Replacing Blown Woofers

[Chris F.]

Got a couple pairs of older 4-way speakers, and I'm trying to consider what
to do with them. Mainly, I'd like to repair these Technics SB-G500's. These
are huge 300-watt speakers with 15" woofers. One of the woofers is
completely destroyed, other than that they are in perfect shape. I'm just
wondering how feasible it would be, to replace not one but both woofers (to
avoid any unbalanced sound) with generic replacements. I can get some Zebra
woofers for about $50 Cdn. apiece. But would it be worth it?
The only possible problem, is that the original woofers were 4 ohm, and
the only replacements available are 8. Is it possible to modify the wiring
somehow, to suit 8-ohm replacements?
Thanks for any advice.

[Scott Dorsey]

Chris F. > wrote:
>Got a couple pairs of older 4-way speakers, and I'm trying to consider what
>to do with them. Mainly, I'd like to repair these Technics SB-G500's. These
>are huge 300-watt speakers with 15" woofers. One of the woofers is
>completely destroyed, other than that they are in perfect shape. I'm just
>wondering how feasible it would be, to replace not one but both woofers (to
>avoid any unbalanced sound) with generic replacements. I can get some Zebra
>woofers for about $50 Cdn. apiece. But would it be worth it?
> The only possible problem, is that the original woofers were 4 ohm, and
>the only replacements available are 8. Is it possible to modify the wiring
>somehow, to suit 8-ohm replacements?

No. These speakers are not worth your time to fool with them. Almost
anything else I would suggest trying to do a recone, if only for the
experience of learning to do the work. But these speakers are not worth
your time and trouble.

You cannot drop drivers in... the impedance not only needs to match, but
the resonant frequency, the width the the resonance, the efficiency, and
the required springiness of the air behind the driver need to be at least
approximately the same. You could probably find a good match for the
original drivers with some tinkering, but at best you'd wind up with
speakers that sounded like they did new, which was very bad.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[George Gleason]

"Chris F." > wrote in message
...
> Got a couple pairs of older 4-way speakers, and I'm trying to consider
what
> to do with them. Mainly, I'd like to repair these Technics SB-G500's.
These
> are huge 300-watt speakers with 15" woofers. One of the woofers is
> completely destroyed, other than that they are in perfect shape. I'm just
> wondering how feasible it would be, to replace not one but both woofers
(to
> avoid any unbalanced sound) with generic replacements. I can get some
Zebra
> woofers for about $50 Cdn. apiece. But would it be worth it?
> The only possible problem, is that the original woofers were 4 ohm, and
> the only replacements available are 8. Is it possible to modify the wiring
> somehow, to suit 8-ohm replacements?
> Thanks for any advice.
>
find a 4 ohm unit
a 8 ohm unit is not suitable
I make no judgement other than I would not bother to repair any technics
home stereo speakers
George


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[George Gleason]

>
> No. These speakers are not worth your time to fool with them. Almost
> anything else I would suggest trying to do a recone, if only for the
> experience of learning to do the work. But these speakers are not worth
> your time and trouble.
>
> You cannot drop drivers in

Scott I bet he might find a pair of working complete speakers for 20 bucks
or so in a salvation army store
George


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[Chris F.]

Strange, the guy I got 'em from claims to have paid $1800 Cdn. for the
pair, back in the early 80's. You'd think they would have been half decent.
Says he also paid $3k for a custom-built Technics 600 watt amp. More money
than brains, perhaps?
BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that) needing
8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble either.
I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.
While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?

