EV Sentry III find.

[memoire101]

I agree. While I haven't heard a pair of EV's yet, I am looking forward to getting the woofers back from Ken at Upland Loudspeaker Service, where they are being refoamed. The build quality of the cabinets and components are top notch and I'm betting they sound great! I looked up the Yamaha's and the Bozak. If you're running dual P2200's, you're not going to be short of power, that's for sure! The Bozak looks really good too, nice build quality and reminescent of early Harman Kardon preamps, with the internal wiring carefully laid out. I can hardly wait to get the big beasts running. These are the largest loudspeakers I have ever owned. I've owned the L300's so it's going to be interesting to see what these sound like.

Do you still have your JBL L300 or dod you sold them ?

[memoire101]

I usually speaking French with English mistakes so please be gentle. There are three models of Sentry III. Mine have the suspension of the woofer in W. So no need to replace it. A pair of the kind in a showroom like condition and 100% functional up to $ 15,000 in Asia. In Canada and the United Etas they are worth less than the ignorance of their quality hi-fi and the linearity of the reproduction of their sound. They are of very high efficiency so important to the coupling with an amplifier and a pre-amplifier that will do them justice. I for my part my arm in two-EV steps with two amplifiers Yamaha Professional Series P2200 updated with new condensators and a pre-amplifier Bozak CMA-6S rebuilt. The source (cd player) is just as important (quality). Finally the interconnects are all important too.
Undo edits

Tne pics are ready now

[loach71]

Tne pics are ready now

A very nice system indeed. Search the forum for boiled linseed oil -- use it to treat the dry veneer. Again, the SM120a mid-horn is one of the nicest near-field horns I have ever heard. If they sound good, then don't modify them!

[Regis]

Tne pics are ready now

That is a great looking system! The big EV's look like the beasts that they are! I agree with your assessment of the value on these speakers. They are ridiculously low for what they are. The average price here is about $1,000 or so and up to $1,500. That is cheap for a 156 pound, horn driven speaker in a walnut cab!

[snafu]

So, how do they sound? That is a gorgeous pair of speakers that I had no idea even existed. What a find. What a price!

[Regis]

So, how do they sound? That is a gorgeous pair of speakers that I had no idea even existed. What a find. What a price!

They sound really, really good! The horns are a lot less 'brassier' than the L-300's (and I owned a pair for two years...). Also, the big horns have really good dispersion and are very smooth. I was pleasantly surprised at how guitar, both acoustic and electric sounded, nicely detailed with good separation and that goes for solo piano segments too.

The speaker as a whole performs really well. The drivers work well together and you don't hear a dominance by any single set, like too much midrange or bass. The tweeter is smooth too, with no harshness, though some material, it's good to play with the EQ just a bit.

It doesn't take much to drive them. A 12 watt tube amp drives both pair to pretty loud levels. Substituting an SS amp just gives them more 'umph'! The EV Sentry III's are 'Permanent Hearing Damage' speakers and they will go that loud and then some! If your musical tastes go to the heavy end of the musical spectrum (Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, etc), you will get a beating from these and they will still sound crystal clear and clean!

At our shop on a Sunday (industrial neighborhood) we had them cranked up with a 200 WPC Perreaux MOSFET amplifier and you could feel the metal bodies vibrating on Chevy pickup trucks parked 50 feet away! They could be heard two to three blocks away! The people on the other side of the building thought it was a live band! They're that good!

PS: Factory specs have 500 watts producting 114 db of SPL or Sound Pressure Level!

[clmrt]

That extrapolates down to 87db/w/m. Seems low.

[JBLGUY]

Very nice find and congrats on recognizing what they were before you grabbed them.
That mid horn is a great horn. I have two of them. One of my favorites as it is so nicely damped. They sell pretty cheap on Ebay and I don't know why. Most people seem to dismiss them for some reason. I just don't think many have used them or know how nice they are. My only experience with them is with a EV 1824m driver but it sounded great. Very subdued but loud enough as well. Just perfect as a Khorn replacement.With an adapter other drivers could be used. Those little ledges molded into the horn were to mount the tweeter there. The same tweeter you have there. EV made that horn in different thicknesses as well. I'm not sure why but maybe they were just made a different times in different molds. Some didn't have the mounting rim molded onto them. Those ones appeared on the sentry PA speakers and some other EV PA speakers. I have some old brochures showing them on PA stuff with no lip on them
The tweeter is nice as well. I have two of those too.

[Regis]

...Those little ledges molded into the horn were to mount the tweeter there. The same tweeter you have there.

Thanks and I was wondering what those were for! I thought they looked like fangs!

PS: clmrt, I pulled this from the EV Sentry III Specifications, specifically, the factory brochure.

To answer "That extrapolates down to 87db/w/m. Seems low."

