Marantz Imperial 7G

[VintageDutch]

Hi all of you gurus.

Yesterday I found a set of Marantz Imperial 7G speakers. All original parts...
Contacted the seller, made a deal..for € 50,-- (indeed about 50 dollars also) ..I like to think that was dirt cheap.
Picked them up today...


I plan to test them Sunday during the Grand prix Formule 1 Hungaro race.

Okay... they need work...Middle tone driver foam is rotten, Phenolic tweeters seem to be fine, Domes are all pressed in and one is missing, Cone discoloration of one bass speaker and mid, Filter recap... and some "un-aging" of the cabinets or getting those flower pot stains and scratches of the cabinets..

I already ordered the mid-speaker foam and the bas-speaker domes.

I was thinking... Since they will become a part of my Man-Cave / Vintage repair studio / Radio-Show Recording shag, to drop some nice lipstick on those cabinets...and make them look pretty...but still vintage.

I like the JBL 43XX front coloring in blue

I think I'm gonna color the speaker cones gray/black or maybe even White on the Bass and Back to blue on the mids and standard grey for the y Tweeters.

And to of set those cones spray paint the front mounting panel in a Deep dark red color (Ox Blood).. and leave the cabinets in wood fineer.

Sadly the original Marantz Speaker grill foam is missing But I have the foam mounting plates... Maybe some nice Tweet or Burlap? With a leather strap with the Marantz Brand in lower section... Or something like that..

What do guy's think?

 

[Lavane]

I had a pair. My son has them now. They have lots of midbass boom. They make good party speakers. The earlier 7's had black and tweed brill cloth before going to foam grills. The pair I had had black cloth and black cones. The earlier versions had brown or black cones before going to blue.

 

[Dingman]

I had the blue versions. I didn't like them. I did replace a few parts (caps in the crossover) and maybe the tweeters (can't remember) but they just didn't work well for me.
Good luck!

 

[VintageDutch]

The earlier 7's had black and tweed brill cloth

Thats sure is interesting.... Did it look like this?


Or more like this?


About the sound....80 Hz Boemy?
Hmmm..

Did not get a chance today to listen....But from manual testing I think that Bas speaker has a good action... (reasonable Trow)

Has anyone ever found the Thiele and Small spec's of that Bas speaker?
With that One can re-calculate the cabinet and vent-port

 

[Lavane]

Very similar to both

 

[VintageDutch]

Did some small research....

And thinking about other options..
.

This does paint a picture in the bass department of the 7G
It's 12 inch speaker is not feeling happy in that 75 liter cabinet if it is exactly the same as the one used in the 8G (consensus is that it is the same speaker)

The 8G is at 30 Hz box resonance, the 7G at 50Hz Al due to size...

 

[Lavane]

The woofers used in the 6's and 7's were rubber. The cones do move some.
You might want to rotate them °180. The rubber surrounds can sag some over time and rotating them after all these years can help to keep the voice coils from rubbing.

 

[VintageDutch]

The woofers used in the 6's and 7's were rubber. The cones do move some.
You might want to rotate them °180. The rubber surrounds can sag some over time and rotating them after all these years can help to keep the voice coils from rubbing.

Yup... been there with other brands... Thanks for advice...

 

[Lavane]

The 8's and 9's had foam surrounds that are usually found to have rotted by now. I have a pair of 5's also. They sound very similar to the 6's, but with a little less pronounced low end. Yes, you can see the box for the 6's and the 7's are the same size. I tried various things to try and make the 7's sound better.
Plugging the port, stuffing them with socks and even bundles of straws. I even played with the crossover some. Then I found a pair of woofers and used doped cloth accordion style surrounds on them. This did help to tame the boomy sound, but in the end I passed them off to my son. If you run across a pair of 6's give them a try. They aren't the best speaker ever made, but they sound good, will play anything well and sound good at allowed volumes too.
They were made to take on the Original Large Advent. I had a pair of those also.
They sound very similar except the OLA's just didn't do it for me at lower volumes.

 

[VintageDutch]

I you tried to tame those 12 inchers..... but you did not gave them more breathing space by adding a port?
That would bring down the cabinet resonance freq... and thus tame that 80Hz peak.....(i think)

 

[Lavane]

Maybe, I just didn't want to go cutting on them.

 

[VintageDutch]

Ok Got you... @Lavane

Now I was reading and searching allot about this speaker and I think there are many ways to improve on them.
Face it.. the filter is not a great masterpiece of electronics.... Some "rules'' are broken physical.. others audible..just things better to avoid, but they did it here.

That 12 inch in a tight cabinet... not right. it misses about 35/40 liters of space.
Overlapping range Mids and Tweeter.
Overlapping Mids from Basss and mid range
No High rol off filter on the Woofer..
No High rol off filter on the Mid...
Combined Caps....Witch is a NO NO NO NO NO Go



But what I understand They sold them like cup cakes...

Sadly I'm in the proces of moving house and workshop after extensive remodeling of the house... So i'm Lacking lots of time, being my own contractor...

SO I guess the right way to go Is do what can be done right now... repair, recap, refoam, re-dye, replace and listen... then when broken in and happy in my new workshop start all over again with taking it apart, re-calculate, adapt, listing tests with friends, and Whiskey etc....

