Epos ES14 Anyone?

Hey @edo
Did you manage to find what you wished for ???

KR
R

No luck. I even saved a search with notifications so I wouldn’t miss them. So I’d say you were lucky!

Don’t understand
They are still there, on eBay

Presumably these:

2 Likes

They are on U.K. eBay. See my picture above.

1 Like

Works for me… :crazy_face:

2 Likes

Thanks guys! I’m in the US and they were not showing here.

1 Like

The default setting for an ebay search for you is probably US only, or maybe US and Canada. Set it to worldwide and you should be able to see UK listings.
Alternately go to ebay,co.uk instead of ebay,com.

Lovely looking system. The vintage LP12 with some space around it looks fab.

I only heard ES14s once and really like them. I reckon it was '88 at Reading Hi-Fi. I was dem’ing an Arcam 170 with black box 2, which I ended up buying, but recall really enjoying the speakers. Should have pursued them further but the CD player was 900 quid so funds were tight.

1 Like

I had a pair for many years - they were very open sounding, wonderful mids, quite dynamic and fairly punchy - my only slight criticism I found the bass powerful but a bit slow - I tried every way to solve this, the best solution was to get a load of straws and pack them tightly so they fitted the port snuggly - this seemed to tame the port but allowed it to breath. It was better - but did not totally solve the issue. This may have been a bit of a room problem - but I tried them in two totally different rooms - similar results. I tried the foam plugs but to me they sucked the life out of the speaker - I tried lightweight Heybrook HB2 stands and massive lead/sand filled stands (interestingly for me the massive stands were far far better). Maybe an iron fisted Nap350 or 500dr would have helped I don’t know…

3 Likes

What a lovely thread - stumbled across after a nostalgia attack had me searching for some of my old favourites. Some stunning examples of these lovely things.

I bought mine in the early 00’s - £90 on Gumtree (yep). They were a tad shabby on the outside but in fine fettle where it counted. Mk1’s, but with the pointy cones and complete with original bungs and manual. Come to think of it I think I still have that manual somewhere.

The chap in Audio Gold, Crouch End nearly fell over when I told him what I paid for them. I had a set of the stands made up by the OEM and drove them with Quad 606*/Croft Vitale and they were just so right.

I kept them for about 5 years at which point the missus wouldn’t accept them in our new home, so a pair of (much smaller) Dynaudios were recruited. They were good, but not in the same league.

I’m hoping another pair will cross my path for a rose-tinted second system sometime soon.

*sacrilege around here, I know!

4 Likes

Friends from college still ask me if I have those amazing Epos speakers.

My intermittent active experiment is to use the single wired Epos for mid/bass duties with the SBLs doing HF only! Works really well fir some things as the Epos add maybe an octave of bass extension compared to the SBLs.

All depends on the music if the hybrid works better than active SBLs alone!

Crazy I know.

2 Likes

Not Epos 14 but just bought some lovely Epos 11s to use with a Nait50.

Just hooked them up to my main system. They sound pretty fine especially on acoustic stuff. Very impressed.

12 Likes

@longplayer

It was a pleasure to see your newly refurbished ES14’s in Systems Pics.

Please do share an account of the refurb’ work.
Particularly interested in details on capacitors.
But, it’s all interesting…

Best wishes
R

I’ve changed the capacitor in my ES14 many moons ago.
One on each tweeter.
Big lift and very simple job, even I could find out.
Can’t remember specs but somebody knew the tech things to make the correct order.

1 Like

Great when you hit upon something that just works so well there’s never any need to change it. Are the mid-bass rubber outer surrounds still well attached to the cones and baskets ? They started to come away on mine but it was a simple enough job to repair at the time.

1 Like

I’ve noticed some hairline cracks appearing on the rubber surround of one of my ES14s - interestingly the one that gets the most light. It doesn’t seem to have affected performance as yet, but we shall see…

1 Like

As promised from the System Pics thread here is a summary of the refurb work.

