My Blast from the past non-JBL find

[RedCoat23]

70071

I'll put this little find in perspective. Sometime during 1988 I went to my first Hi-Fi show at a place called Last Drop Village near Bolton, UK. I saw many fine speakers all of which have faded into memory, apart from a Linn turntable and this one pair of speakers that quite literally stopped me in my tracks. I was walking across the show floor and as I reached the on-axis point, my jaw dropped and I turned to see what was playing.
It was Willy DeVille playing Angel Baby on it might have been a Linn LP-12 through some very tall Mission speakers. Turns out they were the 767 model with an active separate bass/amplifier speakers - Cyrus LFA unit (sounds like the BX63). I'd never heard anything quite like them.

Fast forward today and my latest flea-bay find. One speaker needs some crossover repairs - drive units are all fine. The LFA unit (supplied) also needs some work. There's some veneer chipping on one of the speakers and some fading. None of which is particularly daunting, but to say I'm 'stoked' is something of an understatement :)

They are not light speakers - 190 pound each.

Specs are pretty good.

70070

[wsilva]

Excellent!

So glad you were able to buy them.

Looks like a fun project, and the results should stunning.

Enjoy those beasts. :)

[RedCoat23]

Thanks!

I'm trying to track down a service manual and crossover schematics at the moment and also deciding where to put them in the house. Even the wife likes the look of them, considering they're 56 inches tall that's a good deal :)

[badman]

Pretty sweet, though those specs are pretty optimistic- +/-1.25dB.... maybe on one very specific axis :) Still, they look great, what was the damage to your billfold for those beasties?

[SEAWOLF97]

I've always liked the sound of Missions's. Replaced a JBL center with one and use daily.

BUT ..their cab quality varied wildly. Some are fine, while others look like they were made by a blind guy with hand tools in Nigeria. (no offense to Nigerians) ... I mean splitting seams, poorly fitting sides..etc. etc.

Yours look like the high quality , veneered ones.... well worth some investment. Bet they end up being keepers. :)

I'd have grabbed them too.

[speakerdave]

I see an oblate spheroidal tweeter bezel.

[RedCoat23]

Pretty sweet, though those specs are pretty optimistic- +/-1.25dB.... maybe on one very specific axis :) Still, they look great, what was the damage to your billfold for those beasties?

So I paid $350 for them. Price also included a spare tweeter/waveguide.


I've always liked the sound of Missions. Replaced a JBL center with one and use daily.

BUT ..their cab quality varied wildly. Some are fine, while others look like they were made by a blind guy with hand tools in Nigeria. (no offense to Nigerians) ... I mean splitting seams, poorly fitting sides..etc. etc.

Yours look like the high quality , veneered ones.... well worth some investment. Bet they end up being keepers. :)

I'd have grabbed them too.

These are very well made and at 190 pounds each, just about the heaviest speakers I own. I now own three sets of mission speakers; these, a pair of M35i and a pair of 705's. I've generally liked the way missions are voiced across their product lines and have been a fan for a number of years.

So a further update on these. Turns out one of the speakers had been tipped over at some point in the past. You can see the mark on the side of the cabinet. The accident had disturbed the crossover internally - knocking an inductor out of it's glue spot, partially unwinding it and creating a short. The folks selling on ebay were flippers and really didn't know what they had. They'd secured the extra tweeter in the hopes of curing the obvious sound problems - it didn't help. Solving the crossover issues was straightforward; rewind the core, remove the shorted area and glue back. Once done the speaker sounded fine again.

Next issue was the LFAU - the amp that filters and powers the twin 8's in the cabs. There was a tremendous amount of ground loop noise that I couldn't get rid of externally and it didn't matter which circuits I tried it on in the house, the buzz was present. Opening up and checking inside, there were no obvious component issues. No expanded capacitors. The LFAU is essentially a Cyrus 2 amp with an additional filter section for the bass frequencies. Cyrus also offered an upgrade of a separate power supply for Cyrus 2 amp, CD player and this LFAU bass unit. This provides an external 40v dc supply bypassing the internal psu. I managed to find one after searching quite some time - it had been recapped and a new toroidal added. Attaching this week and turning on I was pleased to here the buzz has completely gone; these are now working as intended.

All that remains is to tidy up the external cosmetics. The speaker has some kind of polyurethane coating over the veneer which I'd need to remove before I can repair and re-stain. Since I've no experience of that, does anyone have an idea for how to remove this coating?

So all told I spent $650 plus some time on these. A pair sold on flea-pay for $2k about a month ago, I feel my investment therefore to be reasonable; and to your comment Seawolf, yes, these are keepers ;)

[JoShHuTt]

These pair of speakers are beautiful! Is it still possible to buy classic like these?

[RedCoat23]

They do crop up occasionally. Over the past few years I've seen maybe 4 or 5 pairs appear. But they didn't make many of them so if you're really have after a set you'd need to be patient.
You really need them with the LFAU if you can find them. In typical UK sized rooms these could potentially be overbearing (as an ex-pat I remember how small our lounges are). I do however love how the sound. The high frequency is a little more 'polite' than JBL's more clinical approach.

If you like Missions you should hunt for a pair of the 753 regular or the 753 Freedom (from sometime in the 90's I believe), those are perhaps easier to integrate into a normal UK sized room and they'll be much easier to find.