Welcome to New2USpeakers Located in Rochester, NY and Stuart, FL. We love vintage audio and are buying, selling, servicing and repairing high quality loudspeakers and assorted audiophile equipment. * Do you just need new foam surrounds for a woofer or replacement grills or cloth? * How about a blown tweeter repair or an upgrade to your caps or crossovers? * We can also rebuild, refinish or apply a new vinyl wrap to cabinets, or go further to upgrade your existing boxes with your choice of real wood veneer. *Moving, or just need to clear out some space? We will buy your speakers and vintage audio electronics for cash, even if broken!!!
Whatever it is, let me know and I'll get you set up. We take the time to ensure high quality loudspeakers are given the TLC they need to get back into use to extend their useful lifetime.
One coat of glue is all that is needed. This is because the glue penetrates the paper fibers and becomes part of the cone. An extra coat of glue on top won’t add any more structure to the cone. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Mine must be 7Bs. They have a gray woofer with some type of treatment around the dust cap and the tweeters are lined up. I added a true tweeter with a 1st order filter and added a small inductor to the two factory tweeters so that they function as mids. They sound great with vinyl
It’s fun to play around with your gear and make changes so that YOU like the sound. It’s a worthy goal to be able to enjoy them. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Technically, you are correct of course. There’s only a couple speaker designs that are truly 360 degree omnidirectional such as the Ohm speaker. But that rear pair of lobes does quite a job of filling in what would otherwise be a decreased sounds pressure level of those highs for off-axis listening. if you have a room where the speakers need to be positioned halfway up the sidewall, they are quite enjoyable. Thanks for watching and commenting!
This one is still sitting on the repair pile to be worked on. Anytime you can pick up a Sherwood receiver for a few bucks, It’s something you should do. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Man, those 70's Japanese drivers were really junk. We've come a long way in speaker and cabinet design since then. All that edge diffraction from the sides protruding forward past the baffle.
The real question is how nice a pair could you make today if you used today’s design principles, but had access to the outstanding materials that they were using for constructing the drivers, and the gorgeous walnut veneers, etc. for the boxes. the answer is you would end up with gorgeous $3000- $4000 set of speakers like some of the highest end manufacturers do today. since these were mass marketed, everybody could afford them back then, not everybody can afford $3000-$4000 Speakers these days.
Yes, sometimes it just takes a good set of drivers, simple xover and a well made box, and you can get some fantastic sound. Thanks for watching and commenting. I’m glad the video brought back some nice memories for you.
Nice I had a pair of these not this model they were the LS-10's They were floor standing with 10 inch 3 way! I liked them but for some reason my amp burnt out the tweeters! I returned them and bought my Bose!
I’m glad it’s something that you enjoy. But it’s almost fishing season again, so you may want to check out my New2ufishing channel which will get active again. Thanks for supporting the channel. It does motivate me!
Yes, they have some similar concepts for similar reasons and benefits from what I understand. I’ve never seen a pair out in the world, but if I did, I would probably try to get my hands on them. Thanks for the reminder.
Best thing to do is look for a replacement on eBay. I don’t believe you will find any shop that can repair it, so all they will do is look for a replacement also. They’re out there so it just takes a bit of time. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I have a pair of Bose 501 series V floor standing speakers I bought them around 2001. And my question is I have no foam rotting yet and I just checked them this year and no sign of any begging's of foam rot! Now about the crossovers they never been recapped but the tweeters sound great and so do the woofers! So should I bother messing with them? From what I see it's not an easy task to get into the cabinets to do a recap ae far as I can see it would be a task getting to the crossover to replace those caps! So should I just leave them alone??
I have bought and sold several pairs of 501s. I will usually do a frequency spectrum sweep using a sine wave tone generator app. This will give you an idea if there are any problems with the overall response. If you went so far as to pull all the staples for the grill covers you’ve done a lot of work already. The fact that they were in good condition when you opened them up is a good sign that they have not had a bad history. I’d leave them until I had some sort of symptom to deal with.
