EPI A300

An EPI speaker rated down to 40 Hz and up to 250 watts - the one line item in the 1981 catalog that shows where the flagship sat.

Overview

The EPI A300 exists in the record almost entirely as a single line in a magazine advertisement. In its December 1981 campaign, Epicure Products of Newburyport, Massachusetts ran a numbered list of its speaker line, and item six read: "A300: 40Hz-20KHz; 20-250Watts." That is the whole documented specification - a frequency range and a recommended amplifier power window. No driver complement, no crossover points, no cabinet dimensions, no price, no production years. Anyone who has owned a pair knows more about this speaker than the surviving paper does.

The number does tell you a few things. A 40 Hz low-frequency limit puts the A300 at the bottom of EPI's stated range for the 1981 lineup. The A120 and A140 were both rated to 38 Hz, so the A300 was not the deepest-reaching speaker in the catalog, even though it sat near the top of it. The 250-watt power ceiling was the highest figure in that same list, matched only by the A500.

Audio (December 1981, p.73) carried the campaign, which framed the whole line around the question of whether a buyer's speakers could handle the power the new decade was throwing at them. The pitch leaned on EPI's tweeter technology — specifically a ferrofluid-filled voice coil gap used to dissipate heat and raise driver power capacity, along with what the company called Full Spectrum Testing to certify each tweeter against its standards. That is marketing copy, not an independent verdict, but it explains why EPI felt comfortable publishing a 250-watt figure next to the model's name.

The A300's place in the lineup can be worked out from that same numbered list. EPI ran the models in ascending order - Mini, A70, 100, A120, A140, A300, A500 - and the A300 sat second from the top, below only the A500. Collectors reading the ad today tend to treat that ordering as a rough hierarchy of size and cost, though no price for the A300 has surfaced in the sources examined here. The A500, per a 1983 HiFI-Stereo (p.133) listing, was a floor-standing three-way with a ten-inch "Focused Field" woofer and a passive radiator, priced at $400. Whether the A300 shared any of that architecture is not documented.

Be careful chasing this model, because "A300" is a crowded designation. Harman Kardon used it for a 30-watt stereo amplifier back in 1961, and Turner applied it to an amplifier tested in Studio Sound (April 1975, p.62). None of those are this speaker. The EPI A300 is the Epicure Products loudspeaker from the early 1980s, and the only reliable identifier in the wild is the EPI or Epicure badge on the cabinet.

The A300 is a documented model with an undocumented design. Its rated range and power handling are on the record. Woofer size, surround material, crossover capacitor values and cabinet volume are not, and a restorer needs all of them. The Archive would welcome photographs, a back-panel label, or an owner's manual from anyone who has one.