Marantz Imperial 6

[Sax & Guitar]

Do ALL Imperial 6 speakers have the steel-blue woofer cone, or were some of them standard gray?

Do Imperial 6 need surround doping (such as KLH speakers did)?

Thanks for your responses!

 

[crazy-in-az]

Both sixes I owned had brownish grey colored cones. I believe the ones with blue drivers were called Imperial 6G. Neither of mine needed to be redoped.

 

[Sax & Guitar]

Thanks for your input, crazy-in-az! I appreciate the information!

 

[Lavane]

Thanks for your input, crazy-in-az! I appreciate the information!

They first came out with brown cones, then the faded black looking cones, then blue. They are all identical except for the color. I have a pair that had a blown woofer, so now I have one with a black cone, and the other was replaced with the brown cone. The earlier versions had a dark tan cloth grills or black cloth grills.

 

[Bodyblue]

Do ALL Imperial 6 speakers have the steel-blue woofer cone, or were some of them standard gray?

Do Imperial 6 need surround doping (such as KLH speakers did)?

Thanks for your responses!

No doping required. The Imperial 6s are some of the best all around two way speakers of the era. Easy to drive, deep strong bass with nice highs and a smoother midrange. I love my set and have recapped mine and put better terminals on them. I recently tried out a set of newer tweeters that increased the highs a bit. I have and have had a ton of nice speakers but the Imperials are still my favorite.

 

[Sax & Guitar]

Thanks to Lavane and Bodyblue for your fine contributions to this thread. I have a Marantz 2230 that will probably sound great with these, and my Pioneer SX-950 will drive them far louder than I could ever stand to hear, even in our 14' x 22' living room.
Thanks also to crazy-in-az for kicking off this discussion with the initial response.
Much appreciated, all!

 

[Bodyblue]

Thanks to Lavine and Bodyblue for your fine contributions to this thread. I have a Marantz 2230 that will probably sound great with these, and my Pioneer SX-950 will drive them far louder than I could ever stand to hear, even in our 14' x 22' living room.
Thanks also to crazy-in-az for kicking off this discussion with the initial response.
Much appreciated, all!

One of my threads about the Imperial 6 and how they compare to some of the others I have.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...r14-and-klh6-comparison.923948/#post-14017681

 

[Lavane]

These have a sensitivity of around 93db at 1 watt/1 meter. So the 2230 should drive them nicely. Heck, I have a 5 wpc tube amp that can drive them on the loud side.

 

[Bill Ashton]

@Bodyblue , have seen them posted before, but have to say I just love the "speaker stands" you are using for the Imperials

 

[Bodyblue]

@Bodyblue , have seen them posted before, but have to say I just love the "speaker stands" you are using for the Imperials

I love them as well, Realistic Optimus speaker end tables. I have two sets of them that I use just for stands. They put the tweeters right at ear level when sitting. Both sets looked like hell when I got them but just a few hours of sanding and oil and they look great. Nice walnut veneer. I have seen some Pioneer similar models from the same era and the Realistics are built way better.

 

[Arekusu881]

No doping required. The Imperial 6s are some of the best all around two way speakers of the era. Easy to drive, deep strong bass with nice highs and a smoother midrange. I love my set and have recapped mine and put better terminals on them. I recently tried out a set of newer tweeters that increased the highs a bit. I have and have had a ton of nice speakers but the Imperials are still my favorite.

View attachment 1970320

I know this is an old thread by now, but before you recapped them did they still sound good? And after recapping them was it significantly better? Mine have the original caps, never replaced and they still sound amazing. Lately I feel the sound has been changing for the worse and wondering if a recap will make a huge difference

 

[Lavane]

I know this is an old thread by now, but before you recapped them did they still sound good? And after recapping them was it significantly better? Mine have the original caps, never replaced and they still sound amazing. Lately I feel the sound has been changing for the worse and wondering if a recap will make a huge difference

For me, I didn't really notice much of a difference, but the wax or whatever those paper caps are sealed with was starting to ooz out of one.
But those are old paper and wax electrolytic caps. I always replace those type when I run across them. There's only one cap per speaker and you don't have to spend much for some decent polypropylene caps.
If you do replace them, your not going to find 7uf caps. But 6.8uf will work just fine. They're well within the tolerances of the old caps.

 

[Bodyblue]

I know this is an old thread by now, but before you recapped them did they still sound good? And after recapping them was it significantly better? Mine have the original caps, never replaced and they still sound amazing. Lately I feel the sound has been changing for the worse and wondering if a recap will make a huge difference

They sounded great, at least my did anyway. I noticed a bit of difference but not a lot. I have recapped 20 or 25 pairs of speakers and only in one or two times did I notice a big difference. Most of the time I notice a definite, but small change. I did a pair of Nova 8Bs about two years ago and noticed a HUGE difference and I was very surprised.

Since caps are still fairly cheap (even though the prices have really gone up) I usually just change them if the speakers are more than 20 years old.