Following on from my completely fantastic speaker cable build(audiophool derails aside) I've got a new project.
So I've been using my dad's old Technics amp and speakers for my TV for years now and all has been well, until the left channel of the amp died... This has since lead my down the rabbit hole of surround sound HT, all was again well until my dad visited and asked where his amp was... Now I was going to replace his speakers with new floorstanders but he looked so sad I've decided just to renovate his speakers instead as a project.
Please note this isn't a "how to" guide, it's just what I did. Following the great Jeremy Clarkson, the soundest engineering principle is "add weight and simplify"
This is how they started, 30 years of wear. I had previously pulled the cloth off because our cat got hold of it at some point. The drivers still sound great but everything looked a bit tired.
Opening them up to find a 1st order crossover at 4kHz, a EAS-65PH43SA tweeter and an EAS-20PL32754 woofer(if anyone has any info on these I'd appreciate it) as well as a few spiders, I gave everything a clean and took the front baffle off.
Hardest part of getting all the old staple out came next and then the recovering is easy resulting in this:
I know the stapling is crap but the hand-held gun I used wasn't strong enough to get them all the way in so had to hammer them down, doesn't effect it just looks messy
Next came batting from Metro to add a bit of damping to the box, I didn't quite realise how much 3m was so I've got **** tons of the stuff(I used less than 50cm):
The boxes are a bit light so I went a bit daft and got some granite cut to size for added weight. Now I could say that I specially chose Rustenburg granite for it's acoustic properties and that it tightened the highs and crisped up the lows but really I chose granite because:
a) it's flipping heavy
b) it was a breeze to get it cut to size
c) compared to other heavy things it's cheap
oh and d) I know a bloke who makes kitchens and gave me off-cuts for free
Placement of granite in the bottom of the cab, just stuck it down with sticky-stuff because if it was permanent I wouldn't be able to remove the baffle again. Not strictly necessary to fasten it down as the fit was very good. The extra stability is most impressive, the jack-russell and husky can barely move it now. The gap on the right of the image is because there's a support thing there, it's supposed to be like that
Completed dampening(it's just the pic that's deformed I swear, I didn't transform my cabs into Tyrion Lannister):
"Final" product:
Next up I'm getting some custom stands made to get them up to ear height and I need to figure out a way to refurb the peeling veneer a bit. I'll update the thread with the stand procedure.
Now the big question, did it do anything to the sound?
Subjectively I've noticed the imaging is better, in stereo the voices sound like they're coming from dead center of the TV. Previously playing stereo sound upmixed in DTS:Neo sounded better with the dialogue coming through my Jamo centre, now however I prefer leaving it in stereo with the fronts. Music seems crisper and less muddy too.
Now of course that could all be confirmation bias and nonsense but who knows, sounds nice to me.
Objectively however once I plugged everything back in the auto-calibration was completely out of whack with the right speaker(which is a bit further away) being way way too bright, I can only assume it was "throwing" the sound a bit better. When I re-ran auto-calib instead of adjusting the gain 0.5db(left) and 1.5db(right) like it had always been it had locked both to 0.0db even after multiple runs. So something changed, according to Sony anyway.
Did I waste money on this? Most definitely.. Was it fun? Most definitely... I like taking something that was half-arsed and doing it properly.
Oh and the guy I gave the amp to with the longshot chance just so I could tell my dad I tried emailed back today to say he fixed the thing...
So I've been using my dad's old Technics amp and speakers for my TV for years now and all has been well, until the left channel of the amp died... This has since lead my down the rabbit hole of surround sound HT, all was again well until my dad visited and asked where his amp was... Now I was going to replace his speakers with new floorstanders but he looked so sad I've decided just to renovate his speakers instead as a project.
Please note this isn't a "how to" guide, it's just what I did. Following the great Jeremy Clarkson, the soundest engineering principle is "add weight and simplify"
This is how they started, 30 years of wear. I had previously pulled the cloth off because our cat got hold of it at some point. The drivers still sound great but everything looked a bit tired.
Opening them up to find a 1st order crossover at 4kHz, a EAS-65PH43SA tweeter and an EAS-20PL32754 woofer(if anyone has any info on these I'd appreciate it) as well as a few spiders, I gave everything a clean and took the front baffle off.
Hardest part of getting all the old staple out came next and then the recovering is easy resulting in this:
I know the stapling is crap but the hand-held gun I used wasn't strong enough to get them all the way in so had to hammer them down, doesn't effect it just looks messy
Next came batting from Metro to add a bit of damping to the box, I didn't quite realise how much 3m was so I've got **** tons of the stuff(I used less than 50cm):
The boxes are a bit light so I went a bit daft and got some granite cut to size for added weight. Now I could say that I specially chose Rustenburg granite for it's acoustic properties and that it tightened the highs and crisped up the lows but really I chose granite because:
a) it's flipping heavy
b) it was a breeze to get it cut to size
c) compared to other heavy things it's cheap
oh and d) I know a bloke who makes kitchens and gave me off-cuts for free
Placement of granite in the bottom of the cab, just stuck it down with sticky-stuff because if it was permanent I wouldn't be able to remove the baffle again. Not strictly necessary to fasten it down as the fit was very good. The extra stability is most impressive, the jack-russell and husky can barely move it now. The gap on the right of the image is because there's a support thing there, it's supposed to be like that
Completed dampening(it's just the pic that's deformed I swear, I didn't transform my cabs into Tyrion Lannister):
"Final" product:
Next up I'm getting some custom stands made to get them up to ear height and I need to figure out a way to refurb the peeling veneer a bit. I'll update the thread with the stand procedure.
Now the big question, did it do anything to the sound?
Subjectively I've noticed the imaging is better, in stereo the voices sound like they're coming from dead center of the TV. Previously playing stereo sound upmixed in DTS:Neo sounded better with the dialogue coming through my Jamo centre, now however I prefer leaving it in stereo with the fronts. Music seems crisper and less muddy too.
Now of course that could all be confirmation bias and nonsense but who knows, sounds nice to me.
Objectively however once I plugged everything back in the auto-calibration was completely out of whack with the right speaker(which is a bit further away) being way way too bright, I can only assume it was "throwing" the sound a bit better. When I re-ran auto-calib instead of adjusting the gain 0.5db(left) and 1.5db(right) like it had always been it had locked both to 0.0db even after multiple runs. So something changed, according to Sony anyway.
Did I waste money on this? Most definitely.. Was it fun? Most definitely... I like taking something that was half-arsed and doing it properly.
Oh and the guy I gave the amp to with the longshot chance just so I could tell my dad I tried emailed back today to say he fixed the thing...
