds and the voice coils were cocked relative to the cone.
So rotate those woofers!!!

 

[imready]

I have a rare pair of leak 3090's with 15" sandwich woofers. I have yet to hear the speakers as they are waiting to be restored, but the sandwich woofer really impress me. Very tight, well defined bass from the one fully functional woofer I have between the pair really impressed me. As suggested, many of the drivers are Wharfedale or Wharedale hybrid.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I have a set of these around here somewhere. Guess I'll have to give them a good listen sometime.

 

[spaceman]

I have to agree with ya, imready, the bass is well-defined, & musical at the same time. :yes: Drums sound especially realistic, & other low notes like on bass guitar or keyboards have better definition & tone. I found that by cranking up the bass more than I normally do, to match the volume of the midrange, then hitting the low filter sounds best, then obviously adjusting the horn to match really does it.
Also, the bass is the kind that tickles your lungs, even with the low filter, so you're really not missing much at all by using it.

 

[onepixel]

Cool looking speakers!

 

[spaceman]

BTW, they're NOT Wharfedale drivers, they just resemble them quite a bit (must be an English thing). The mid-tweeter has the same aluminum "skin" as the woofer & the same cloth surrounds, and the Wharfies I've seen all had that purple colored tweeter. I imagine they might easily have paper cones too, but I doubt if they had the aluminum ones.

 

[RuSsMaN]

Cool speakers, have a pair sitting on one of the racks in the garage. Never could bring myself to sell them, they don't bring the $ they should imo.

Cheers,
Russ

 

[The SGD]

always great to see the big ole leaks, my family have had atleast 3 pairs all of which had the miss matched tweeter, at first i thought this was accidental but as i have seen more and more of them it appears to be a deliberate decision by leak.

 

[element30]

Is that the Warfedale cone tweeter mebee? IIRC it had a cloth edge and a big magnet like that.

Better than that! it's the Leak 3" sandwich which is basically the same as the wharfedale (baskets look identical) but the cone is made from polystyrene (styrofoam) 'sandwiched' between 2 layers of stressed aluminium. It is basically a scaled down version of the bass driver. I believe these are capable of piston action to over 10kHz - even the woofer doesn't break up until about 6 which is something boasted by high end speakers today. It was apparently the intention to make a 1" version too but it was cost prohibitive, consequently the later 3-way versions use a version of that tweeter as a mid with a dome tweeter for the high end. The original Sandwich speakers also had flatwound air-cored inductors for the woofer crossover which would have been immensely costly.

 

[element30]

You can fix them

I've had two sets, and in both the woofers had sagged so much that they were inoperable, and even unrepairable as far as I could tell (though I've hung on to the drivers of the three way version for some reason). The doped cloth surround doesn't seem strong enough to counteract the weight of the cone -- I think its less the styrofoam/foil composite than it is the bitumenous felt weight in the end of the voice coil. But all four woofers had severely distorted surrounds and the voice coils were cocked relative to the cone.
So rotate those woofers!!!

I've had loads of these with saggy cones and I think you're right about the voice coil weight as the cones are not much heavier than paper - that was the whole point according to the marketing. I have had 100% success by loosening the 4 bolts that hold the cone to the magnet assembly just enough to give you movement, the holes are oversize (I guess to facilitate this) so you can reposition the cone until the voice coil moves freely - if the cone is at a jaunty angle, as is sometimes the case they can normally be straightened by hand by twisting the cone in the desired direction past the point where you want it to rest and then it should fall back to the right place. As I say I've done at least a dozen of these now and always with perfect results and if your drivers are duff anyway what've you got to loose?