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Help 1960-era custom build

I'm wondering what I've got here. Rescued these from the curb on the evening before garbage day, thought they looked interesting.

A Wellcor 2-way enclosure tucked inside a custom pine cabinet, with bass driver in separate enclosure in cabinet. They weigh overall about 100# each. Woodwork is fair, nothing to get excited about.

They seem to work OK, I haven't pushed them at all, just hooked up to a little Pyle PTA2 amp to test. It struggles a bit to drive them. (It struggles, period. But it was nearly free, and it's light and handy.)

I haven't removed the grille from the mid/tweet enclosure, not sure how it's hooked on. I suspect screwed from the inside.

The tweeter is a University T-202 "Sphericon" driver with brilliance control. (Brilliance control mounted on side of cabinet, feels like a wire-wound rheostat when turned.)

The mid driver is a Stephens "Trusonic" 8 inch.

The bass driver in the ported lower enclosure is a Celesta "Utah", 12 inch, with a horn-like cone in the middle, around the solidly mounted post with the flat metal plate on the front. (See pics.)

Pictures

My questions are:
Are these worth anything as-is?
Are they worth anything individually?
Should I just give them away, or break them up for kindling?

Thanks for taking a look.
tenzip
10 responses Add your response
czarivey
5,650 posts
 
Pyle amp will only push half if not quarter of it's rated power to 8 Ohms for those speakers(only 1...2W per channel when volume all the way up). Efficiency of those is pretty high and 5...15Wpc tube amp will drive them at ease. I'd suggest to hook them up to something of that era vintage. They can really rock.
tenzip OP
4 posts
 
That's why I said it struggles. I had it to hand and it proved that they made noise. Used my phone as a source.

I dug out another amp that is rated a little closer to reality, and they do rock. Running out of my laptop into a Foobar II DAC, then into an AMC 3020 integrated. (20W/channel.) I currently have no tubes available to connect to them. My wife was horrified at me rocking the sitting room, rearranging the stuff in the curio cabinets without opening the doors.

Looking through the grille cloth of the Wellcor enclosures with a flashlight shows a rectangular opening for the tweeter, (obviously designed for a horn,) that has been blocked with a piece of plywood, and the University tweeter mounted through that.

Anyone care to guess at a value?
czarivey
5,650 posts
 
they will b hard to sell for any value
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,346 posts
 
The Stephens 80FR is worth @ least $100, if in good shape (closely matched pairs sell for more).

I've run 80FR's with 3 watts a channel for over a decade now.

The other drivers are not my cup of tea, but they do have value (maybe up to $50 for the HF unit depending on its condition).
tenzip OP
4 posts
 
Thanks for that information, Dekay. I'm going to take a careful look at those Stephens drivers, if they're consecutive or close serial numbers, looks like I could get upwards of $300 for them alone.

They sound good as-is, but like Czarivey said, selling them that way is another thing. These are the size (each) of a decent bedroom chest of drawers. Maybe not quite as deep, but definitely not something that will blend into a room.

Parting them out is probably the way to go.

Kindling for the cabinets, I think. They're old and dry enough they should light easily.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,346 posts
 
Didn't gather that you have a pair of the mid's/high's.

Other than serial numbers on the 80FR's another thing is that they both have a Black circle around the "S".

There were two earlier versions of the 80FR with either Black or Red circles/dots (containing the "S").

Aside from measuring them with a multimeter in order to see how closely they are matched (typical 16 ohm versions measure in the 6-8 ohm range - long story as to why they don't measure close to 16 ohms) you should also weigh them as the different versions vary approx. 1.5 pounds from one another and the Red/Black dots are not completely definitive as to which version you have as there was some crossover/mixup per the various examples I've owned/measured/weighed.

Tentative savvy buyers would appreciate this info and it would foreseeably increase there value to such.

Anyway, nice save.

glenfihi
525 posts
 
Nice save from the scrap heap. Someone may really get a kick out of it. Your pictures show it to be in fair to good condition.
tenzip OP
4 posts
 
Dekay, did you see the pictures? (Link in first post.)

There is a black circle around the S, also a music note in the circle. Serial numbers are A13322, A13336. The A is printed on the label, the number is stamped.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,346 posts
 
Yes, but I only noticed one set of drivers.

Sounds like an original pair as I've never seen consecutive serials numbers in old installations.

I live fairly close to where the Culver City, CA factory used to be so have run across quite a few of them over the years (including their larger coaxial drivers).

If you decide you want to try them look up "JE Labs open baffle" for an easy to construct (nice sounding) open cabinet design.

Think one of my Red circle 80FR's may have been tossed in error, but I still have 3 matched Black circle's (one's a spare).

My favorite vintage wide range drivers (Elac S517) were $5/pair (found in some way funky home-brew cabinets).
tenzip OP
4 posts
 
Sorry, guess I didn't make clear that there were 2 cabinets, with 3 drivers in each. I just took pics of the one, assuming them to be the same in each. As they were. (If you look carefully at the first pic, you can see the edge of the second cabinet.)

The OB sounds like an interesting and fairly easy project, but I just don't have the time for the project, nor a listening room to put them in right now.

I'm going to yank the drivers out, and let someone else enjoy them. The cabinets will go back to the curb.

Thank you all for your help, and happy listening.
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