Vintage Fried Speakers, Indy

[mccarty350]

John,

Great acquisition.

A mod you might consider trying would be to put felt onto the baffle around the mid and tweeter. Another mod would be to put some thick felt square bars (a la BBC LS3/5a) around the T27 tweeter.

This may sharpen the imaging a bit more, not quite sure if it would cut the treble just a tad. The nice part is its easy to reverse and both mods are cheap!

The felt could be cut from a felt eraser, or you could order some from Falcon Acoustics directly or their Ebay store.

Ebay item 160649782671

Great great suggestions. I truly appreciate it. Fried must have a great fanbase because you guys have really come out of the woodwork with detailed information and suggestions. I'm humbled and thankful that I fell into these really not expecting much but now absolutely delighted. I'm heading out today, if I get the chance I will detour to my local fabric store or hobby lobby or Michaels (whichever is closer) and see if I can find some thicker industrial felt. Imaging was my concern when I first listened to them but the detail level and just how damn good they sounded I just stopped even thinking about imaging.

My first concern is figuring out what the best strategy is to get to the xover so that I can get a cap inventory and put in a poly cap order.

Right now I have placed these on some angled stands (with a slight tilt like you'd mount a Polk Monitor 10B on) to get the tweeter firing more in-line to my head and that provided a significant improvement and perhaps added some more 'time alignment' to the configuration.

 

[yesshows77]

Glad to see you picked up those Fried model R's. Can't wait to give them a listen.

 

[mccarty350]

Any time! I am heading to Hawgs tonight to get a listen in on freshly recapped ESS monitors...will be the first time I have heard heils in action.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

[JimPA]

The first model R use the parallel crossover circuit.

 

[mccarty350]

How do you gain access to the crossover, if I remove the racetrack woofer will I be able to see the crossover or is it going to be a problem to get to? Hopefully the capacitors will be clearly labelled to figure out what replacements to order.

Since these share the same drivers with the Klipsch Concerto and there are no published specs that I can find am I correct to believe that the power handling on these is only 30 wpc and the overall impedance is 8 ohms? It's disappointing, the website that contained all of the IMF/Fried info is riddled with dead links.

 

[Wigwam Jones]

How do you gain access to the crossover, if I remove the racetrack woofer will I be able to see the crossover or is it going to be a problem to get to? Hopefully the capacitors will be clearly labelled to figure out what replacements to order.

Since these share the same drivers with the Klipsch Concerto and there are no published specs that I can find am I correct to believe that the power handling on these is only 30 wpc and the overall impedance is 8 ohms? It's disappointing, the website that contained all of the IMF/Fried info is riddled with dead links.

Try pasting the dead links into the wayback machine. You may find some of the information you're looking for there.

http://archive.org/web/

 

[mccarty350]

Seriously Wigwam, how did I not know of this wonderous tool???? Thank you!

See below (it's a very small clip...still doesn't say the power handling ability but there is some info at least!):

The MODEL R

An I M FRIED "Signature Series" Loudspeaker





USER SPECIFICATIONS
Size: 28" high, 16" wide, 14 3/4" deep
Drive complement: 8" x 12" flat piston bass unit, visco elastic damped Bextrene
5" laminated plastic mid driver 3/4" melinex dome treble unit
Impulse and frequency response: Adjusted for optimum balance; frequency response, substantially flat 25Hz - 30 KHz Impulse response adjustable by "Impulse Perspective" Control
Crossovers: 200 Hz 3.5KHz, phase compensated and impulse damped
Efficiency: 25W. for 100db SPL (3 ft. on axis, noise, anechoic)
Impedance: Eight ohms
Supplied in matched, mirror image pairs only.
Weight: Sixty-six pounds each.
Accessory stands available.
Guarantee: Two years in "normal use".

 

[Nat]

That's the KEF Concerto, not the Klipsch, I think. Without encouraging you to blow them up, they can take way more than 30 wpc. I used my IMFs and Qs with 100 wpc Hafler with no issues.

