What to do with these RS-4B's?

jchouston

Well-Known Member
Long story short, I picked these up for free from a lady who found them in a home she purchased. By all accounts, they appear to have been last used by a male teenager soooo.....the condition is rough.

Surrounds are gone, wood is about a 7/10, grills are a 5/10, there's something oozing out of at least one of the tone controls on the back.

Apologies for the pics, but they're still in my truck after I picked them up so I haven't attempted hooking them up yet.

I await the opinions my learned countrymen and women.

EDIT: I should note that I have almost minimal ability and experience at refoaming or other electrical repair. I feel moderately comfortable rubbing some oil on the wood with a rag...
 

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Absolutely worth fixing. Those drivers aren't the easiest to learn refoaming on, not because the new foam is difficult, but because it's a pain in the butt to get all the old residue off the driver cone.

I would refoam the drivers and either clean or bypass the tone controls, then fire them up.

bs
 
If you got them for free, it's still worth the expense to have them refoamed, even if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself (although it's possible I'm misunderstanding what you've written - if it's more a case of not having experience, rather than being uncomfortable, there are plenty of videos on youtube on how to do it).

Either way, it will be money well spent. Grills can also be redone, with fabric you can get from Parts Express or from a fabric store. There are videos for that as well.
 
Since they were F R E E it MIGHT be worth it to have a pro refoam them, which will cost around $40 to $50 each, or DIY for around $50 to $60 total.
That puts you at $200 if a pro refoams them which is close to what they are worth if all the other drivers work considering their semi distressed state of appearance.
Wish I could see the last picture better, can't tell if that's stuff oozing out which SEEMS IMO unlikely based on the control and what it would have to pass through to actually make it outside the cabinet. I wonder if it's some sort of glue or gunk someone used trying to secure the missing adjustment knob.
As swechsler mentioned, grille fabric is readily available (make sure it is acoustically transparent).
A glue gun or staple gun (or both) would work best for attaching the new fabric to the grille frame.
 
Another example of Infinity, when they were in their "Hay-day". As other have said, well worth bringing back to life. be extremely careful doing any "wood-work", that oak veneer is real thin.
But when fed and cleaned up they are beautiful.
An Emit, a 2" Poly dome, and 2-8" Poly woofers==great Infinity sound.

my 2 cents Stu
 
Oy...first place I inquired quoted $85/speaker: $340! Need to keep looking.

Thanks for the encouragement, y'all. I was tempted to ditch them or freecycle them initially.

Hopefully, when repaired, they'll sound good with my current set up (in my signature, except for now running a MC2255 amp).
 
The grills can be recovered. That grill is very fragile at the cutout areas around the woofers. Be sure not to put the cloth on too tight and cause them to bow. 3m spray adheasive is what I use. Lay thegrills face down out on news paper, do one at a time. Cut your fabric two cover around the grill over lapping 2 or so inches all the way around. (Grill size plus 4inches). Spray the adheasive on the back of the grill on the news paper, wait until it tacts up, than place it on the clothe and wrap the clothe around and it will stick like crazy to that glue. Use a razor blade to neatly cut the excess cloth on the backside. Ounce it's all dry you can reanforce the glue with staples. Be very careful with the staples as they can split your grills.

Get a quote from Millersound on those woofers.
 
I have the RS IIIb and love them. They too were a little rough on the exterior and the stain shade didn't match with the room. I freshened them up with tinted wax which gave me the color I was wanting and hide all the little imperfections and scratches. I like that they are thin and fit up close to the wall. Maybe not the best location for sound, I don't know. I also like how good they sound at low volume.
 
Again, thank y'all for all the information. Love this community!

A little update with pics.

I took the drivers off one of the speakers and, interestingly(?), the purple wire was connected to the "red stripe" positive(?) terminal on one speaker, but on the "non-red stripe" negative terminal on the other driver (in the same speaker. Is that odd? I was also surprised to see very little in the way of identification on the drivers themselves.

Another question: if you look at the earlier pics of the drivers, on one speaker, the more yellow driver is on the bottom while on the other speaker (may not be pictured), the yellow driver is above it/second from the bottom. Is that weird?

And it turns out Goodolpg was right! That goo was really old masking tape that was used to shim the control knobs after the binding posts had been bent. I opened them back up and now the knobs fit fine.

Also, I hooked up one of the speakers to an OLD receiver in the garage and obtained very little signal, but that could be a myriad of problems: speaker-related or receiver-related so I'm not putting much stock in it yet. How IS a speaker with destroyed surrounds supposed to sound anyway?

Thanks again. I hope this thread is at least a little entertaining for y'all.

RS4b (2).jpg RS4b (1).jpg RS4b (3).jpg
 
Send the woofers to Bill LeGall at Millersound. He's the best, and cheap too. Plus, Bill's truly an Infinity expert. And good luck with the speakers. They are worth saving.
 
It's possible that a previous owner had replaced a couple woofers (most likely because foams were bad, less likely actually blown speakers), and either the originals or the replacements were yellowed.
Seems like if they were all original they would all have yellowed. Or not.
Just a guess.
Some yellow, some don't. Don't know if it's because of sun, tobacco, or some other cause.

It's ok to play the speakers with bad surrounds short term, at low volume with the bass turned down, strictly to make sure the drivers actually work. Not a good idea to actually use them constantly with bad surrounds.

I didn't think any "stuff" from inside could end up on the adjustment knob shaft, thanks for confirming that.
 
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