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Gents,
I just want to share a small project that took basically 12 years to finally be completed. This involved the renovation of a pair of old Epos Acoustics ES14 speakers that were in very bad/abused shape when I acquired them way back in 2004.
Let me start at the beginning. I have read the AVSA magazine on a regular basis during the 90s and noticed that Deon Schoeman used a pair of Epos ES11 speakers during much of those years as his personal reference/test speakers for reviews. I have never heard of the brand until then and was tickled by Deon's comments regarding its transparency etc... so the name got stuck in my head. During 2004 I saw a small advert in the AVSA magazine's classified section of a seller advertising a pair of Epos ES14 for R300 in Jhb. Me being in Cape Town I asked my brother in Pretoria to go and buy it for me in Jhb. The speakers were in a very bad shape but we bought it in any case. The cabinets had dents and scratches, the black veneer has seen better days, the name badges were missing, no original stands and the surrounds of the woofers looked like they were hit by a hand grenade. After receiving the pics of their sorry state I decided then that he can rather keep it for himself and that it was not worth the effort to courier it to Cape Town.
I kept the speakers in the back of my mind and about 2 years later (around 2006) I saw a complete and mint set of ES14 bass drivers and tweeters and a pair of original ES14 stands on Ebay. I immediately bought it. I also acquired original Epos name badges which Epos UK send me free-of-charge. I gave all these to my brother so that he can renovate the speakers whenever he could.
To make a long story short I convinced my brother a couple of months ago to send me the speakers and all the spare parts in order to renovate it as he had no time to do such a project. The plan initially was to let the cabinets be re-veneered in a real wood veneer but this was too expensive and after some thinking I decided to take the "empty" cabinets to the "ColourWheel" in Killarney Gardens CT for a professional spray paint job in a "Piano Black" finish. The spray job was completed to a very high standard a week ago and I can highly recommend them for such work. The owners Justin and Louise Curtis are extremely professional and helpful. Genuine nice people.
I installed the ebay sourced drivers and tweeters and also changed the ageing single electrolytic capacitor per speakers to a quality Polypropylene MKP type which Rick here in SW kindly donated to me. These speakers have a very minimalistic crossover - there is only 1x cap per speaker which is connected to the tweeter. That's it, nothing else. The rusted driver and tweeter bolts were replaced by stainless steel ones and I spray painted the stands with "hammertone" black finish myself.
End result: I am extremely happy with the SQ of the speakers. They have a lovely midrange and musical sound. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pics but below a few pics of the end result. Once again I must give thanks to the "ColourWheel" for the amazing spray work on the cabinets :notworthy:
(Please note that the position of the speakers in the pics below is just temporarily and for testing - it is not their permanent position)
I just want to share a small project that took basically 12 years to finally be completed. This involved the renovation of a pair of old Epos Acoustics ES14 speakers that were in very bad/abused shape when I acquired them way back in 2004.
Let me start at the beginning. I have read the AVSA magazine on a regular basis during the 90s and noticed that Deon Schoeman used a pair of Epos ES11 speakers during much of those years as his personal reference/test speakers for reviews. I have never heard of the brand until then and was tickled by Deon's comments regarding its transparency etc... so the name got stuck in my head. During 2004 I saw a small advert in the AVSA magazine's classified section of a seller advertising a pair of Epos ES14 for R300 in Jhb. Me being in Cape Town I asked my brother in Pretoria to go and buy it for me in Jhb. The speakers were in a very bad shape but we bought it in any case. The cabinets had dents and scratches, the black veneer has seen better days, the name badges were missing, no original stands and the surrounds of the woofers looked like they were hit by a hand grenade. After receiving the pics of their sorry state I decided then that he can rather keep it for himself and that it was not worth the effort to courier it to Cape Town.
I kept the speakers in the back of my mind and about 2 years later (around 2006) I saw a complete and mint set of ES14 bass drivers and tweeters and a pair of original ES14 stands on Ebay. I immediately bought it. I also acquired original Epos name badges which Epos UK send me free-of-charge. I gave all these to my brother so that he can renovate the speakers whenever he could.
To make a long story short I convinced my brother a couple of months ago to send me the speakers and all the spare parts in order to renovate it as he had no time to do such a project. The plan initially was to let the cabinets be re-veneered in a real wood veneer but this was too expensive and after some thinking I decided to take the "empty" cabinets to the "ColourWheel" in Killarney Gardens CT for a professional spray paint job in a "Piano Black" finish. The spray job was completed to a very high standard a week ago and I can highly recommend them for such work. The owners Justin and Louise Curtis are extremely professional and helpful. Genuine nice people.
I installed the ebay sourced drivers and tweeters and also changed the ageing single electrolytic capacitor per speakers to a quality Polypropylene MKP type which Rick here in SW kindly donated to me. These speakers have a very minimalistic crossover - there is only 1x cap per speaker which is connected to the tweeter. That's it, nothing else. The rusted driver and tweeter bolts were replaced by stainless steel ones and I spray painted the stands with "hammertone" black finish myself.
End result: I am extremely happy with the SQ of the speakers. They have a lovely midrange and musical sound. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pics but below a few pics of the end result. Once again I must give thanks to the "ColourWheel" for the amazing spray work on the cabinets :notworthy:
(Please note that the position of the speakers in the pics below is just temporarily and for testing - it is not their permanent position)
