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Epos ES14 (MK1) equal or better out there?

A nice new alloy tweeter plate with a sweet isoplanar tweeter would be interesting.

....and Audiosmile now has a nice new CNC machine

Now there's a thought :)
 
. Back in the day, for that sort of price I'd always have chosen a pair of Snell J/II's.

A student buddy of mine at Essex University owned a pair of Snell J/IIs which he used with a small home-built valve amplifier. I didn’t have any opportunity to make a direct comparison with the ES14, but I remember thinking that they were leaner in overall balance. Informative and more than pleasant, but perhaps a tad too bright for me

I believe I’m correct in saying that the designer was Kevin Voecks, a man generally reckoned to be among the more able designers. Interestingly, he eventually found his way into the Harman operation, as did Robin Marshall.
 
Went from Mk1 ES14's to Roksan Darius Mk2 (post exo-skeleton) in the late 80's. These are the ones with the cross-over boxes suspended within the base of the stand which have a vertical 'spine' containing the speaker wiring. I still use these in my main system powered by a Bryston 4B amp. Very musical and agile speakers. IMO they built on the strengths of the 14s with transparency across the range. Very agile and 'quick' sounding with superb imaging underpinned by deep solid bass. They are sealed box speakers but room placement is slightly idiosyncratic with a suggested toe-in so that the sweet spot appears just in front of the listener. Current driver technology has probably left these behind and they do benefit from an amp with plenty of power but they are still highly engaging and communicative speakers. Only downside as far as I'm concerned is in the looks department - at least in the black ash finish.
 
There is no manufacturing relationship between the ES14 and the Celestion SL6, nor is there any real design similarity. Do you really believe that they sound similar? I’d be surprised if you did. I would say that it would be hard to find two speakers more sonically different than these.

they certainly do sound very different to each other.
 
I had a pair of early single-wire ES14s for about 10 years. I popped a bass unit (they could not handle much power) and had both bass units replaced by the phase plug version - much more coherent in the midrange. I always thought the bass (with foam bungs) was rather good and that the treble was the weakness of the design. I ran them with LP12/Grace 707/Supex 901 and JLH 80W mosfet amps (with my own PS design) and this system certainly had some real magic to it.
When I moved house I decide I wanted something more modern looking and bought a pair of Linn Stinkas, then spend some dosh going active to try to get them to sound half decent. Still regret selling the ES14s but I'm not going back... maybe my memory is rose tinted because the 2 or 3 pairs I've heard in the last 3 years sounded OK but a bit "80s".

Gale 401s are a good (but different) alternative to ES14s.

I now run these:
http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=CAOW1.html
with an active crossover to a rather special LF system. They are miles ahead of 401s (having compared directly) and I strongly suspect ES14s (from memory).
I've had Neat Elite SEs on home demo - too nasal in the mids, and owned Kensais - just too small and a bit thin sounding. B&W 801S was probably on a par with the CAOW1s but unfortunately I compared then using a £5K Naim system whcih sounded quite poor to me.

I'm not afraid of crossovers, either using opamps or the passive variety. Like all aspects of hifi it's not the technology that is used that matters, it's the implementation.
 
I had a pair of early single-wire ES14s for about 10 years. ....... Still regret selling the ES14s but I'm not going back... maybe my memory is rose tinted because the 2 or 3 pairs I've heard in the last 3 years sounded OK but a bit "80s".
QUOTE]

Synthesised?
 
I always thought the bass (with foam bungs) was rather good and that the treble was the weakness of the design.

Seconded. I ran the ES14 for a long time and liked them a lot. Ultimately, I found the treble reason enough to change.

If I was less crap at diy, I'd be building a pair of Nadas.

nada_accuphase_7090jan.jpg
 
I found it hard to escape the gravitational pull of both the 14 and 11, having sold and re-bought them both. However it was the treble that always drove me away in the end. Ended up with Neat Vito Ultimatum SE which were much more expensive. Any 14 owners heard the Neat MFS Ultimatum?
 
I found it hard to escape the gravitational pull of both the 14 and 11, having sold and re-bought them both. However it was the treble that always drove me away in the end. Ended up with Neat Vito Ultimatum SE which were much more expensive. Any 14 owners heard the Neat MFS Ultimatum?

Interesting issue with the hf here. My first pair of MK2 14's were a little strident up top but my current MK1's are sweet as a nut!

I wonder when the outsourcing started......? G
 
I wonder when the outsourcing started......? G

Immediately on the introduction of the MkII.

Tweeters before that where in-house, although it has to be said that there were small production changes even during the life of the Mk1. The early tweeters had domes which were drawn in-house, with the coil former integral with the dome. The process was laborious because the aluminium foil was rolled to thickness and then formed in several stages, each one of which was separated by an annealing operation. When the sales requirement began to outstrip the in-house manufacturing capability the dome was given to an outside contractor to produce. The contactor did not have the capability to achieve the very deep draw needed for an integral coil former and so the dome and the coil former were made as separate pieces and adhesive bonded together. A change of material from relatively pure aluminium to MG5 alloy was made at the same time because MG5 is much easier to draw. The two domes certainly showed some frequency response differences. The dome with the integral coil former extended a little further before breakup and was more linear in the region above about 10kHz.

Robin himself was not at all happy with the performance of the tweeter and a totally new replacement was already at an advanced stage of development when Epos was sold to TGi. Who knows what happened to it.


but apart from the bass and the treble they are fantastic!
I believe that “shite” was the descriptive term usually applied to the ES14 by the Linn crowd of the period. Whether this applied to the bass or to the treble, I’m not certain.
 
but apart from the bass and the treble they are fantastic!

heh heh heh. Well, I've had a motherlode of 'speakers over the last 30 years but, somewhat surprisedly, find this pair of 14's a kind of reference point for any subsequent purchase should things go awry. I'm the first person to get irritated if some aspect of a speaker begins to grate over time and would not tolerate one note bass or splashy treble given the front end investment. Must be the room that is perfect!

Thanks Andy - We cross posted but that may explain why I've had one strident and now one sweet pair I guess. G
 


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