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Zenith Allegros: Guts and All

sealy

sealy

Addicted Member
There is nothing like looking over a speaker that you have never seen before. There is something of an exploratory aspect to the process similar to going through a Christmas stocking as a child on Christmas morning, with the attendant anticipation and excitement.

For $10, I got ahold of some beat-up(at least on the exterior) Zenith Allegro speakers. As the guy was sheepishly handing them over to me, pieces were falling off all over the place. What he didn't realize was the fact that as long as the drivers were solid, I was delighted to get them.

As the first photo shows, the edge pieces have either broken or fallen off, and the perforated plastic grilles had crumbled into oblivion.

But, as luck would have it, the box was still fairly solid and the drivers looked and sounded perfect.
The paper woofers have doped surrounds. There is nary a nick on either woofer. The horns look perfect as well. The speakers have a nice open sound with surprisingly good bass. The rectangular ports with the Zenith logo are also undamaged. I could hardly wait to get the back off and peek inside.

Note the thickness of the front baffle.
 
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Opening up the back, I was struck by the solidity of the box structure. These speakers had obviously been banged around, but in the main had withstood the abuse quite well.

The drivers are wrapped in thick, waffled foam as seen in the photo.

The 10 in. woofers have large 3 piece magnets of a type with which I am not familiar. They don't look like a typical ceramic magnet.

The tweeters are clearly identified as Fosters, which, as I have learned on this site, are quite well-respected.

All in all, some fine-sounding speakers well worth restoring.
 
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I have 4 of these out in the garage,I too removed the grills to take a "peek" at the drivers,haven't taken them all apart like you have,thanks for the look "inside". Rob
 
The magnet on those woofers looks like what you'd see on a modern subwoofer. :thmbsp: so am not surprised at the system's bass output. I remeber listening to Allegros waaaaay back when and was always surprised at how good they sounded, partly because Zenith "wasn't supposed" to build good audio gear & partly because of their looks.

retrokeeper said:
I have 4 of these out in the garage,I too removed the grills to take a "peek" at the drivers,haven't taken them all apart like you have,thanks for the look "inside". Rob
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You can use them for a four channel surround system then. :yes:
 
Heh, I thought the same thing when I got a pair about a year ago. I couldn't believe how heavy this "cheap" speaker was.... I thought it looked pretty non-cheesy inside. And, I have them hooked up to my r-1050 hooked to the puter'!

Good stuff.

Matt
 
I've passed up quite a few of these at the goodwill because I didn't think highly of Zenith. I will get the nest pair, I need some drivers for some good enclosures I have.
 
The fellas at Zenith knew what they were about, when you're true pioneers in radio and television building a good speaker is easy enough.

That Foster tweeter would now be called a Fostex, they make some nice tweeters among other things.
 
My first set of speakers was a set of Zenith 3000's that came with an all in one stereo................... turntable, radio, cassette and 8-track............... wish I had a picture.

I loved those speakers and bought a set of 2000's at the thrift for about $10.00 the other day.
 
It's remarkable to me that they took the trouble to chamfer the aperture of the tweeter cutout. At around the same era, Klipsch didn't bother to with their back-mounted horns (go figure).
 
I have a pair of the Allegro 1500's that I use in my den and I'm delighted with how they sound, and how efficient they are. I'm using a very low wattage all in one stereo with them, and they produce plenty of volume for a small room with solid bass and crisp highs.
 
Damn. I've passed on these at the thrifts many times. Now I have to look at them and think about taking a pair home.

Snade
 
There's a pair of tall Allegroes at the SA near me. They've been there for at least 2 months, probably because of the $75 price tag. D0n't know whether that's ea. or per pr. Didn't pay that much attention to notice what model they were, but they were about 30" tall. I also dismissed them but will take a closer look at them tomorrow.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but where do you find this list of speaker codes? There was a link in another post but it was for guitar amplifier speakers.
 
Interesting, I would have put them in the same class as Thrusters. I should better to judge something I haven't heard.

cubdog
 
cubdog said:
Interesting, I would have put them in the same class as Thrusters. I should better to judge something I haven't heard.

cubdog
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Maybe Thrusters are actually good. :scratch2:

I went to the GW where I saw Allegros last week and they were gone.

Damn, the word is out. :D

Snade
 
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