XP-10 front grill removal?

sipuser

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

Anyone know how to go about removing the fronts on the XP-10 speakers?

I've seen many a picture with the front removed showing the drivers but after looking at mine I'm not sure about how to go about it.

Why do I want to do this? It's raining today and I have nothing better to do :D

Thanks
 
Probably Brads on the Font cover. OR Very small, camoflague'd screws in the corner. May even be velcro'ed along the edge. Use a VERY THIN scraper or spreader. If you have one that is expendable, bend it 90* about 1" from the end. Insert the edge and rotate until the handle is sticking straight up (presuming speaker is laying on it's back.) Slide to either a corner or an obstruction. If it's an obstruction, lift straight up and determine what is going on.

Larry
 
Using a flashlight and magnifier, I've looked for brads or worse staples. Nothing I can see unless they covered them with wood putty before staining.

Edit: No room to insert anything around the edges...

These things sound awesome but thinking I should replace the tweeters before they go dead on me. I'm thinking of trying a Dayton Audio RS28F-4 1-1/8" Silk Dome Tweeter.

I guess it's time to pull the backs off again and see if the grills are attached with screws from the insides.

Looking at this older photo I took when I upgraded the caps, I'm seeing screws along the edges that might be used to hold the face on with.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8037552693/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8037552161/
 
I don't know about the XP-10 speakers but all my XP series speakers had the grills attached with nails. The tips are VERY hard to see. Once I found them, I found I could not remove them. So I took a small drift punch and pounded them in. Worked fine. For replacement, I used velcro. Yours may be different, mine don't have nice wooden frames like yours. Good luck!
 
I can and that's way easy for replacing the tweeters and checking the mids.

I would like to check the cones on the woofer's to see if there are any issues that should be addressed. I tried removing the woofer screws from the inside but they are glued really tight to the front board and at the time I didn't want to break the seal till I sealed it back up and tested the crossover caps I had replaced.

After seeing all the pictures with the grills off I started thinking about removing mine to check the woofer from the front. Then I started looking earlier today without much luck.

Thought I would ask before I screwed up something making it much worse job, like I usually do...

Now the house is full of people (girls playing cards) in that room, so I'll pull the backs off next week and see if there are screws inside holding them on from inside.
 
From what i see in the picture the woofs attach from the rear. 8 screws. The whole baffle detaches from the box by removing the screws around the edge that are in the cleats.

Fisher woofers from that era were either solid paper pleated at the outer edge, or had a doped cloth roll at the edge. you can see both from the inside with a flashlight directed into the back of the basket.

Larry
 
You can't just remove the grills on an XP-10 :(

Larry, they are the doped cloth surrounds on the woofers.

Had some time today to figure this out.

I hope I save someone a little time in the future by continuing this thread a little before they tear into their XP-10's.

After removing the backs I can see the grill cloth wrapped around the front baffle, glued, then cleats screwed on top of all four sides.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045971158/

So you can't just remove and inspect, this is a bummer and turning out to be some work. :sigh:

Now if you notice in this next picture, Fisher placed the woofer nuts on the front of the baffle so if the nuts falls out there is no way to hold them in place to remount the woofer. The first screw I removed the nut fell loose, so I'm not at this time removing the others.:tears: This was not one of Fishers better ideas :nono:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045970624/

I'm also thinking about adding some cabinet bracing and adding a new 4" base to the bottom to rise them up a little.

Fisher must have have been really proud of these by going to the trouble of stamping patent numbers on the bottom...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045969982/

I want to replace the tweeters before they go dead but haven't decided if I should save the orginal mid/tweeter board and cut a new one or just butcher the orginal to make a new tweeter fit.

Pictures of orginal board, not much to it.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045969354/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045968864/

Since I'm tearing into these again decided to go ahead and order Solen Capacitors for the Xovers.

The Dayton tweeters I was thinking of as a replacement are 4 ohms the orginal fried egg tweeters read at 9.3 ohms so the total resistance would drop to 5 ohms.

Not sure if the Sony HT unit I'm using right now will last very long at this load...