If that fails....recreate the model 8 and Frankenstein the 7G components into the 8G recreate project

Does anyone has some nice Marantz mid range speakers for this project? I have the tweeters already.

 

[Lavane]

The marketing team wanted a speaker that would jump out at you from the sales floor, so that's what they got. They did sell a lot of them. Sadly they lost money on every Imperial 6 sold due to a so so review in a stereo magazine. You could use the cabinets from the 7's and make 6's out of them.
Just make an adapter ring to fit the 10' woofer and plug the midrange hole. You already have the tweeters. Both the 6's and 7's had the same size port. Imperial 6 woofers do pop up on ebay and the crossover is pretty simple with a single inductor, a couple resistors and a 6.8uf cap to replace the original 7uf cap.

 

[VintageDutch]

Yeah trowing away perfectly good cabinets Is not the way to go.Then again they would look allot like the Interaudio 3000 (by Bose) that I also have..
Would be nice to hear the difference..They also use Phenolic Ring Tweeter (2 per cabinet)


SO when work is done I got my work cut out for me... O well I least I'm not spending money on wild ..................

 

[Bodyblue]

Lavane and I live close to each other and he has the Imperial 5s I used to have and I have the Large Advents he used to have. We both have Imperial 6s. The Imperial 6 is simply one of the greatest all around speakers of its era. They have better low volume bass than the Large Advent and about the same (to me) high ends.

As much as I love my Imperial 6s.....I cant stand the 7s. Like that was discussed above, the woofer it too big for the cabinet and the bass rolls off like crazy. But for loud parties full of drunk people they are not too bad.

My Imperials 6s with Polk Monitor 7s on top.

 

[Old-School]

For $50 you cant go wrong. With some new surrounds (and maybe tweeters) new capacitors, they should be fine in your man cave. As for coloring the woofer cones, thats up to you of course, but I always liked the look of blue cones. Of course you have a miss matched pair so maybe just buy another blue woofer?? There are several available on the popular auction site.
I own pairs of the Imperial 4, 5, 6 and 7. Whats been stated above is completely true.
The bottom line on the Imperial 7 is that there is no way to correct what Marantz did by putting that woofer in that cabinet. Many have tried and discussed it. Best to use them as they are, and enjoy them for what they are. Otherwise you're just reinventing the wheel and I doubt the time money and effort would be worth it. In fact I'm sure it wont be.
I finally scored a pair of Imperial 6's. They are the definite winner of the bunch and fine sounding speakers.

 

[Lavane]

The cones in my 6's are mismatched. One has black cones, the other brown.
You can't tell through the grill cloth, so it doesn't bother me any.

 

[Bodyblue]

For $50 you cant go wrong. With some new surrounds (and maybe tweeters) new capacitors, they should be fine in your man cave. As for coloring the woofer cones, thats up to you of course, but I always liked the look of blue cones. Of course you have a miss matched pair so maybe just buy another blue woofer?? There are several available on the popular auction site.
I own pairs of the Imperial 4, 5, 6 and 7. Whats been stated above is completely true.
The bottom line on the Imperial 7 is that there is no way to correct what Marantz did by putting that woofer in that cabinet. Many have tried and discussed it. Best to use them as they are, and enjoy them for what they are. Otherwise you're just reinventing the wheel and I doubt the time money and effort would be worth it. In fact I'm sure it wont be.
I finally scored a pair of Imperial 6's. They are the definite winner of the bunch and fine sounding speakers.

It is hard to explain what makes the Imperial 6s so good to people that have not heard them (after a good recap especially). They are not the absolute best in any category for sure, but they sound so good with so many different types of music AND so many different types of amplification that they are just hard to beat. Put them with a flea-watt tube amp for some jazz, they will wow that crowd. Put them with a 100 wpc unit and prepare to get one's hair blown back with some hard thumping rock.

I remember the first time I heard the 7s......I was really anxious to hear them.....until I heard them. Good LORD they suck. I was gobsmacked after owning my 5 and 6s.

 

[VintageDutch]

Okay guy's I get the picture
Just restore what's needed and justified and listen to them... If I like them thats fine but chances are that they sound not as good as they look.

I find it baffling that they sold it as a cheap(er) alternative for the JBL L100....with similar specs...That's what I read on other sites...

My mancave/ repair workshop/ radio show recording studio needs good speakers. Need to blow musician's (Guitarists) out of there HiFi Socks......and I Need top notch monitoring during recoding of radio shows..
If I read your stories right... these aren't the right speakers for that... But the 8G should be the better choice....

So restore, Listen, and reconfigure with a 6G 10' woofer, dump the mid range, plug the holes and enjoy...That the story for these...

Problem In Europe is the G series speaker do not come online on allot... That sad.. I just found an other speaker set for the 7G without Cabinets...I have asked for a price...no luck so far.. and some 4G speakers....they are to small

What do they cost in the states online ? and do they ship to Europe... I could not find any on the E selling site... maybe the C list?

 

[VintageDutch]

Meanwhile in a sunburned corner of Europe....A man got his marantz Midrange surrounds and now sees that He has Two different models Midrange speakers in his 7G...

Dammm did not inspect them close enough... he though while Popping back the dust dome on the blue model.....