Sansui SP-200 speakers

[drbiggles]

I just recapped my SP-1200's yesterday and love them again. I run mine on a Jolida tube amp. I've found a set of SP-200's but can't get any return communication. They were priced good enough for me to want them to compare to the 1200's. Now stop talking about Sansui speakers, the prices are going to go up!

I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I thought maybe we could all get together and start a Sansui Speaker Bashing thread. Really put some effort into it, make it long with all kinds of searchable words to distract.

xo, Biggles

 

[billyz]

Sansui Sucks !

 

[bluesky]

Sansui is fantastic !

Nice rig.

 

[DonQuixote99]

Since I found this thread, as an SP-200 owner I'll chime in. After I finally got four working tweeters installed, and recapped the crossovers, I found I had speakers with tons of unmusical boomy bass and a weak top end. I might have given up there, but my Kenwood C2 preamp has cool tone controls, so I started fiddling with those. I found that if I set the bass at -6, starting at 200 HZ, and the treble at +4 starting at 3000 Hz, i was suddenly loving what I heard. The sound was 'transparent, clear, exact,' adjectives like that. It's a fresh open sound that grabs your attention as quite delightful. The bass has been tamed, remains 'authoritative' but no longer overwhelms all with too much BUH. The highs let you hear everything, clear and pretty.

Settings on the speaker 'level' control on the back is the middle position, 'natural.'

Tone controls are disparaged by many as for emergency correction only, but I guess this SP-200 situation must qualify. Don't know why my pair starts out so 'wrong,' but I'm happy to have the means to make them very very right!

 

[fish mojo]

I own an incredible pair of SP-5500's. From what I can tell, they are all original and excellent condition physically and the sound is incredible. I'm always wondering if I should do a re-cap and will there be a significant improvement in the SQ?

 

[DonQuixote99]

I would. The only question is how much those old electrolytics have dropped out of spec, not whether they have or not.

Change in SQ--sometimes it's a little, sometimes it's a lot.

Anyway, since you find the sound incredible now, there's a good case for not messing with it.....

 

[drbiggles]

I would. The only question is how much those old electrolytics have dropped out of spec, not whether they have or not.

Change in SQ--sometimes it's a little, sometimes it's a lot.

Anyway, since you find the sound incredible now, there's a good case for not messing with it.....

True, however capacitors not only serve as a filter, they also serve as a protection device. They stop either high or low frequencies from going to a driver and possibly damaging it. Electrolytic capacitors age. And while their value may be within the acceptable 10 to 20 percent, ESR could be way off. What this means is that you're having to push your amplifier harder to actually hear the drivers and possibly overdriving them. While they may sound great at the moment, installing new capacitors tend to really open up the highs and midrange. You won't know until you do it and can hear the difference between the two. I've owned and recapped 1 pair of SP-1500's, 2 pairs of SP-3500's and recapped others for friends. So far, all pairs were noticeably improved in the highs and lows. It was as though they were unveiled, opened up.

Biggles

 

[jd3rdcoast]

Hi friends. Hoping to revive this thread if you are still watching. I am wondering what caps you recommend for the SP-200's? I just picked up a mint pair for $50 which sound pretty dang good as is, just stiff surrounds from non-use I imagine. The tone switch is perfectly smooth and all tweeters work great! I would like to get them recapped as my 1st attempt and any other minor mods to really make them sing.

Also got the Sansui 8000A for $125 (some volume bleed through when turned all the way down) and a model 800 for $80 from same seller (needs controls cleaned and lights). Both are really clean.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Briarhill]

Well I'll be damned. My Son drug home 4 SP-2500's and a pair of SP-3000's a couple years ago and when I hooked them up...err well I wasn't impressed at all. Why I still have them I don't know, but this thread is making me want to open them up and freshen the guts. Can I really expect what I would consider a miracle to happen if I do that as that's what it would be in my mind.

 

[rkgren1]

Hi friends. Hoping to revive this thread if you are still watching. I am wondering what caps you recommend for the SP-200's? ................

I usually just order inexpensive Dayton brand film caps or new electrolytics from Parts Express.
I do not think that high-dollar parts will make a difference over the cheap stuff.
My SP-2000s improved noticeably with new caps inside.

 

[Scottiemac]

After reading this I guess I should do my sp200's. They rarely get used and I have them on top of my warfendales because I thought they were bass shy. The pairing sounds pretty good for one of my spare systems.

 

[jd3rdcoast]

I usually just order inexpensive Dayton brand film caps or new electrolytics from Parts Express.
I do not think that high-dollar parts will make a difference over the cheap stuff.
My SP-2000s improved noticeably with new caps inside.

Thanks

Rlgren1,
Based on pics from earlier on this post of SP-200 crossover showing 2, 3, 8 & 24 uf x 25V non polarized elecrolytics I checked the PE website last night and have the following cart ready to purchase.