If anyone reading all this happens to know if I can drop in a 4 ohm tweeter with out screwing up the orginal crossover please let me know.
 
Larry, they are the doped cloth surrounds on the woofers.

Had some time today to figure this out.

I hope I save someone a little time in the future by continuing this thread a little before they tear into their XP-10's.

After removing the backs I can see the grill cloth wrapped around the front baffle, glued, then cleats screwed on top of all four sides.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045971158/

So you can't just remove and inspect, this is a bummer and turning out to be some work. :sigh:

Now if you notice in this next picture, Fisher placed the woofer nuts on the front of the baffle so if the nuts falls out there is no way to hold them in place to remount the woofer. The first screw I removed the nut fell loose, so I'm not at this time removing the others.:tears: This was not one of Fishers better ideas :nono:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045970624/

I'm also thinking about adding some cabinet bracing and adding a new 4" base to the bottom to rise them up a little.

Fisher must have have been really proud of these by going to the trouble of stamping patent numbers on the bottom...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045969982/

I want to replace the tweeters before they go dead but haven't decided if I should save the orginal mid/tweeter board and cut a new one or just butcher the orginal to make a new tweeter fit.

Pictures of orginal board, not much to it.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045969354/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8045968864/

Since I'm tearing into these again decided to go ahead and order Solen Capacitors for the Xovers.

The Dayton tweeters I was thinking of as a replacement are 4 ohms the orginal fried egg tweeters read at 9.3 ohms so the total resistance would drop to 5 ohms.

Not sure if the Sony HT unit I'm using right now will last very long at this load...

If anyone reading all this happens to know if I can drop in a 4 ohm tweeter with out screwing up the orginal crossover please let me know.

Hi!
I don't mean to seem rude or anything but why are you trying to tear apart speakers that are working fine? :scratch2:
I think with oldie goldies like these if it ain't broke leave it alone would be the best way to go! :yes: There's no foam to worry about!
What are you checking for anyway? Why do you think the tweeters are just going to stop working?
How's looking at them going to change anything with that time line?
I'm just really curious, we are ecstatic when something works nicely without repairs, or spending money, we don't look for things that can go wrong and beleive you me we've learned the hard way with that one! :yes:

I mean, what is it that you are looking for? We took Daddy's old speakers in to be looked at and the repairman ran a "sweep"? on them and from that he said that everything was just fine. He also said that on some of the really old speakers playing them like the disco might not be so smart!

Hope it works out for you whatever it is you are doing! :banana:
Phyllis
 
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I have the same 'fried egg' tweeters in my XP7 speakers. Mine were dead from the git-go, they were hard as rocks and produced no sound.

I ended up replacing them with some Peerless silk domes I found on eBay, but frankly, I'm not all that thrilled with them. And in my XP7 speakers, they were actually kind of hard to replace, since the cutout in the baffle for them was huge and rectangular.

I did keep the tweeters, and I disassembled one of them as far as I could, then took a hammer and a punch and knocked the magnet out sideways from that little frame it's apparently press-fit into. I have not yet decided what I will eventually do, but I have given some thought to sliding in a set of very thin (low-profile) neodymium magnet tweeters, or perhaps a set of those odd little Sawafuni tweeters, which look like they would slide into the frame and peek out the former opening for the fried eggs pretty well. Just haven't decided yet what to do.

Those grilles are a PITA. I just refinished a set of Allied/Knight speakers that work the exact same way; strips of wood inside the cabinet that are screwed in with Philips-head screws, then the baffle comes out through the back of the cabinet. Total PITA. Sorry to see you have to do that.

Good luck with your speakers, I hope to see how the end product comes out!
 
Why do you think the tweeters are just going to stop working?

I'm actually surprised his still work at all. Mine were hard as rocks and no longer made sound, although they still had continuity. I've seen several others on AK with the same issue. If they were mine, I would definitely look at replacing them before they die.
 
why are you trying to tear apart speakers that are working fine?Phyllis

I ddin't start out trying to tear them apart I just wanted to pull the grills and check the drivers. Check them for what, bug holes, voice coil rubbing, surrounds screwed up etc. Just me being me, I like to check my gear before something goes bad...