@@Jammerk40 My mistake on your Series V. I was thinking of the older Series. I am not familiar with those newer ones. My comments still apply. Collect some data and then combined with your ears, they should tell you if there is a problem worth spending the time to get to those caps. for $15 you can buy a capacitance meter and check those to be sure. There is an Audio Karma thread on how to recap them. Not easy, as you stated.
@@new2ufishing If the cap's on the 501 are as cheap crap as the 601's its worth recapping. The caps were about 3/16 inch in diameter and looks like 30 gauge wire. Recapped with some AUDYN units but forgot the uF size. HUGE improvement but still sounded like a Bose. With any Bose, its a Love them or Hate them kind of thing.
Could I have done it? Yes. Should I have done it? I don’t think so. Because the internal roll diameter was too small, I would essentially be gluing the cone to the roll, not to the flat angled portion of the surround that is supposed to be rigidly attached to the cone. Best thing to do would’ve been a different surround that was smaller, but I chose not to do that. It probably made for a better video and they sound great. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Yes, good idea. It certainly has a patina to it at this point. One reason I didn’t is there are foam strips around the perimeter, which push the grill up against the retaining wood trim piece. And frankly, I didn’t want to spend the time, effort and cost replacing them.
Nice speakers , I use to own a real nice Scott tube amp and tuner the amp I rebuilt replacing all the caps inside then i was stupid and sold it for cash Scott started making Radios in my town of Victoria BC Canada way back in the day .
Yes, adding tissue paper when needed to replace missing paper is what I call a "patch" repair. In this cone, all the paper was there, so it just needed to be brought back together. I always try to avoid adding mass to the moving elements as that can change the sound output. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Ten minutes in and we find that the drive units are not original! So, what we have here is a couple of wooden boxes... and a couple of "Mission" badges....
No one was more surprised than me when I discovered what was actually in there. As I was also hoping to hear the originals myself. The replacement drivers did sound nice, and fixing up the boxes made a nice attractive package for the guy that bought them. It’s one of the downsides of buying a pair of speakers when you can’t check the drivers easily by just removing a grill. Fortunately these were “donated”. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Nice finds there brotha! The B&K if you ask me is a keeper, fantastic underrated brand you dont hear many speak about with quality components inside to back it up.
Maybe great hardware, but it seems they had a firmware problem with this design. The forums have quite a few examples of the dreaded "please wait" message which is also what I have. Back in the day, B&K would fix it, but now I may resort to turning it into a power amp just using the analog portion as some have done.
I want so bad to say that firmware is likely flashable, but im not entirely sure. If theres any pins on the main PCB marked JTAG, its definitely doable if the binary file can be obtained somehow.
@@AllboroLCD yes for a few years there were former employees of B&K in the Buffalo area that were still doing service on these and performing that service. But I am not been able to locate or identify anyone at this point. And it’s beyond my capability. You also need the amended file that allowed the problem to be fixed (or worked around) as well. Lots of obstacles. It’s not going anywhere right now.
I have a B&K with the same issue. The forms discussed that the firmware updates were known to brick the system, Would love to hear if you were able to restore it.
I did some checking today also, and it does not look promising to resurrect the B&K. I see some people even giving up by trying to turn it into a power amp. Perhaps not a bad idea. I'll be sure to post again if I get it going!! Thanks for watching and commenting!!
Hey there! Thanks for this video. I am trying to repair a tear in my Rega speakers, but I cant seem to get the unit off in order to access the back, I removed the screws but it seems to be glued on also. Do you have any tips for either taking the unit off the housing or repairing the cone if you cant access the back? Thanks in advance :)
If the drivers were screwed to the box from the front side, and you can’t pry them out because you think they’re stuck, that likely means they used a butyl sealant between the speaker frame and the box. It will come out, but you have to use constant, steady pressure to lift up one edge with a Corner of a putty knife or a screwdriver. Need to be careful not to damage the wooden edge of the box cut out. Slow steady pressure butyl will start to pull away and separate and then you work your way around the rim of the basket. Rega makes some great speakers so it’s worth the attempt.
