I picked up a pair of EV Sentry III's in North Hollywood last Thursday and I am pleased. I spotted them on Los Angeles Craigslist and was intrigued. I did some quick research, made the arrangements and went to pick them up. Had to borrow a buddy's pickup truck, because there is no way, they are fitting in the back of my Focus wagon. I've had L-300's fit, 250 Ti's fit, L-150's fit, but not these. At 156 pounds each and 30x28x21 they are huge!
The cabs aren't great, but they're not bad and can be cleaned up. No delamination, no chunks missing and not even any deep scratches, just normal wear and tear for 30 year old speakers. These are my first pair of EV's after owning many pair of JBL's throughout 40 years and while I have only owned a dozen pair or so, I'm pretty intimate with build quality and I have to say, these are really well built speakers.
The cabs are beautiful. Very heavy MDF construction and quality veneer. These had to be handbuilt! The grills weigh ten pounds each and have three sides and they are literally, a friction fit to slid them on from the front. Not talking 1/16" clearance top and bottom, nor 1/32", but a slight friction fit to push them on to their velcro stops. And they'd better be perfectly straight, side to side and exactly vertical, because the grills will 'catch' and you have to pull on them and restart them! The tweed grill cloth is mostly intact and the badges are still there on the bottom. Each Sentry III weighs 156 pounds.
The midrange horn is frigging huge! It is one solidly built piece of plastic. Very, very sturdy and nothing flimsy nor cheap about it. The tweeter horn looks a lot like the 44xx butt-cheek. The foam on the woofers is long gone, so after they were unloaded and at home, I pulled the woofers and they are heavy. Big motors, thick cast frame construction and nice color-coded spring-loaded terminals, I know this construction and was pleased. The surrounds remind me of the Altec woofers, in that there is a lot of foam between the edge of the woofer and the frame!
Didn't get to listem to them, just yet, but I'm going to be dropping them off to be refoamed within the next couple of weeks. After that, I've got to find some kind of EQ that I can marry up with them to replicate the difficult-to-find EV SEQ unit, that allowed these monsters to go down to 28hz! Finally, they have small steel ingraved plaques on the back of each one, warning of high SPL's and that long term exposure can cause permanent hearing damage.
From what I understand, these are efficient speakers and it doesn't take a lot of watts to drive them to serious sound levels. I'm fascinated with the fact that they were one of the first speaker designs to fully utilize T/S specifications. Looking forward to hooking them up within the month or so and seeing just how they sound.
I paid $100 for the pair.
