Weird vintage speaker problem

[Roypercy]

So on my way upstate to stay at a friend's country place last week, I stopped into a SA thrift in a little town and found a near-perfect Sansui G5500 and had to have it. I quickly tested it with a pair of nasty-looking speakers hooked to an all-in-one and it seemed to work fine. Since my friends don't have a stereo at their place I decided to pick up a pair of speakers. The SA had no decent bookshelfs but a lot of big speakers, including a pair of really beat-up latter day pioneers, some HUGE Optimus veneer jobs, a pair of Technics early-80s, and a pair of Radio Shack Nova 8b's. I went for the Rat Shcack because of the solid-wood cabinets, which were in nice shape, and because a guy I struck up a conversation with there recommended them over the other options (and they were only $10).
So I get to my friend's place and hook up my new toys, and lo and behold the right channel sounds weak. Bad speaker, I think. So I switched the speakers and, no, the right channel STILL sounded weak. Damn. Must be the receiver. I gave it a cursory cleaning and the problem seemed to get better when using the radio, but remained bad when I played a CD through either the AUX inputs or the Tape inputs.

So a week later I get home and out of curiosity hook up the Rat Shack speakers to my "good" receiver, a technics SA-500 with NO problems. And damned if the right channel wasn't too low again, not on radio but only with input from a component.

So I'm really curious. I know the Rat Shack speaks aren't any great shakes, but the cabs are good and I might want to keep them around to teach myself how to mod speakers. What on earth could be wrong with these things? I'm assuming there's some kind of short that, when connected to a receiver and a separate component, causes a grounding problem. Or I'm going deaf in one ear. Any ideas?

By the way, when I took the grill covers off the speakers I noticed that the original cloth-surround woofers had been replaced with really new, foam-surround ones.

Thanks and I look forward to the group's speculations.

 

[omer]

Sounds to me like it might be a bad cap in the crossover. That's all I can think of.

 

[RuSsMaN]

Yeah, what he said.

 

[Raycomics]

Yeah....

What they both said.

Replace the Cap(s..maybe do it for both speaks?) and it/they should be fine.

 

[Roypercy]

Folowup

So, what I'd do (I'm new at this) is pull both crossovers, check the type of capacitors, buy the same kind as replacements, and put them in?

Sorry if that's an ignorant question, but thanks a million for the advice.

Royston

 

[RuSsMaN]

Not ignorant in the least broham.

Pull or look at the crossovers, see if anything jumps out at you - something burnt, leaking, broken leads, etc. Write down the values, you won't be able to find the exact same brand, but good news is, caps / coils / resistors can be afforable, and even something 'cheap' by today's standards, will be an obvious upgrade over the stock.

I'd say there is a greater chance than zero your networks are on the simple side, and would be a piece of cake to replace (actually tweak) both.

Cheers,
Russ