My Dad had and pair of Monarch speakers that he bought in southern California around late 1959 or early 1960 a long with a Pioneer SM-B200A receiver and a Voice Of Music turntable. He handed it down to me in the mid 70s. I refinished the cabinets that stood about 24 inches tall with a inch and a half deco stand that was attached to the bottom of each cabinet that seem to be popular around that time. and put new power cords on the active crossovers for the 4 tweeters. The woofer was an odd size, if I remember correctly about 9 inches. There was a broach and a light that stayed on when the crossover was plugged in. The cab was ported in the front and the terminals to hook them up to an amp were on the lower back witch was screwed on. The metal tag above the terminals was silver and had the Monarch name and model and a + & - mark. I have been searching for years to find a pair but had no luck. I would be curious to learn some background on this model of speakers and why they are so rear. I do have photos of them at different stages from when they were new and after I got the. Unfortunately I never photographed the inside of the enclosure.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with that kind of hand me down. I’m glad you got to enjoy them. I did sell this pair so I no longer have access to them to check anything else for you. Thanks for watching and commenting!!
It seems that people know that vintage audio gear may be worth something, so they storedit away. As long as they store it properly, it shows up eventually and can be rescued. I’ll do a follow up Instagram post once I complete that Panasonic unit as it is very cool. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Really interesting video for me to watch, I'm English and some of the gear you show I've never seen before. That Panasonic receiver & turntable is so cool 👍
I bought a pair of Boston Acoustics VR940s without knowing one had a completely inoperative tweeter. When I pulled it I was hoping the wires had somehow pulled off, but no. No output whatsoever. Not strapped with cash for a replacement and the tweeter looks brand new practically. Hope its repairable.
It’s fiddly work, but you may want to consider taking it on. Unless you have a near perfect match of the replacement diaphragm with the original, it’s unpredictable how close the sound output will be to the original. So be prepared for that outcome with a next step. Good luck. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Can't you just buy new cones? I got a couple of old Celestion silver series with torn cones. At least I assume that's what they are. They're not greenbacks or vintage 30's. They're from a 1978 Orange 4X12 cab. It still sounds fine, to be fair. It just bugs me knowing the tears are there
@@ashscott6068 the answer is “maybe” as far as buying replacement cones. It really depends on each speaker model. There aren’t that many places that sell cones anymore. The dimensions can be quite unique for each model so you have to be careful when buying online. In addition, the time, and therefore the cost, is quite a bit higher to do a reconning job because it’s a significant amount of work to remove the cone, reattach it to the spider, center the voice coil, and refoam the surround. In fact, it’s usually cheaper to find a replacement driver on eBay that is not damaged. Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@new2uspeakers great advice, I put a chair leg through a JBL LE111A and was incredibly lucky to find a nos cone, spider, voice coil and dust cap off eBay. It cost a fair bit but I'm much, much more careful around my speakers. Like you say though, including fixing the speaker it would have been easier getting a used one!
Yes, this repair holds up very well over time. And compared to the cost of reconning a speaker it’s very affordable even if you have to have someone else do it for you. The thinned out glue works like the lignin in the paper making process and the key is using a minimal amount of glue. As long as you pull off the tape before the glue is totally dry, You’ll have no problems.
That the clear adhesive tape doesn't stick to the glue makes this an easy repair. I assume the repair holds up over time; have you had any fail? Nice job!
It's not just a looker but it is also a player. Sometimes a person just needs a system that is simple and relaxing. Sure it's not made for hard rock or hip hop but someone who wants it today to play that type of music on it is just being silly. For 'beautiful' music, lite classical and jazz/vocals it's perfect.
That is the right way to think about it. I agree. There is a right tool for every job and this one knows its job. I sold it to a hipster who had exactly your kind of thinking. Thanks for watching and commenting.!
Yes, absolutely that is a “must read”article for anyone with a pair of Pioneer HPM 100 speakers. That is actually where I learned about the wiring conflict in the documentation versus what many people have in their box. Thanks for watching and commenting.!
