Rusty Bowtie
Miscellaneous => Outdoors Area: Hunting, Fishing, Firearms, Camping, Hobbies, Videos etc => Topic started by: sammons on February 25, 2025, 09:21:23 PM
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Well.... music is a hobbie of mine, or a need.
My 15" woofers down stairs, and the foam fell apart couple years ago. I priced new ones, don't have that much cash. Looked into re-foam kits, i can afford that. Never tried such a thing, but hey for $20 i'll give it a shot. Researched a lot, most say not worth the time to do it and get it right. Not what i wanted to hear.
These Realistic Optimas 3-way floor speakers 1050's i bought back in the late 80s (?). In my trailer house days😁 They have seen many a party and served me well. When i sold my trailer to build my house there, i had blown one of them. Moved everthing over to dads while building, had to buy a new high power compoments for my new basement. Ordered a pair of new 15" Pioneer woofers as replacements, went to electronics store and bought a Bose Acustic master surround set up, sub, and 5 double cube speakers. Then bought a Yamaha big amp surround. Had buyers remorse just before i got back to dads, Yamaha and Bose alone set me back $1,800., (1999) As soon as i set it up, no more buyers remorse, not even close. Long story short, set up in my new basement and put the Optimas cabnets in the ceiling. After 10 yrs i blowed the voice coil on one of the 15" woofers and ordered another pair. Had money then😁 So this time foam went.
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Thru reaserch found a company in Springfield Mo that had what i needed. Instruction booklet and on line video. I got the kit in couple days ago, read instructions and watched video. They recomended a tone generator app with a 50hz sine wave for centering the voice coil. Still have that to figure out before my attempt tomorrow.
I got the ladder down stairs and screw gun. Got up there.... i can see this going bad on me. Drop speaker or screw gun, probably lose my balance, no... call Tom! He got them down, said those are a bit heavy. I weighed them 9.8 lbs each, don't really know if thats heavy or not for 15"ers.
Got foam cleaned off yesterday and this morn i glued the inner lip of the foam to the cone. Hope tomorrow i'll figure out how to bypass speaker box to go directly to just the woofer to center coil while gluing the outter foam to the housing (spider).
Few pics
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Tom sent me this pic, said i needed a pair. At 1760 lbs for just the speaker, how big would the amp to drive those have to be? Suck right down on the electricity pretty hard😆
Just speaker, lol break windows and create earthquake for 2km area. 🤣
In box
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Interesting! I have an old set of speakers in the basement that could use the same treatment.
Tom
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It's beer thirty😄 That went pretty good, just a couple hick ups. 1st was i left a Sharpie under cone, that'll cause a buzz😁 2nd was a little too much glue on a 3" section. Had to go back a couple times to push back down, (15mins apart)
At this point Tom, i'm calling it pretty easy. Hardest part is the taredown and clean up prep. Instructions say rubbing alcohol, internet says acetone. Niether were getting anywhere on mine, went to my Ditzler DX 440 wax and grease remover, (the hot stuff i use on prep wipe before painting) DX 330 would probably work also. Then lacqure thinner for final clean to get glue off.
They say 24-36 hrs before returning to service. As hard as i drive these, i'll wait 48hrs.
With that 50hz tone genarator, makes centering easy. You can easily hear the buzz if it's off center. You have to slowly go around touching foam edge down several times as the glue is drying. I found putting my finger on the foam lip and slightly pushing in or out would either make it worse or better easy. I would hook up the tone gen every 15 mins 2-3 times just to be sure it was buzz free.
My neighbor said you couldn't hear 50hz, well i can. I kept the volume low enough i wasn't getting big vibes, about 2 clicks up on volume.
The kit came from Springfield Speaker Repair, Springfield Mo. They have a web site and a video on Youtube.
The app they recomended, i couldn't find on play store but i found another free app. "Tone Generator Pro", it has all the settings sign wave, square etc.
Pic 1 tone gen app
Pic 2 done
Pic 3... plug what into where?😄
Can't wait till its show time, 👍 (in 2 days🙄)
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I got the upper 3/8" outter gasket glued back together. It was layers of paper type stuff, some separated. Probably don't need it because the speaker mounted flush and not from the inside of the cabnet. Plus, it goes over the outter foam ring. Thought that would really secure it 🤔
Now if i can get some one to come over tonight or tomorrow to screw it back up there. Tomorrow night is show time/test 😁
Done speakers
Ya, they live up there
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I can hear it from here ;D
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Lol Tom, that would be something😄 I'd have to be rich and get those big 60" jobs, neighbors wouldn't be happy.
My buddy Cheech got a week off the road, so hes coming over at 8 in the morning to put the speakers back up in the cabnets👍
About 4yrs into moving in, me and my buddys were drinking beer and had stereo cranked hard for 5-6 hours. Burned up right channel amp, over heated. Had to send Yamaha to get fixed. I had to buy a preamp to run B channel speakers, 15". The Pylel Pro PT1600 adds 800 watts to drive those. The Kenwood A7- X only added 100 watts, (50 per chanel) not enough. Running A, (Bose), and B at the same time caused the overheat. I unhooked it when foam self destructed, so i'll have to hook that back up. Hope i remember how.
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Test complete! Started off with mellow, youtube Procol Harum's Whiter shade of pale. I swear Gary Brookers voice got richer over time. If you like the song... i strongly suggest Procol Harum live at Denmark 2006, full chorus and orchrestra... just fantastic. Jumped to Pink Floyd Welcome to the machine and Shine on. Every thing great so far, just running 3/8 throttle on CDs. Cranked it up to half for bass test and did Ozzy's mama i'm coming home. I got a couple little buzz"s out of the left speaker, not sure if its the mid range or the woofer. It only did it on that song, it has a couple very deep hard bass. Then i turned it down to 3/8 when Perry Mason came on. Holy crap, i was centered between speakers on the couch and felt the strong air blast coming out of the vent tubes, you could feel the bass in the couch, my chest and had my feet up on coffee table and it was vibrating. I got up and stood under one, it was parting my hair😁 Sounds like it use to. Boy after an hour and a half, that amp was hot, gotta get that preamp wired. The Bose don't seem to draw power like my big ones. Sure wish i had the money to upgrade for all speaker replacement, but who knows if it would be better.
Overall, i would refoam another pair with no conserns.
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Late last night i found the buzz. It was closer to woofer than midrange. When Tom pulled the speakers out, i dropped 6 screws i couldn't find. He made the comment that i needed new screws as the phillips slots were pretty wore out from the three previous pulls anyway. Well when we put them back up i was in a hurry just to get them up, i had 5 screws out of 8 for each one. Cheech said that several he couldn't get any tighter. I said i'd get new ones and just replace one at a time later.
As i was scratching my head looking up as deep bass hard hits, the light cought something moving. I believe the extra back pressure was strong enough that the air vent tubes couldn't releve the extra pressure and the woofer housing was dropping down rubbing on that screw causing the buzz. I like to never got that stripped out screw out, pulled another screw to put in that hole and tightened down. At least i know now that it wasn't the speaker. Next week i'll get new screws and cure that problem. 👍
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Cool stuff. Didn't know you could repair/build those.
I have a pair of 10" subs and 500watt Amp for the 32 waiting for the day when I can put a stereo in.
Being a 90's teen we all had to have our BUMPS. 😁
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Rattiac, i didn't know it either till about a year ago. Was scared to attempt, but was pretty easy.
Ya, i have to not only hear, but feel the music. Last good car stereo i had was in my 66 Mustang, that was 12yrs ago. My Silverado factory stereo sux.