PRODUCT DETAILS
Product Name Sku Qty Price Total
Dayton Audio PMPC-2.0 2.0uF 250V Precision Audio Capacitor 027-214 2 $2.41 $4.82
Dayton Audio PMPC-3.0 3.0uF 250V Precision Audio Capacitor 027-220 2 $3.34 $6.68
Dayton Audio DMPC-8.2 8.2uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor 027-426 2 $3.35 $6.70
Solen 24uF 400V Polypropylene Capacitor 027-586 2 $12.47 $24.94
Dayton Audio DFFC-0.10 0.10uF 400V By-Pass Capacitor 027-452 10 $0.98 $9.80

Any thoughts on using the 8.2 vs 8.0? I’m thinking close enough to not have significant impact. The only 8.0 was a high end $55+ I was not interested in.

Also, Solens was only 24uf available.

Do I really need bypass caps? I might try them on other applications like filter caps etc. so was going to try them anyway.

Thanks all.

JD

 

[billyz]

I thought I would repost on e of the pics of the crossover recap, since photobucket has screwed us.

 

[jd3rdcoast]

I thought I would repost on e of the pics of the crossover recap, since photobucket has screwed us.

Thanks for the pic Billy Z.! I think my Dayton choices will work. Solens has a 24uf. Did you use the Dayton 8.2uf?

JD

 

[rkgren1]

Wow! That's around $53 worth of caps!
As an alternative, here is the cheapskate's way of replacing like for like:

Two 1.5s in parallel makes a 3.0.
Likewise two 12s in parallel make a 24.
2.2 is pretty closer to 2.0 than the specifications .

Electrolytics may vary more from their nominal ratings than film caps, but your drivers probably have as well.
My SP-2000s had electrolytics throughout.

A 7.6X cost differential is pretty compelling for me (very much a 'budget audio guy').
Others will differ on this point.

Parts Express also sells polypropylene caps that are significantly less expensive that what you have in your list.

 

[adj69]

Glad to see this thread and the thoughts on the Sansui speakers. I acquired a pair of Sansui SP-2000s at a thrift last fall and ended up recapping them as one of the caps had actually exploded sometime ago. I also decided to replace the terminals with new ones. (See here) After the recap I listened to them for a little bit just to hear a difference but wasn't interested enough to do anything with them at the time so I just packed them away.

Recently I had thoughts of selling them (needed extra $) so I pulled them out and connected them out in the garage with a small Technics receiver to revisit them. After the first several hours and really listening to them I have to say I am very impressed on how good they sound, for a "Sansui" speaker...
Now two weeks later and I still have them out there and find myself listening and experimenting on all types of music to see what sounds good on them. Now I am not sure if I want to sell them or keep them!

 

[teal'c]

I thought I would repost on e of the pics of the crossover recap, since photobucket has screwed us.

If your browser will take it, this fixes that.

 

[jd3rdcoast]

Wow! That's around $53 worth of caps!
As an alternative, here is the cheapskate's way of replacing like for like:
View attachment 1161972
Two 1.5s in parallel makes a 3.0.
Likewise two 12s in parallel make a 24.
2.2 is pretty closer to 2.0 than the specifications .

Electrolytics may vary more from their nominal ratings than film caps, but your drivers probably have as well.
My SP-2000s had electrolytics throughout.

A 7.6X cost differential is pretty compelling for me (very much a 'budget audio guy').
Others will differ on this point.

Parts Express also sells polypropylene caps that are significantly less expensive that what you have in your list.

Hey rkgren1, I like the way you think! I’m definitely not looking to double what I got in these. Just replace the 50 yr old caps and put back to original specs. They sound just OK now. One has more bass (muddy) plus less highs than the other. And the opposite on other with diminished bass but great highs. I’ll dig into those you mentioned. Thanks for the heads up as I have not had much experience with updating speakers yet. Haven’t had to with Marantz HD88’s in the home unit. I have repaired or rebuilt most of my Marantz units so have the soldering skills down.

I have a sweet and rare pair of Imperial 4B’s (all ever seen are 4G) for my garage/shop speakers. I was hoping to get the SP800’s back in shape and sell with the Sansui 3000A (which is growing on me) or the Sansui 800. As a cool 1968 vintage setup.

 

[billyz]

The 20uf film cap was about $4 at CE Distribution. The little green film bypass caps were about 0.50 cents .
I forget how much the other smaller film caps were , but less than the big 20uf.
Non polar electrolytics are cheap for sure.

 

[DonQuixote99]

A good way to save some money on recapping any crossover is to look at the 'large' cap--the 24uf in this case. Generally, they are wired in parallel to the woofer, that is, they connect across the '+' and '-' signal lines to the woofer. Their job is to divert some high-frequency energy so the woofer never sees it.

So, they are not in the 'signal path,' the energy that reaches the woofer never goes through them. So, the benefits of 'wonderful sounding' expensive film capacitors are simply wasted in this case. You are totally safe using cheap electrolytics.

The big one's being the high-ticket items on the shopping list, this can be an excellent economy!