I pulled the info from the factory specs for the "Amplifier Power Requirements"

Medium Level (85 db SPL) = .65 watt

Loud Level (95 db SPL) 6.5 watts

Very Loud Level (105 db SPL) 65 watts

Maximum Level (114 db SPL) 500 watts

This is for the Continous Average at 6 ohms, for the following Average Sound Pressure Levels, Mid-Band in the Reverberant Field of a Typical Living Room (3,000 cu ft, R = 100) with Peaks 10 db above Average. (Long Term Average Power Capacity not to be exceeded).

Long-Term Average Power Handling Capacity 40 to 10 khz = 50 Watts
Short-Term Power Handling Capacity (10 milliseconds) 40 to 10 khz = 500 Watts.

Hope this helps

[snafu]

Man, I haven't seen a pair of speakers in YEARS that piqued my interest like these do. I have a pair of Altec 9846-8As that I've owned for 20 years now. I power them with a McIntosh MC2300, and used a pair strapped on them for a few years. I'll be keeping my eye out for a pair of these to come up for sale in the Phoenix area.

[JBLGUY]

Man, I haven't seen a pair of speakers in YEARS that piqued my interest like these do. I have a pair of Altec 9846-8As that I've owned for 20 years now. I power them with a McIntosh MC2300, and used a pair strapped on them for a few years. I'll be keeping my eye out for a pair of these to come up for sale in the Phoenix area.

Smart idea IMO....they are pretty nice and nearly the equal to a lot of JBL stuff.....although that crossover appears a bit cheesy...but I don't know really. I used that horn on some Vitavox corner cabs and they sounded very nice and not harsh even loud. They made my Altec's sound like crap and I sold them. That 1824m driver was always sounding better than the Altec every time it was compared. It has a phenolic diaphragm and was a much more gentle sound driver/horn combo

[Regis]

Man, I haven't seen a pair of speakers in YEARS that piqued my interest like these do. I have a pair of Altec 9846-8As that I've owned for 20 years now. I power them with a McIntosh MC2300, and used a pair strapped on them for a few years. I'll be keeping my eye out for a pair of these to come up for sale in the Phoenix area.

Best of luck in your search for a pair of these beasts! As JBLGUY say's, the crossovers do look cheesy, but they work! The cabinet work is equal to anything JBL I've ever seen and I've owned at least a dozen different pair of the 70's and even 80's JBL (tho' that small of an amount, makes me look like a newbie here!).

Peruse Craigslist every day, as I do and you might just stumble on a pair. I use the terms "EV", Electro Voice (with a space) and Electrovoice, without the space. Also, I use the term "Sentry" just by itself and you will get a lot of firearm safes and alarms, you'll also stumble upon the term too.

Finally, I think the Interface "D"'s are certainly worth a look too. They just look like bad-a55 speakers!!!

[4313B]

equal to anything JBL I've ever seen

EV was a big player, lots of R&D done there. In addition to EV, Don Keele Jr. also worked at JBL and Harman Becker.

[spkrman57]

I have a pair that I rcvd without drivers except for the midhorns & 1823M cd drivers.

I figure I might redesign it with a different 15" option and maybe 2404 baby-cheeks tweeters!

One of these days when I finish other projects ahead of it since they are large and heavy and take up too much room in the house right now, they can sit in the garage until then!

Regards, Ron

[snafu]

Best of luck in your search for a pair of these beasts! As JBLGUY say's, the crossovers do look cheesy, but they work! The cabinet work is equal to anything JBL I've ever seen and I've owned at least a dozen different pair of the 70's and even 80's JBL (tho' that small of an amount, makes me look like a newbie here!).

Peruse Craigslist every day, as I do and you might just stumble on a pair. I use the terms "EV", Electro Voice (with a space) and Electrovoice, without the space. Also, I use the term "Sentry" just by itself and you will get a lot of firearm safes and alarms, you'll also stumble upon the term too.

Finally, I think the Interface "D"'s are certainly worth a look too. They just look like bad-a55 speakers!!!

OK, I tracked a pair down locally and paid them a listen yesterday. I took a few of my favorite CDs with me and the shop reselling them (on consignment) was quite accommodating. This particular pair had a pair of NOS woofers, according to them an exact replacement. They did not have the EQ that I've heard about. The mid horn is not nearly as large in person as it looks in the photos, but it is still quite imposing. I listened for about half an hour. They connected them to a Cary preamp and a brand of amplifier that I've not heard of before but was some kind of tweaky SQ brand.

My impression was that these speakers have quite a bit of potential. Throughout my listening, I heard a few things that pointed to the fact that the crossover networks may benefit from some fresh components so I don't feel this pair lived up to their full capabilities. I would also like to hear them with McIntosh amplification. Regardless, I heard many of the same things I've often heard with three-way horn speakers, like those from Klipsch. Generally speaking, these ears still prefer a two-way horn loaded speaker with a 500 cycle horn, but I believe the EV would be a fun speaker to restore and enjoy. I believe I could easily live with a pair.