"George Gleason" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Chris F." > wrote in message
> ...
> > Got a couple pairs of older 4-way speakers, and I'm trying to consider
> what
> > to do with them. Mainly, I'd like to repair these Technics SB-G500's.
> These
> > are huge 300-watt speakers with 15" woofers. One of the woofers is
> > completely destroyed, other than that they are in perfect shape. I'm
just
> > wondering how feasible it would be, to replace not one but both woofers
> (to
> > avoid any unbalanced sound) with generic replacements. I can get some
> Zebra
> > woofers for about $50 Cdn. apiece. But would it be worth it?
> > The only possible problem, is that the original woofers were 4 ohm,
and
> > the only replacements available are 8. Is it possible to modify the
wiring
> > somehow, to suit 8-ohm replacements?
> > Thanks for any advice.
> >
> find a 4 ohm unit
> a 8 ohm unit is not suitable
> I make no judgement other than I would not bother to repair any technics
> home stereo speakers
> George
>
>
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>
>

[Scott Dorsey]

Chris F. > wrote:
> Strange, the guy I got 'em from claims to have paid $1800 Cdn. for the
>pair, back in the early 80's. You'd think they would have been half decent.

You can spend lots of money for the best car Hyundai makes, with every
possible feature. But you won't get a low end Mercedes.

>Says he also paid $3k for a custom-built Technics 600 watt amp. More money
>than brains, perhaps?

Technics is not exactly known for custom-built products. Sony, maybe.

> BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that) needing
>8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble either.
>I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.

These might be worth some of the trouble, because it will at least be less
trouble. But these are also not exactly quality speakers.

> While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
>1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?

Somebody bought them from a white van, didn't they?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[George Gleason]

"Chris F." > wrote in message
...
> Strange, the guy I got 'em from claims to have paid $1800 Cdn. for the
> pair, back in the early 80's. You'd think they would have been half
decent.
> Says he also paid $3k for a custom-built Technics 600 watt amp. More money
> than brains, perhaps?
> BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
needing
> 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble
either.
> I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.
> While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?
>
Sorry I just think 99% of home stereo give the rest a bad name
Belise Acoustic labs makes a decent speaker in canada
www.bal.com
George


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[Arny Krueger]

"Chris F." > wrote in message

> Strange, the guy I got 'em from claims to have paid $1800 Cdn. for
> the pair, back in the early 80's. You'd think they would have been
> half decent. Says he also paid $3k for a custom-built Technics 600
> watt amp. More money than brains, perhaps?
> BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
> needing 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the
> trouble either. I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I
> thought. While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair
> of generic 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too
> good to be true?

Here are good Canadian brands of home audio speakers:

Paradigm
PSB
Energy

to name a few.

Not everything they make is excellent but it is mostly pretty credible
stuff.

If Technics made a good-sounding speaker it was arguably an accident.

Please find a store that carries and demos them. You might find it to be an
ear-opening experience.

[Pooh Bear]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

> Chris F. > wrote:
>
> > While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> >1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?
>
> Somebody bought them from a white van, didn't they?

Ahhh - you have that scam over there too.

The guy I know who got suckered was told they were Acoustic Research IIRC. Funny
thing is - he likes them !


Graham

[Paul Stamler]

Chris F. > wrote in message
...

> BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
needing
> 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble
either.
> I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.

You'd be guessing right. If you replaced the blown woofers with exact copies
of the originals, they would sound as bad as the originals.

> While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?

Much too good to be true. 1000W speakers (meaning speakers that will take
1000W under real-world conditions for more than a microsecond) sell for many
thousands of dollars, are quite large, and have names like Electro-Voice.
They're used for concerts, not for homes.

The speakers you're talking about, generic, are typically a $5 cabinet with
$5 worth of drivers in them and *maybe* a capacitor for a crossover, but
don't count on it. The magnets are tiny, there's no stuffing inside, and
they sound like crap when they work at all. Real power rating is about 25W.
They're typically sold by a couple of guys in a white van who offer you a
fantastic deal because they had extras they were supposed to deliver to a
stereo store and don't want to haul them back to the shipper, or some
nonsense like that. They are, in two words, a scam.

It is an open question which sounds worse: these generic scam speakers, or
the Technics speakers which you originally asked about it. I used to work on
both, and both are awful.

Peace,
Paul

[Chris F.]

