Drastic downsizing in the immediate future forces me to find an appreciative home for
my University 3-way fully horn loaded speaker Classics. These are the 'cornerless' variant of the Classic, shaped to be placed snugly in corners, or by virtue of the truncated back, flat against a wall. According to the University catalog, they are recommended for 'medium-size theaters and auditoriums,' and to operate in corners, against walls, or in free space. In our 30 years of living together, many speakers of great reputation passed through our lives. My wife, a music lover with ears like a bat who cares nothing about equipment, commented favorably on exactly 2 of them: a pair Quad 57s ('These sound really nice?can we keep them?'), and hers hands' down all-time favorites, the University horns. ('These are the most realistic sounding speakers we ever had. Can we keep them?').
These were the finest achievement of Abraham B. Cohen, one of audio's greatest pioneers and author of the seminal 'Loudspeakers and their Enclosures'. His low frequency horn is not split like the Klipsch, but is a true exponential design, driven by one of the most lavishly built woofers of all time, the University C15W. It features a massive cast frame, a low mass, stiffly suspended cone, 3-inch double voice coil (with selectable impedance) and enormous Alnico magnet assembly. It was designed expressly for theater applications, and in its 9-foot folded horn produces bass of tremendous power, depth and definition. In addition to surpassing the Klipsch bass horn in all aforementioned areas, its relatively simple folding scheme allows it to play at least another full octave into the midrange. (Bruce Edgar has written very favorably about this horn.)
The Cobraflex midrange is an ingenious design, and after more than 50 years is still in production, although the current version uses fiberglass in place of the original's heavy, 2-piece metal casting. It is not straight like most midrange horns, because if it were, its length would make it impractical. Instead, it is folded. By virtue of this design feature, its theoretical cut-off is a low 250Hz. In the system, however, its is crossed over at 350Hz. (The N-3 crossover itself offers a choice of 350Hz and 700Hz.) It uses the same University T-30 compression driver that Klipsch used in his Klipschorn until he switched to something cheaper. (Also in the interests of economy, Klipsch used a 4406 University midrange horn, which has a cut-off of 700Hz, making it much less suitable for mating with a folded bass horn. )
The Cobraflex, together with the T-30, produces midrange of noteworthy power and purity. The ease with which the combination extends to below 350Hz is perhaps most apparent when reproducing piano and baritone male voice-or for that matter, Jerry Mulligan's baritone sax.
Crossover from the Cobraflex to the HF-206 horn tweeter occurs at 2.5kHz. Klipsch also used a lower-cost version of this tweeter in his early Klipschorns before switching to the Electro-Voice T-35. I compared the HF-206 to the T-35, T-350, and the redoubtable JBL 075, all fine tweeters. The HF-206, however, was the smoothest and sweetest of the lot.
These cabinets are the lowboy version, and in their original form, the Cobraflex and HF-206 were suspended in the mouth of the bass horn. In a typical domestic setting, this mounting arrangement places them too low (although if desired, the drivers can be replaced in the bass horn, and angled upwards to improve projection). Elevating them by mounting them in a separate enclosure sitting on top of the bass horns solved this problem entirely, and allows for the flexibility of moving the midrange and tweeter forward and backward with respect to the bass horn, a well as to each other, for fine-tuning time alignment between all 3 drivers.
I don't know their precise sensitivity specification, but they certainly well exceed 100dB.
A Sonic Impact T-amp is sufficient to drive them far beyond sensible levels in a large living room. They are ideal for SET and other low-powered tube amps. (I will soon be selling my Ampex 6397 monoblocks, a combination with the horns to die for.)
The original veneers of the cabinets were in distressed condition, so I filled in all scratches and gouges, and sanded everything in preparation for painting, although new veneer could easily be applied if desired. My intention before our moving plans became immanent was to paint them the same color as the wall to make them as visually inobtrusive as two 225-pound objects can be.
If you have suffered through this ad all he way to the end, the least I can do is to refuse no reasonable offer over $500. If you have the room, I doubt that you will ever find a used pair of speakers offering this level of performance for anywhere near the money.
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