Well I finally got time to pop open the MASSIVE Imperial 9's last night and see what I have. From the outside they scream American Kabuki and I figured semi cheap construction and such. I was pleasantly surprised when i pulled off the tweeter / mid driver plate. WOW, these things are built VERY nice and in VERY good condition. First off these speakers are massive. I have many big speakers, these are very big. They do have nice felt covered stands so positioning them after i get them running will be easy, nice.

So, the massive speakers at hand...



Here they are shown next to a Pioneer S-1010 which is also massive but looks small in comparison and is...



Now the good stuff. So i pop it open to find many things to my liking build wise. Massive 1" think baffle board, T nuts on every screw, very solid construction, super cross and front to back bracing everywhere, big robust looking XO's and nice looking drivers all attached with the most massive internal wiring I have ever seen...







What can you guys tell me about the XO?







I must say I am much more inspired to do the 12 driver refoam than i was earlier. I'll bust into the mid cavity and add pix of those drivers shortly. Fun stuff.

Very impressive kelly. Amazing how good the woodwork still looks after all these years.

I wonder why the XO caps are dipped in some sort of resin within a cardboard tube?

Those large diametre double reflex ports seem to indicate those babies will be pretty efficient but are not tuned to a very low frequency, very much in the tradition of japanese speakers of the time. I would expect a big peak in output at around 50 / 60 hz which can sound very impressive for certain kinds of music.

are you going to refoam them yourself?

Actually they are supposed to go quite deep, rated flat to 20hz. Remeber that these have 2 10" drivers in a huge cab and the ports are very long. I'm no tuning expert but am hoping for LOW bass output. I am hoping this is true and think it might be reading about other Marantz speakers systems. i had some Sansui SP3000's and know exactly what your talking about and am not interested in big speakers with no bass :>)

Yes, refoaming them myself... fun.

http://www.classic-audio.com/marantz/imp9.html

very nice! how much?



i cant remember, were there any reported issues aside from the foam, and any chance you'll have there ready for the Kelso meet on the 29th?

They appear to be nearly perfect in all respects other than the foam. Even came with cool factory stands.

- Highly doubtful they will be done by the gathering.

rats!

Kelly, methinks you are "hollowing them out" not for the re-foam, but because your wife is gonna bury you in 'em.






But here's wishing they do indeed get foamed and reach that 20Hz soon!

Update. Well I order up the surrounds with hopes of getting them done for the fest tomorrow. Didn't think it would happen but i just spent the last 2 hours refoaming and reglueing the mid sub cab back together and they will be done for tomorrow. Hell, I'm going to make it one heck of a night and do my Advents as well.

So, the mids were easy, I did them in place and glued the cone and frame at the same time seemed to work perfect. I was worried about rub on a few of them but they seem to be fine now that the surrounds are on. The spiders really held the cones in place well. The 10"ers we pretty easy also. 12 drivers in 2 hours I also had to glue both mid sub enclosures back on as they had split the glue and fell off.

- I'm really interested in how these will sound. I can't imagine they will be great but I am willing to be surprised.

I'll bring them to the fest tomorrow for some fun.







Yeah, these are gigantic!





The mid cab that came off...

outstanding!

Just did my purdy Advent woofers! WOOOHOOOO refoaming fool.

a refoaming mofo!

we should plug them into the yamaha mx-2000,

elroy

Well, they are making sound, and that sound is... GREAT! cool as i had no idea what to expect.

Look past the ridiculous design and smattering of drivers and sit back and enjoy. These suckers are VERY good. I just got back from the fest and these were very well received with several people wanting to take them off my hands. Nice and balanced from top to bottom, very dynamic, sounded great with a huge variety of music and effortless. This was under less than ideal conditions.

So I bought a Sansui 1000A tube amp from Elroy (Todd) at the gig and when i got home hooked them up to that. Holy cow!!!! I really like these speakers. They one of the best if not the best cone speakers that have been in my living room with this amp. Love them.

Sometimes you luck out.

i love it when i get to say i told you so. the least you could do though is to rotate one of them 180 degrees so they are mirror imaged ...