 

[mccarty350]

I totally mistyped, yes, KEF Concerto. The specs on it must not be the same as on the Fried speakers regardless of the driver complement being similar then. I'm driving my Fried's with a 9090DB in my office currently but I have not gone more than a quarter turn on the preamp so I've kept it somewhat conservative with my volume not knowing what is safe.

 

[mccarty350]

So the crossovers are in the back top of the speaker...behind all the foam. I peered through the oval hole into the horror

Looks like all of that internal foam will have to be removed to even gain access to the xover, I did hit the crossover (from what I could see) with a flashlight and did note that the caps seemed to be clearly marked with their uf value. My fear is that there is some rhyme or reason to how that foam is organized within the cabinet and that removal of that foam and re-insertion in a random matter will negatively impact these fine speakers.

Also note that I have sanded and poly'd them already today. It's still drying however and may require more coats.

 

[michigannick]

Indy seems to be an okay market but the my buddy Michigannick in Detroit seems to get an epic level score like every 2 or 3 days.

Ha ;-) i dont know about EPIC! ;-) i had a couple lucky ones.. and missed more than i get .. like last week in boston a pair of ADS M12s popped up for 40 bucks !!!!! full walnut and in very nice condition.. the owner knew they were worth hundreds but "wanted them gone its moving day"

 

[michigannick]

My fear is that there is some rhyme or reason to how that foam is organized within the cabinet and that removal of that foam and re-insertion in a random matter will negatively impact these fine speakers.

all i can say is all this foam internal discussion ... COME ONNNNNN.....

:worthless:


he he heeeee

 

[JimPA]

The foam has to be correctly placed to dampen the back wave of the driver.
I would suggest taking a picture or making a sketch of the placement of the foam so it can correctly be replaced.

 

[michigannick]

The foam has to be correctly placed to dampen the back wave of the driver.
I would suggest taking a picture or making a sketch of the placement of the foam so it can correctly be replaced.

:tresbon: :tresbon: :tresbon:

Mc ;-) i think i should take lessons in how to properly motivate without bullying from sm19422 what a polite way to say .. take a few pics and you will have what you need ...

i feel so rude for my worthless without pics post now .. although .. i still think us less polite people still want to see how that foam is set in there

 

[mccarty350]

SM19422, that's what I was afraid of, the foam placement is probably non-random. I figured a photo was in order *sigh*

Nick, yeah, if you look at how the foam is in the cab it's like a maze made of foam, I would not be bitching about just pulling foam out wholesale, I've done it a million times but the internals of this speaker are unlike anything I have ever encountered.

I don't take it as being at all rude, what I was fishing for was whether or not the placement of that foam truly mattered and I got my answer. I didn't know if someone had a trick to get access to those xovers that I didn't have in my repertoire.

I'll take some pics and post them through the racetrack woofer hole in the near future.

 

[mccarty350]

Attached is a picture of the crazy internals of this thing.

 

[michigannick]

Whooo hooo pics are coming!!! ... and that illustration is very cool

I cant wait to see more. (I know it couldn't be simple or you wouldn't whine about it.. )

 

[mccarty350]

That's correct, you know I recap and refoam and restore quite a bit without b*tching but these are another matter. And they sound so damn good I just want to get to it and get them recapped.

 

[michigannick]

So is that internal stuff like rubber foam? or is it like acoustical batting or fiberglass .. or should i just be patient and wait for a picture

 

[mccarty350]

So is that internal stuff like rubber foam? or is it like acoustical batting or fiberglass .. or should i just be patient and wait for a picture

It's not like I'm going to run and rip off the woofer and take the picture immediately

It looks like the yellowish foam that folks buy a sheet of with all the finger-like projections to put on top of their mattress sometimes. Yellow 'egg crate' foam might be the right term?