@@new2uspeakers I was the person with originally unaltered crossover HPM-100As who contributed to his article, specifically the inverted driver issue, But, because I'm dyslexic, I'm now second guessing whether both the mid and the tweeter were inverted polarity or just the mid. I'm currently retracing my steps to confirm. I ended up disconnecting the supertweeters and building MV Labs crossovers but with 3.3uF caps in lieu of 4.7uF. My speakers are still in showroom condition.
I was thinking about a project to see if I could get some of these linaeum tweeters and attach them to top of my JBL towers and remove the JBL tweeters.
JBL‘s, especially vintage ones do tend to be heavy on the base side, so that’s a great project I think. There’s a lot of the Linaeum dipole tweeters around out there so you’ll find a pair. I have two pairs available for sale right now. this pair of towers and the LX5 bookshelf version. But I don’t do shipping. look locally to where you are and you’ll find some. Especially the 5, as they made a lot more of them. Thanks for watching and commenting! Good luck on your project.
@@new2uspeakers Thanks so much for all the info! They are JBL ES80 towers. Great bass and mids as you said. I think mounting those tweeters on top would work perfect for them. If you shipped, I would buy your for sure. You never know the condition those things are really in, when you buy offline. I will certainly have to take my chances. It should be fun.
Most of the US companies that provide glue for refoaming surrounds ship M-3035 glue with their replacement surrounds. You can use that, but it is expensive,. I’ve had good luck using Aileen‘s tacky glue and I know other professional speaker repair folks that do as well. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Sorry I missed your other question. There are many ways to source a tone generator. I just use a simple app on my iPhone, or you can get something similar for any phone. In the comment section, I list everything I use on my videos and for diagnostics, I use the audio tool set from Studio Six Digital. I find their audio tools to be easy to use, and it’s free. Hope that helps.
Agreed, I use them often. It can depend on the type of basket frame that the manufacturer has used and the type of clothes pin you have, but for many they do work quite nicely. I know, professional refoamers that use them exclusively and have different sizes and Gap spanning reach to be able to clamp onto just about any design.
You are absolutely correct, they are not "planar magnetic drivers" as can be found in many headphones and some other driver manufacturers. I rechecked the video, and I'm pretty sure I didn't state that, as I would not not want to confuse anyone. Hopefully you learned a bit about the Sony technology of the planar honeycomb using a traditional voice coil as described in the patent. Planar magnetic driver technology is a good idea for another video, and thanks for watching and commenting!!!!
I have a pair of APM-20ESs, they actually sound pretty awesome if they are connected to the right amp. I am using a late 80s Technics new class A midi system and the addition of super bass really makes these small speakers come alive. They have the 4 coil design as the woofers have four dust covers in a square pattern on the woofer. I believe some of the larger ones had five. I've also got a couple of Aiwa systems with flat diaphragm woofers and AFBS (Acoustic Feedback System), which actually mikes up the speakers to ensure what's coming out of them is the same as what is going in. I found the description of the "advantages" of FD speakers interesting, as I have noticed the sound is excellent when equidistant, but quickly loses bass if you move from the centre position or are elsewhere in the room. Perhaps there are advantages to _not_ having all the sound reach your ears at once, although I am comparing against newer, floorstanding models that are no doubt superior.
Thanks for sharing your experiences as we all have so much to learn from each other. I'd love to find a pair of ES's sometime. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@new2uspeakers I found an article on the 66ES speakers that shows the back of the woofers, turns out they use a single coil with the diaphragm supported by several posts. I won't link as YT will probably delete the comment, but if you search "amazing sony apm-66es" the first results should be the Sound Oddity blog. 😀
I've got the bigger brother of these, the 77s, I'm thinking of buying a pair of these-theres a pair on fleabay at the moment. They need new cloth so I'm glad I found your video. Thanks for uploading 👍
Great job on the cloth. I have and I prefer them to modern speakers. Really forward lively sound and bass comes on when you turn them up. I had to re glue the cone surround on one speaker and I redyed the black veneer. I had have quite a few speakers, but ended up with the 70s as I heard them back in the 80s and liked them then.
i'm glad this video triggered you to comment. They are certainly a pair that most everyone would want to have , if they heard them. Thankd for watching!!