This was done by Andrew at Anapeach. I contacted him after seeing a post here on the forum by someone who had a pair of Linn Kans refurbished. Andrew is very meticulous and before doing any work, carries out a full analysis, makes recommendations and then is up to you how much or how little refurbishment is carried out.

I’ve owned my Epos ES 14’s from new since December 1989 (still have the bill of sale from Doug Brady Warrington). I believe they were designed using Naim amplification and the user manual (a page or two of typewritten notes!) even recommends NAC A4 cables (presumably before NAC A5 was introduced). I use NAC A5 with them.

I had dented a tweeter diaphragm whilst taking them apart to see how the capacitor was fitted with the original thought of maybe fitting new ones. Clearly I can’t be trusted with something as fragile :roll_eyes:and I had thought they were done for (although they still sounded ok’ish tbh). After a chance read of a post from @ratrat which had information that NOS diaphragms were available, I managed to secure a pair and then discussed with Andrew refurbishment options.

After inspecting the speakers he made quite a few suggestions and it was pretty interesting to see the existing condition. The good news was that the drivers were all in good condition although there had been ferro fluid leakage on the undamaged tweeter.

The measurements showed quite a good match

Tweeter Test Results (Originals)
Speaker A = 10.8uH 5.9 Ohms @ 200KHz
Speaker B = 11.6uH 5.9 Ohms @ 200KHz

Mid/Bass Test Results
Speaker A = 111.6uH 6.9 Ohms @ 15KHz
Speaker B = 107.9uH 7.3 Ohms @ 15KHz

However the capacitors were drifting upwards from the original spec of 2.2uF
Speaker A = 2.56uF
Speaker B = 2.68uF

Not bad for 35 years but probably the time to fit new ones.

The driver gaskets were now flat and no longer sealing and the bass ports had worked a bit loose. Cosmetically there was no work needed (I have looked after them) so with the addition of three core woven cables and new terminals the extent of work wasn’t too dramatic. According to Andrew the main advantage to woven cables is that they reduce the effect of radio frequency interference which makes the separation between instruments/voices more defined. The gains compared to the original Epos cables were expected to only be slight though.

New exact matched Solen capacitors were fitted and secured to the rear cabinet (they are larger than the little blue coloured (Bennic?) ones fitted originally which were secured by plastic ties onto the rear of the tweeter so the Solens had to be re-located.

So in total, new ferro fluid, diaphragms, gaskets, wiring, terminals and capacitors fitted.

The rebuilt tweeters were now measuring exactly the same:

Speaker A = 15.1uH 4.6 Ohms @ 200KHz
Speaker B = 15.1uH 4.6 Ohms @ 200KHz

They sound great again back home and I’m hoping they will last me another 35 years (probably longer than I’ll last!)

Hopefully this will be of some interest or help to anyone else contemplating a refurb.

13 Likes

@longplayer

Thank you so much for sharing all those fine details. That’s seriously impressive.

Great that you found a skilled technician to trust with such work too. I’ve read others here - in this forum - trust the same person with speaker work previously. It’s brilliant we have these artisan skills, which probably takes forever to develop, from hands on experiences.

With this new information, now I’m seriously thinking about all this.

To explain…
I have two sets of Epos ES14’s. Several years ago, bought a second pair, not working, but for spares.

In the meantime, also collected a few NOS spares along the way too. All with intention of ensuring the first best pair can be kept going into the future. But, your project is making me think. Maybe to investigate getting the second pair working again.

Thanks so much for sharing. For my part, I’m really grateful. Other’s may benefit from your notes too.

It’s one of the joys of this forum that experiences can be shared for mutual benefit.

Wishing you lots of happy listening.

Best wishes
R

2 Likes

Thanks for the comments. Yes we are lucky to have access to skilled and obviously passionate specialists. This forum is so valuable in helping to track those people down based on other members shared experiences.

I have also harboured thoughts of buying a spare pair for spares so I can see where you’re coming from. Nevertheless, I think the idea of getting a second pair up and running might be an even better idea as it certainly seems feasible as long as the drivers are ok.

And once again many thanks for pointing me in the direction of the diaphragms.

1 Like