I am in the process of restoring a pair of EV Sentry IV-A's, The Gefco woofers needed new foam surrounds and the boxes are more than a bit rough. One bass baffle was missing. The good news was that all of the speakers and drivers measure within spec for DCR.
The Sentry IV's were EV's answer to the Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater line. For a long time I have lusted after a pair of the EV's. I heard the EV's in a "shoot out" with Klipshorns maybe 15 years ago. I liked the EV's better. They had smoother mid range and high frequencies, but not quite the low-end extension of the K-horns. The K-horns were an early vintage with mostly EV components. The K-horns, obviously took the corners and the EV's were placed next to them, so placement advantage played a role in the perceived bass extensions. (It wouldn't have been fair to NOT give the K-horns the corners. It was not like we were switching this brutes about constantly!) I still have a strong aural memory of the dynamics of 102dB plus horns!! It was pretty amazing.
I am running them with my Paramour 2a3's and I am pretty impressed,even in these early stages of restoration. Still need much work. All of the Gefco 12" woofers now have new foam surrounds. The horns didn't sound all that good on initial fire up...screechy! Replaced the old zip cords connecting the horns and the wire for the woofers with solid core silver plated copper/Teflon...more focused imaging and detail. I took the tweeter protection circuit out...better still. Then I replaced the x-over caps with Russian PIO; KBG 2uf,(tweeter), and MBM 30uf, (mid). The old caps were mylar and one of the 30uf was an electrolytic. Everything smoothed out, timbre was much better, imaging much more focused and a the sound lost a coarse, nasal quality. I am spec'ing out replacing all of the coils.
So, the bass? One would think, based on the size, and 2 12" woofers per side, that bass would be subterranean...Nope, doesn't get to the sub woofer realms. But placed in the corners of my room, (approximately 15'X 40'), the bass has much more impact than my Gallo Solo's, (Rogue Audio M150 Magnums or monoblock modded Golden Tube Audio SE40's) w/ SS powered subs, or my open baffle project, (GTA's or bi-amped Bottlehead Paramours). (OB =>Audio Nirvana cast 8 and Eminence Alpha 15). I am running 1 BH Paramour per side. Will try bi-amping with the Paramours, when I figure that out from the x-over schematic. (The 1/4" phono jacks on the bass bin's were replaced with a 2 bladed connector, the x-over switch to bi-amp is actuated via a 1/4" jack.)
What I hear is marvelous. Approximately 102dB 1w/1m is really amazing in terms of dynamics. I really like the horns. I could probably live with the bass, but the bass bins are huge. As one can see in the pic, there is nowhere for additional subs! So, I am going to indulge on my wife's tolerance and let the new parts in Sentry's burn in for awhile. Still need to work on mounts for the horns. Clean up seems to be never ending as every time I touch the speakers I find new nooks and crannies full of decades of vintage crud!!
Cheers,
Geary