The 1000-watt'ers in questions are distributed by Global Electronics, dunno
if anyone has seen these things or not. They have two 10" woofers on each
speaker, plus a tweeter and midrange. Looks nice, but like I say, sounds
like too good of a deal. I assume they are made in Canada, as Global prefers
to stock only Canadian products.

"George Gleason" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Chris F." > wrote in message
> ...
> > Strange, the guy I got 'em from claims to have paid $1800 Cdn. for the
> > pair, back in the early 80's. You'd think they would have been half
> decent.
> > Says he also paid $3k for a custom-built Technics 600 watt amp. More
money
> > than brains, perhaps?
> > BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
> needing
> > 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble
> either.
> > I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.
> > While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> > 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be
true?
> >
> Sorry I just think 99% of home stereo give the rest a bad name
> Belise Acoustic labs makes a decent speaker in canada
> www.bal.com
> George
>
>
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> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
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>
>

[Scott Dorsey]

Chris F. > wrote:
>The 1000-watt'ers in questions are distributed by Global Electronics, dunno
>if anyone has seen these things or not. They have two 10" woofers on each
>speaker, plus a tweeter and midrange. Looks nice, but like I say, sounds
>like too good of a deal. I assume they are made in Canada, as Global prefers
>to stock only Canadian products.

First of all, you should be VERY wary of anything that advertises their
rated input power as the main advertising point. Secondly, you should
listen to them. If you can't get a natural vocal sound out of them,
run away.

There are so many fine Canadian speakers out there, a result of Floyd Toole
and the NRC folks providing subsidized resources to speaker designers, that
there is no reason to buy crap.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Paul Stamler]

Scott Dorsey > wrote in message
...

> First of all, you should be VERY wary of anything that advertises their
> rated input power as the main advertising point. Secondly, you should
> listen to them. If you can't get a natural vocal sound out of them,
> run away.

Paul Klipsch used to say that advertising how many watts a speaker would
soak up was like advertising how much gas a car guzzled.

Peace,
Paul

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 23:36:05 GMT, "Paul Stamler"
> wrote:

>Paul Klipsch used to say that advertising how many watts a speaker would
>soak up was like advertising how much gas a car guzzled.

He once proposed a model LSH, loudspeaker and space heater. The
heat sink fins on the back were eerily prescient of modern
powered subwoofers. Including Klipsch brand.

Its integral resistive pad would also give it a nice flat
impedance curve. Gotta love it.

Chris Hornbeck

"Second star to the right,
Then straight on 'til morning."

[Chris F.]

Found out the brand name on those 1000 watt-ers in question - Audiopipe.
Sound familiar?

"Pooh Bear" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
> > Chris F. > wrote:
> >
> > > While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> > >1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be
true?
> >
> > Somebody bought them from a white van, didn't they?
>
> Ahhh - you have that scam over there too.
>
> The guy I know who got suckered was told they were Acoustic Research IIRC.
Funny
> thing is - he likes them !
>
>
> Graham
>

[Paul Stamler]

Chris F. > wrote in message
...
> Found out the brand name on those 1000 watt-ers in question - Audiopipe.
> Sound familiar?

Nope. It's the kind of generic "brand name" the white van guys always use.

Peace,
Paul

[Analogeezer]

"Paul Stamler" > wrote in message >...
> Chris F. > wrote in message
> ...
>
> > BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
> needing
> > 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble
> either.
> > I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.
>
> You'd be guessing right. If you replaced the blown woofers with exact copies
> of the originals, they would sound as bad as the originals.
>
> > While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> > 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?
>
> Much too good to be true. 1000W speakers (meaning speakers that will take
> 1000W under real-world conditions for more than a microsecond) sell for many
> thousands of dollars, are quite large, and have names like Electro-Voice.
> They're used for concerts, not for homes.
>
> The speakers you're talking about, generic, are typically a $5 cabinet with
> $5 worth of drivers in them and *maybe* a capacitor for a crossover, but
> don't count on it. The magnets are tiny, there's no stuffing inside, and
> they sound like crap when they work at all. Real power rating is about 25W.
> They're typically sold by a couple of guys in a white van who offer you a
> fantastic deal because they had extras they were supposed to deliver to a
> stereo store and don't want to haul them back to the shipper, or some
> nonsense like that. They are, in two words, a scam.
>
> It is an open question which sounds worse: these generic scam speakers, or
> the Technics speakers which you originally asked about it. I used to work on
> both, and both are awful.
>
> Peace,
> Paul

Heh, heh, anybody remember those 1970's Technics speakers called
"Thrusters"?

