EMI Speakers

Chojiro has not found a pair of good speakers for his Leak system, until recently. He has used his pair of Dynaudio Facette speakers with the Leak Stereo 60 power amplifier; but the Facette speakers, which are notoriously inefficient, are too much for Stereo 60 to handle. Other speakers used were makeshift ones and could not be taken seriously.

Last week, a friend in the business of trading secondhand speakers lent Chojiro a pair of EMI speakers to try out with the Leak. Chojiro had not heard of EMI speakers before but nevertheless gave them a try. At first the mid-range sounded muffled, but there were good spots in the treble and bass. The speakers had not been used for years. After being driven by Stereo 60 for an hour or so, the sound from the EMI speakers became noticeably clearer, although the mid-range remained a problem.

Then Chojiro noticed that the EMI speakers have an impedance of 4 ohms, whereas the jumpers on the Stereo 60 were set to 8 ohms. After setting the jumpers to 4 ohms, the sound from the EMI speakers suddenly "opened up". The mid-range was no longer muffled, the treble was astoundingly clear and the bass deep and clean. It is a good fit for classical music, producing a nice dynamic sound field without excess. Chojiro would not call the EMI speakers superb, but they are good, highly efficient speakers.

Chojiro has been listening to the EMI speakers for a few days and they sound better with each passing day. In each cabinet, there is a 10-inch oval woofer and two 3-inch tweeters. Chojiro did some research on the Internet and discovered that EMI speakers featuring elliptical woofers (some with tweeter arrays mounted in front of the woofer cone ala Bozak) appear frequently on eBay. There is some collector interest although they do not command high prices. The drivers were available in the UK in the late 60s/early 70s as a kit. They were also sold as complete speakers, like the ones used by Chojiro. The speakers were said not to take much power but produced a nice sound good for classical. Chojiro's experience testified to this point.

According to information on the Internet, EMI stands for Electric and Musical Industries Limited in Hayes Middlesex England. The same company controlled EMI records and Abbey Road Studios (the connections with the Beatles!). EMI produced records under many labels, including "His Master's Voice", and produced a huge catalogue of SQ Quad records in the 1970s. EMI also made some very good studio quality electronics and up-market consumer electronics and was one of the UKs biggest companies at the time. One person in the Internet forum confirmed the Beatles connection by noting that his grandfather worked for EMI Electronics from 1931 to 1980. He said the organisation was primarily a record company but had a highly innovative electronics arm that developed some of the earliest electronic television broadcast equipment and airborne radar. With all the money EMI made from the Beatles in the 60s the company threw everything it had into its latest invention: the CT scanner. However, a combination of bad luck and bad management saw the company almost fold in the early 1980s. Today only EMI Records remains.

This person said his grandfather still has some of these EMI branded speakers in his front room. He had hooked them up once and they sounded very very different to what you would expect from a modern speaker - not in a bad way though. He was really looking forward to setting them up properly and hearing them again.

Chojiro's friend told Chojiro that he can keep the EMI speakers for a good price. Chojiro is still evaluating the speakers. Who knows? May be the next day his friend will lend him another pair which sound even better!