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New EPI 100s And a Woofer question

N9JCQ

N9JCQ

Active Member
Scroed a nice pair of EPI 100Vs last night off of CL. (Pictures soon, Honest). The cabinets have some very minor scratching which will come out just fine. The woofers need to be re-foamed and of course I will need to re-cap the crossovers.
having never done a re-cap ( my KLH 17s will be first, EPI, next) I was wondering how you "seal" the woofers back into place? I know they must be air tight so do I bead with caulk or just screw them back into place? I am sorry if this is a basic question but I have never done this before.
 
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If EPI did it like Genesis, which I am pretty sure they did, there is a foam seal around the woofer that as long as it isn't in bad shape will work fine. It will likely come off when you take the woofer out. Just be sure to put it back on when you put the woofer back in.
 
Re-capping the EPI 100 might be somewhat difficult than you think. It is only a single 10microfarad cap, but it is soldered directly to the back of the terminal post and sealed with a lot of glue. I was planning on doing mine, but when I saw that I decided for another approach. Human Speakers sells a new backplate with binding posts, that you can get with the capacitor and heavier gauge wiring already assembled. Use a heat gun to soften up the old glue under the backplate, and it will come right off with a few taps of a hammer. Those old spring clips for the wires will probably break anyway.
 
I recently refoamed mine, and I am wondering, I find the bass a bit lean. It was much leaner than I anticipated that I keep using the loudness button to compensate but I don't like how it mushes the SQ a bit. Do I have leakage somewhere?
 
mythless said:
I recently refoamed mine, and I am wondering, I find the bass a bit lean. It was much leaner than I anticipated that I keep using the loudness button to compensate but I don't like how it mushes the SQ a bit. Do I have leakage somewhere?
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I am not an expert, but with sealed cabinets, it has been my experience that if they are well-sealed, when one gently pushes in on the woofer, it resists, and returns a bit slowly. Sealed cabinets are supposed to be providing the elasticity or 'air spring' for the woofer. When there is a major leak somewhere in the system, the woofer moves very easily and quickly in and out, with no resistance (which it also would in a ported system, of course). If the woofer is designed to use the air pressure inside the cabinet as a 'spring' and it is not doing that, then it would certainly change the sound.

I have also noticed that when there is a major leak in one of my 'sealed' cabinets, moving the woofer gently in and out will give me a noise from where the air is escaping from; sometimes I can even feel it on my hand if I am near it. I'd say it's work checking. Be gentle.
 
what source you using and have you tired diffrent music or the same music. those epis wont be kind to bad recordings. i can sometimes lisen to songs and think my woofer arnt working then listen to another song and be like wow i can feel the low end with couple watts.
 
what you could use i have used my my 3.0's is window/door foam seal stuff. it has sticky backign where you can apply around the driver opening before inserting the driver into the cabinent then when you pull out the driver again later date the foam expands back out. works great and makes a tight seal.
 
Nope there is no movement of the cone. With some songs, Take Five, it sounds pretty good. But, with more bass heavier music (classical or rock) it's a tad lacking in overall oomph.

I guess I should ask as well, it seems there is a sharp roll off in the bass. I'll have to listen to it a bit more as I am much more use to listening to other sets of speakers of the same size.

I am using Hitachi HA-610 with my Pioneer PL-800 or my little Sansa Fuze (haha).
 
Perhaps your new surrounds are stiffer/thicker than the original, or needs some break in time to get the excursion of your old soft surrounds.
 
Keep in mind, these speakers sound amazing for their size, but they won't have the bass of a bigger woofer or a three-way system. If the woofers have been refoamed and there are no air leaks, then the bass you're hearing is what the speaker is capable of reproducing.
 
Recapping is easy - so do not be put off. The method I used was to simply cut the leads on the old caps - then solder the new cap to the old leads.

Works like a charm - allows a little more working room inside the speaker cabinet - and without having to replace the binding posts. Save that until you are more experience.
 
bman22 said:
If EPI did it like Genesis, which I am pretty sure they did, there is a foam seal around the woofer that as long as it isn't in bad shape will work fine. It will likely come off when you take the woofer out. Just be sure to put it back on when you put the woofer back in.
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I took a look at mine again last night. I just recently took them apart for some refurb work. I bought these for my parents 30 years ago, and no one else has touched them besides me. When I took out the tweeters, there was a ring of foam behind them. When I took out the woofers, there was nothing behind them or attached to the speakers to seal them. I like the suggestion of the rope caulk behind the driver: I might add that when I put them back together. It certainly won't hurt anything.
 
cball said:
Perhaps your new surrounds are stiffer/thicker than the original, or needs some break in time to get the excursion of your old soft surrounds.
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stiffer surrounds than original will raise the driver's resonant frequency and can kill low bass.

leaks will usually cause bass to roll off earlier....

I've used plumbers putty on smaller advents (looked more like the original sealant) and 1/16" foam gasket tape sold by www.meniscusaudio.com. on other projects

one source of leaks: if you don't get enough glue on the surrounds it can leak between the cone and surround, or surround and frame. my garage speakers, that I reafoamed 15 years ago had this problem, the glue let go, even though the surrounds were still pliant, elastic, and not crumbling.

you can play with the system Q of the speaker by varying the amount of fiberglass stuffing it it. if the original setup was a high Q (something > .8 or so), it'll have a little hump in the response lower mid-bass region, and a steeper roll-off, it may sound a bit "boomy". adding additional filll (fiberglass being the most effective) will lower system Q, flattening out the bass, and dropping the -3db cut-off a bit.
 
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Thank you all for the suggestions. Boto, I took your suggestion and e-mailed Huw @ Humanspeaker. I am going to order the complete binding plate (Acc04 I believe) with new Cross overs attached... Makes perfect sense. I'll pay close attention when I remove the woofers to see if there is any sort of seal. My guess is now. I can use the rope caulk as was suggested here and I like that idea. I'll take pictures so we can document it and I will post back later.
 
N9JCQ said:
Thank you all for the suggestions. Boto, I took your suggestion and e-mailed Huw @ Humanspeaker. I am going to order the complete binding plate (Acc04 I believe) with new Cross overs attached... Makes perfect sense. I'll pay close attention when I remove the woofers to see if there is any sort of seal. My guess is now. I can use the rope caulk as was suggested here and I like that idea. I'll take pictures so we can document it and I will post back later.
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If you get a hold of Huw, let me know! lol I've been trying to contact him for quite some time on 2 things.

Coming back to the EPI100 with fresh ears and in a smaller room, I can say they have adquate bass. They seem to like corners and stood upright, I guess to reflect a bit more bass? More testing!
 
For what it's worth, I just dismantled a pair of A240's that I got (for free!!!) that I want to refurb. When I took the woofers out of them there was a foam gasket behind them, which wasn't the case with my 100's. I am definitely going to put some kind of seal around the cage (probably the rope calking) when I re-assemble the 100's.
 
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