I just met a lady that has some monarch sp-42p speakers for sale. I hope to pick them up on Sat. Its a collectable brand of speaker and ofcourse desirable. Thanks for your lovely video
I certainly think that’s a reasonable next step for this pair and the customer may do that on his own. Could he have save some money overall by just going straight to that step? Yes, but he loved the concept of keeping them original and yet sounding decent. Seems that’s a conflict for a lot of people. Originality versus superiority is a tough Trade-off for some folks. Thanks for watching and commenting!!
Hmmmm. I checked the video a few times and I don't think I forgot to add anything at this point. You mentioned I forgot one piece, but it was supposed to be a piece of what? If it was the electrical tape to cover the lead wires, there are 2 pieces installed and that is all that is needed. Let me know what piece is missing. Thanks for watching and commenting!!!
4:18 triangle isolating sheet. Oh in the end this sheet was installed, but I see not when you installed it. Sorry, it’s my error. Your video ist very good. I repaired last week the coil and this was very hart beause the wire is soooo thin. God thank, the wire was broken on the first insert to the coil. Now working.
It is important to put in this sheet in because it will change the nominal location of how deep the voice coil is positioned in the magnet recess and you could limit the coil travel. You have good eyes since I think I forgot to re-install it initially.
You’re a life saver. I had bought those speakers at a Goodwill for $20. I had them listed at eBay, and an interested party wanted to see the condition of speaker and wires. I actually had no idea how to remove them, until I came across your video. I can’t thank you enough. I actually thought they came off the wood seam. It would’ve been horrible. They’re in excellent condition. Thank you kindly.
I think you are saying that I did not assure the new diaphram/coil was concentric to the magnet recess. The answer is Yes and No. The black plastic triangular piece controls the precise location of how it is mounted to the magnet. So it is critical to ensure the new diaphram/coil is mounted precisely to the black plastic. Fortunately there was easy to observe very small mold line ridge in the black plastic that was able to be used to visually check the OD of the aluminum diaphram was located well. Certainly the factory would have a tool/jig to do this , but in my opinion your eye is very sensitive to checking to see that such a concentric alignment is "good enough". As you know voice coil rubbing in a tweeter can be hard to detect, but I think we were sucessful enough. Thanks for watching and commenting!!!
@@new2uspeakers I think you could have made a channel for the wire on top of the black plastic. Then a new opportunity opens up! You can use paper inserts between the core and the coil before assembling the speaker. Glue the dome using the center (paper liner). Next, remove the paper insert and install the black plastic in its place, there are pins there. The metal dome has an anodized layer and does not conduct electricity. Therefore, the wire can be safely led from above.
I do love that idea. This is what’s great about RU-vid. We can all learn from each other and build a fantastic community. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully it’ll help the next person down the road who needs to do a similar repair.
Thanks for posting this, these are some rare speakers for sure. I can't find anything more about these speakers than you have but I have a question. How do they sound, and do they sound similar to any of the more well known vintage speakers? Also have you tried to power them with a similarly aged Monarch receiver?
They actually sounded "as expected". I would say "average" for a 3-way of this vintage. Warm, but not a lot of Bass. Mid and High was as you would want for a modern speaker. I sold them already, but if you are looking for a pure vintage system, I would consider to look for something else. I never tried a Monarch receiver.
@@new2uspeakers Thanks for the reply. Its an interesting company but as you know there is not much history currently to look up. I saw a Monarch receiver on Craigslist recently and I never heard of the company before. When I searched Monarch on Google your video came up., that's how I got on the Monarch trail. Anyway have a good day and keep having fun with obscure audio, I know I do. =)
I have actually come across a set if these, that I am sure I will have to refurbish. What was the set of drivers you had chosen from PartsExpress? Would you stay with those or pick something different if you could do it over?
They are a fun project. At 12:55 in the video I describe the exact Visaton models I bought from PE. If money were no object, I'd always try to get direct replacements and keep the original design intact. Good luck. Thanks for watching and commenting.