Something oddly phallic in that name, which makes sense because they
were largely marketed in mags like Penthouse at the time (hey I was
reading the articles!); and having a huge stereo was sort of a penis
envy thing back then.

These days I guess it's huge speakers in Honda Civics...

Analogeezer

[Les Cargill]

Analogeezer wrote:
>
> "Paul Stamler" > wrote in message >...
> > Chris F. > wrote in message
> > ...
> >
> > > BTW I also have a pair of Pioneer HBM-60 (or something like that)
> > needing
> > > 8-inch woofers, and I'm guessing these wouldn't be worth the trouble
> > either.
> > > I guess there's a lot more to speaker design than I thought.
> >
> > You'd be guessing right. If you replaced the blown woofers with exact copies
> > of the originals, they would sound as bad as the originals.
> >
> > > While I'm on the subject, what do you think about a pair of generic
> > > 1000-watt speakers, selling for $220 Cdn, brand new? Too good to be true?
> >
> > Much too good to be true. 1000W speakers (meaning speakers that will take
> > 1000W under real-world conditions for more than a microsecond) sell for many
> > thousands of dollars, are quite large, and have names like Electro-Voice.
> > They're used for concerts, not for homes.
> >
> > The speakers you're talking about, generic, are typically a $5 cabinet with
> > $5 worth of drivers in them and *maybe* a capacitor for a crossover, but
> > don't count on it. The magnets are tiny, there's no stuffing inside, and
> > they sound like crap when they work at all. Real power rating is about 25W.
> > They're typically sold by a couple of guys in a white van who offer you a
> > fantastic deal because they had extras they were supposed to deliver to a
> > stereo store and don't want to haul them back to the shipper, or some
> > nonsense like that. They are, in two words, a scam.
> >
> > It is an open question which sounds worse: these generic scam speakers, or
> > the Technics speakers which you originally asked about it. I used to work on
> > both, and both are awful.
> >
> > Peace,
> > Paul
>
> Heh, heh, anybody remember those 1970's Technics speakers called
> "Thrusters"?
>

Yup. Monolithic passive radiator boxen tuned to 100Hz and not
much else.

I have a pair of JVC 3-way of the same ( slightly later ) era that
still serve as the "movie speakers". Excellent for cheezy box
store junk... nice mix checkers...

> Something oddly phallic in that name, which makes sense because they
> were largely marketed in mags like Penthouse at the time (hey I was
> reading the articles!); and having a huge stereo was sort of a penis
> envy thing back then.
>

I have heard, and would tend to believe, that Hugh Hefner invented
non-hobbyist* HiFi by exposure in Playboy magazine ( which was half
about mammalian protuberences and half about which fork to use for
rawbowned kids who hadd move offa the farm to The Big City after
WWII...).

*Meaning hobbyist=soldering/non-hobbyist=non-soldering...

So it's no wonder there's a certain ... aspect to HiFi...

> These days I guess it's huge speakers in Honda Civics...
>

They don't have carburetors anymore...

> Analogeezer


--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> Found out the brand name on those 1000 watt-ers in question - Audiopipe.
> Sound familiar?

"Pipe" - from "tailpipe" - the last thing you see when the white van
drives away.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[unitron]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message >...
>
> Technics is not exactly known for custom-built products. Sony, maybe.
>


Actually Technics had some halfway decent speakers back in the mid
70's, but those were custom built for them by Fisher back when they
were still sorta Fisher.