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University speaker ID/Info

Jenkster

Jenkster

When I had talent
Subscriber
My friend has an old pair of University home speakers. They have a 15" woofer, 8" mid in a sub-enclosure and a horn tweeter. The woofer has a unique jumper system to adjust the impedence. They have nice walnut laquer finish and are in really good condition. I did Deoxit the L-pads for him and they sound pretty good though a bit laid back on the top end. Anyone know the model, year of manufacture or any other information on them?

Thanks!:thmbsp:
 
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Here's a pic. of the crossover. Got some pretty big resistors on one of the L-pads?
 
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you should be able to find out the manufacture date from eic codes on the drivers. the woofer has two voice coils, hence the 4 input terminals. those look like 4401 mid-range horns, best i can tell from the pics. because the tweeters are enclosed, i can't really tell, but i'd guess they are spericon tweeters. new caps in the crossovers would possibly improve the top end. i can't recall the model number of that speaker, but i've seen them on that auction site from time to time.
 
Thanks for the info. gentlemen!:thmbsp: These may have been modified, at least the drivers, at some point? The horn tweeter looks to be a 4401, the 8" cone mid-range in the sub-enclosure is a Diffusicone 8 along with the C-15HC woofer. The cabinets are similar to the S-8 but not exact. I'm sure University, like other manufacturers of the day, offered kits with various driver/cabinet combinations? Very much a "lowboy" type cabinet that I'm sure would benefit being a bit higher off the ground.:yes: Didn't University merge with EV at some point?
 
Oh, here's a pic. of the tops. Would this be walnut, mahogony?
 
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Looks like walnut. Those are some beautiful cabinets!

Recapping the crossovers will probably improve the high-end performance.
 
Sam Cogley said:
Looks like walnut. Those are some beautiful cabinets!

Recapping the crossovers will probably improve the high-end performance.
Click to expand...

The cabs/veneer are in very good condition for the most part. They could stand to be re-finished however. I will ask my friend if he would like them re-capped. I am a bit curious of those big resistors on the L-pad? Sure would like to find a schematic.:yes:
 
Those green resistors are wirewound, they almost never go bad unless something hits them with enough power to melt the wire. The value should be printed on the green casing somewhere. I see them all the time in late 50s tube gear.
 
Looking to do a re-cap. Any suggestions on values, brands etc. would be helpful.

Thanks!:thmbsp:
 
The values can be read on the sides of the old caps - mfd = uF. Parts Express has some nice crossover caps.
 
The University speaker system you show is the 80lb. Ultra-Linear 15, Model #S-11S, 3-way vented system using the C-15HC high-compliance woofer, the Diffusicone 8 midrange and the UL/HC horn tweeter. The crossover network was the HC-3. This fine system was introduced somewhere around 1958 at a cost of $260-265 each, depending on the finish.

The idea behind this speaker was to have a smooth, flat, high-performance system that gave up some efficiency for accuracy. This system was more laid-back and considerably less efficient than the bigger S-8S Classic or S-7C Dean folded-horn systems. The C-15HC was very similar to the C-15W woofer except that it had a ceramic-ferrite magnet and long-excursion suspension and voice coil (approximately 3/8-inch linear excursion) that allowed a low free-air resonance (fs) in the high teens or low 20s. A few years later University introduced the Classic Mark II, an additional refinement of this basic design, but with the addition of the Sphericon dome tweeter replacing the horn tweeter in the S-11 system. This system was better yet, and it received excellent reviews from Julian Hirsch in HiFi Stereo Review around 1968 or so.

--Tom Tyson
 
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