Trying my hand at re-FOAM-ing some Speakers

[Dave]

Somebody needs to make the rebuttal video; 'Tweak them Tweeters'...

Ought to be done by that lady who earns her living repairing expensive high-end tweeters that people have abused. She replaces the burned voice coils and formers. In severe cases, where the delicate silk domes have been torn, she even sews them back together!

Not an easy job at all, but she does enough business to get by.

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

[DinkyInky]

Somebody needs to make the rebuttal video; 'Tweak them Tweeters'...

Ought to be done by that lady who earns her living repairing expensive high-end tweeters that people have abused. She replaces the burned voice coils and formers. In severe cases, where the delicate silk domes have been torn, she even sews them back together!

Not an easy job at all, but she does enough business to get by.

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

Eh-hem! The pun vault is giving you a gentle push...

[Jabberwonky]

Somebody needs to make the rebuttal video; 'Tweak them Tweeters'...

Ought to be done by that lady who earns her living repairing expensive high-end tweeters that people have abused. She replaces the burned voice coils and formers. In severe cases, where the delicate silk domes have been torn, she even sews them back together!

Not an easy job at all, but she does enough business to get by.

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

Eh-hem! The pun vault is giving you a gentle push...

I think it's more the assembled crowd is pushing him into the pun vault...

[shadowinthelight]

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

*singing* Nobody knows the treble I've heard. Nobody knows but tweeters.

[DinkyInky]

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

*singing* Nobody knows the treble I've heard. Nobody knows but tweeters.

Eh-hem! The pun vault is giving you a gentle push...

I think it's more the assembled crowd is pushing him into the pun vault...

Adding a second then...

[Hansontoons]

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

*singing* Nobody knows the treble I've heard. Nobody knows but tweeters.

Eh-hem! The pun vault is giving you a gentle push...

I think it's more the assembled crowd is pushing him into the pun vault...

Adding a second then...

I'll throw in a "woofer"!

[DinkyInky]

"Treble... I've seamed treble all my days..."

*singing* Nobody knows the treble I've heard. Nobody knows but tweeters.

Eh-hem! The pun vault is giving you a gentle push...

I think it's more the assembled crowd is pushing him into the pun vault...

Adding a second then...

I'll throw in a "woofer"!

You're forgiven because she's adorable.

*tosses in a rare mint edition still wrapped Three Dog Night album "It Ain't Easy" into the pun vault*

[TazManiac]

Interim report: I'm in the process of playing some music through the refoamed speakers to see if they 'loosen up.

I was concerned at first that I had incorrectly wired back either one or more of the drivers because "they don't sound right" was the best way i could express it.

After noodling with the built in EQ in the SMPlayer I'm using on the PC II've found they can put out whats asked of them, including some decent lows and highs, but when played flat, well, they sound mushy.

Next up is to connect them with a mid sized sub woofer to see if bleeding off the lows will help; it might be that they become prt of a three speaker set including that cube sitting on the floor...

[scantrontb]

Interim report: I'm in the process of playing some music through the refoamed speakers to see if they 'loosen up.

I was concerned at first that I had incorrectly wired back either one or more of the drivers because "they don't sound right" was the best way i could express it.

After noodling with the built in EQ in the SMPlayer I'm using on the PC II've found they can put out whats asked of them, including some decent lows and highs, but when played flat, well, they sound mushy.

you may want to go to a place like Car Toys or some other place that does audio gear installs and see if they have a test CD that you can use to tweak your speakers, if not there, then a place that sells DJ equipment/ stage audio gear (rock concert type stuff) might also do. i know that when we set up for our room parties at a sci-fi convention i go to, the DJ has a test record that he uses to set the various volumes and equalizer levels and such before we do any serious playing of music... it tests each channel, of each speaker, and then starts combining them in various ways untill you finish it and everything *should* sound perfect (well, as perfect as your hearing will allow compared to someone else's hearing that is)

[Dave]

Interim report: I'm in the process of playing some music through the refoamed speakers to see if they 'loosen up.

I was concerned at first that I had incorrectly wired back either one or more of the drivers because "they don't sound right" was the best way i could express it.

If you got the leads to the woofer reversed (compared to how they used to be) the effect on the sound would depend a lot on the type of crossover circuit used. With some crossover designs, it doesn't much matter (as long as you reverse both channels) - the frequency response is the same.

