Hello everyone, this is my first post on these forums, sorry its asking for help instead of helping someone else. To the point..

Was visiting my Mother and Step Father yesterday and stumbled across some old loudspeakers in his garage. He said they are called Reference 3 speakers and he bought them in 1982. He said I can have them if I can get some use out of them, but i'm not sure if they are worth the effort "the midfield cone is pretty torn up on both speakers, time just dried them out around the edges and then when turned on the outer edges ripped completely around the cone."

Just curious to know if anyone has heard of these speakers? or more importantly anyone listened to these speakers? There is no labeling of any kind on the speakers, so all I know is they were called Reference 3 or Reference III.

Thanks in advance for any info.

"Reference III" might be kind of a generical name, but a little googling turned up this...

Very few high-end speakers, including the majority of $10K+ models can approach, much less equal, the Nucleus Reference III’s extended high frequency ...
www.unitedhomeproducts.com/id117.htm - 25k - Cached - Similar pages

Reference III has been used by a few mfgr's I think. "Reference" is probably one of the most used words in speaker names.

I know there were Gallo's and maybe Kef's with that name.

If these are the ones I'm thinking of....
They have a small woofer and one tweeter with a slanted front baffle.
These speakers are know in the audiophile community because of their lack of coloration.
Because there is NO crossover in the circuit.
And I believe they are rather efficient and are usually mated with low power tube amps.

I haven't heard these myelf, but they have received many great reviews, and I always wanted to listen to a pair for myself.
Let me know what ya think of them after you listen for a while.
Good Luck!
Paul
www.millbroksoundstudios.com

Hey!!
Free is free!!!
Take em' and work it out later.

That being said, they sound like they might be "white van" speakers.
IOW junk that is sold off the liftgate of trucks. The shills usually claim they are "studio monitor reference speakers" and a studio went out of business before they could take delivery etc....

However, Infintiy sold "Reference Speakers" back then and they were quite nice.
However, I would be surprised if you couldn't locate the Infinity label somewhere on the box?

he doesnt remember where he bought them??? try pulling the woof/crossover and look for markings... get back to us...

if they are infinity, you're in for a treat i have two pairs in my studio a reference 50and a reference kappa9 ( a huge 350watt one) have done plenty of good mixes using them as refrence monitors... actually stopped using my ns-10's in favor of those...

also it sounds like the woofs just need to be refoamed. a $35 kit and a half hour of your time, good as new.

just google 'refoaming kit' and feel the healing power of your own mighty hands.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

Can you find them on this website?

http://www.imf-electronics.com/