With some other crossover designs, though, reversing the phase to one driver has a really nasty effect. It creates a cancellation between the outputs of the woofer and tweeter, at the crossover frequency, leading to a sharp decrease in output at that frequency (a "suck-out"). Voices or instruments which hit the suck-out frequency, sorta disappear.

If you reverse-wire one channel's woofer but not the other, things get even weirder, because the two channels are now out-of-phase with one another in the bass (and some of the midrange). This can lead to anemic-sounding bass, and it totally messes up stereo imaging. If you play a mono signal, and the stereo image isn't crisply centered between the two speakers but seems to be diffuse and fuzzy, this could be one possible cause.

[TazManiac]

ScantronB &Dave; really good stuff there.

I yanked the face plates off (this time both at the same time) to verify what was what. I have one speaker with Red wire going to Red (+) on the one of a pair of drivers in the cabinet.

The Tweeter and Bass (really it's a midrange with a port tube...) both share a combined (-) negative lead.
It made it easy to verify the lower driver was also hooked up Red/Stripe to (+).

The other Speaker used a BLUE wire in place of Red, and the cross-over is mounted 'upsidedown' in relation to the other Speaker, but I can confirm I have all four Drivers hooked up In Phase.

I went ahead and played various Prince tunes I found on an Archive Hard Drive (I was dumpster diving in my own stash to find some artwork pictures... but anyway). Prince usually has a decent kick drum etc so I thought it'd be good to exercise the new surrounds- I've 'heard' they need to be broken in when new but thats anecdotal so far.

What I found was they begin to actually sound better when I cranked things up a bit. It could just be they are a bit stiff to begin with.

I'm going to hook them up to a higher fidelity Receiver tomorrow and report back...

[TazManiac]

Tomorrow they play Jazz...

[DinkyInky]

Tomorrow they play Jazz...

It don't mean a thing...

[TazManiac]

Sorry, nothing to report today, I was waylaid by the Sky Falling (somebody called it Rain or something, but we never have that out here anymore so I thing they where pulling my leg.)

Maybe tomorrow.

In the mean time, I'm tossing loose change in the coffee can to try my hand next at some much larger AR25s...

I'll do them prettier, I promise.

[DinkyInky]

Sorry, nothing to report today, I was waylaid by the Sky Falling (somebody called it Rain or something, but we never have that out here anymore so I thing they where pulling my leg.)

So you ran into the Kobold Tabernacle Choir?

[TazManiac]

Just an update: I put these into service but forgot to reply back with how they where doing.

Well, Te Speakers sound decent, but I didn't have any sense of a 'before' because I got a'hold of them in a torn up condition to begin with.

They still sound 'medium' as in less than stellar Highs, but they certainly can hold the juice so to speak when kicked into loud-mode.

I had them as some Front Channel in a surround sound setup, not my main set-up, but the one in the 'barn'.

I've since dismantled all that rig, so I'm going to be shuffling things around a bit- the speakers that currently service the everyday Radio action are actually Outdoor Ratted and they are going to my Buddie's Under Eve Deployment.

That'll likely press these refurbished Speakers into service as the 'play the radio so I can hear it out in the yard' duty.

Once things get situated I'll report back.

In the On Deck Circle are three pairs of other speakers awaiting some love and attention. And next time I'll not be so messy with the adhesive...

[TazManiac]

Follow up w/ a pair of Polk Audio (i think are) M4s- Went to run them during the last Farmer's Market of the season (where I was selling electronics and computers for rock bottom prices...) and one driver's main 'woofer' wouldn't put out.

I switched to Mono & kept on trucking for the afternoon, hoping I wasn't burning up a coil or output on the Receiver or anything- turns out the speaker must have taken a tumble at some point because the back half of the Magnet had broken loose, complete w/ the pole piece, and causing the cone/coil to bind up against it.

So, there is a remedy for re-centering that pole piece (and magnet...)
http://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/1 ... ir-is-easy

I'll start a new thread when I get a chance...

[DinkyInky]

Any luck?

[TazManiac]

Well, it got stalled over the rainy season, and I'm just now getting the 'pallet-shed' workshop up to snuff. (I used to tool around across the street, in the neighbor's barn...).

I'll likely post a picture or two when I have a chance to line it all up on the old extended dining room table (with two leaves) that I pressing into service as a workbench; it's going to need these metal table legs I came across under each end because even without any extra weight the ends tend to droop....

More to follow-