And I wanted to preserve the orginal working tweeters so I decided to replace them before I damaged them. I might one day want to rebuild them and return the speakers to factory orginal.

These tweeters have a track record of dying, I'm lucky and mine still work.

In doing a tweeter replacement I might as while upgrade the capacitors to much better since I used el-cheapo's a long time ago.

And if I'm going this far might as well take care of some other items I wanted to test out like raising it up a bit, tighting all the screws, sealing the cabinets up, better internal wiring etc.

I love these speakers so just making sure they last a loing time.
 
but frankly, I'm not all that thrilled with them.

Wigwam I have to ask what you didn't like about the tweeters you installed?

I just ordered my caps and went for the Dayton Audio RS28F-4 1-1/8" Silk Dome Tweeter.

I'm doing one speaker at a time so I can compare and see If it was worth the trouble and makes good improvements.

So far I've removed the old base and will save it, then built a new one that raises the speaker up to 3.5" over the orginal 1".


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8051844076/


I threw on some dark stain to hid the new wood for a while, if this works good I sand down and add some walnut veneer.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8051837775/

And last I added a internal cabinet brace to keep the side walls from flexing, but at 60 watts I don't think there's a chance of this happening :)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/81961710@N02/8051844644/

Can't wait till the parts come in to finish the mid/tweeter baffle!
 
Wigwam I have to ask what you didn't like about the tweeters you installed?

I just ordered my caps and went for the Dayton Audio RS28F-4 1-1/8" Silk Dome Tweeter.

I can't say it is any single thing; I just don't feel like they sparkle the way I imagined they would. I'm kind of spoiled; I've been used to speakers waking up when I recap and replace the tweeters (in some cases) and these didn't sound a lot different. Nothing wrong with them, just...meh.


100_3143 by Wigwam Jones, on Flickr


100_3144 by Wigwam Jones, on Flickr

Also, I was mistaken about the tweeter I used. It was a Foster soft dome:



$(KGrHqR,!ioE6JDsln5WBOklt+GFig~~60_35.JPG


And it may be at least partially because I'm starting to lose some high frequency hearing; so I might be looking for a sound that others would find a bit overmuch. But anyway, I will keep playing with mine; they are lovely speakers, incredible cabinets, and deserve to be sounding better than they are at the moment.

I just used generic Parts Express caps in mine; I don't buy the boutique stuff, but it's nice. I just have a low-budget is all.
 
Those tweeters never "sparkled" when new.

They do not sound like new tweeters at all.

If they do work, and all of mine do in my XP-9s and XP-15s, they have a relatively soft, muted treble. Fisher wanted them to reflect the sound of a symphony orchestra, as much as a speaker could at the time. My daughter, a cellist, who has heard all of my speakers, including Klipschorns, Rogers LS3/5As, Janszen electrostatics, Tannoys, KEFs, Bozak B-302As, and many others thinks no speaker duplicates the sound she hears in an orchestra like the XP-15s.

Oh, and good luck with the grills and the cabinets of the XP-10. If they resemble my XP speakers, disassembling both will require a good amount of experience and woodworking talent. I embarked on it and after encountering the difficulties you did, put them back together and decided to leave well enough alone.

The XP series of speakers does not have a modern, bright, forward sound. Instead, they provide a huge midrange, subdued treble, and broad, not super defined, bass.
 
Those tweeters never "sparkled" when new.

I was referring to the replacements I put in mine, which are Foster soft domes as pictured. I had hoped they would 'sparkle', but they do not.

The XP series of speakers does not have a modern, bright, forward sound. Instead, they provide a huge midrange, subdued treble, and broad, not super defined, bass.

It has been well-discussed here that apparently, Avery Fisher insisted on 'voicing' his speakers himself, often to the disgust of his engineers. However, they certainly have the sort of signature sound you're referring to. In my case, I have managed to 'wake up' a few of my Fisher XP series speakers by replacing the tweeters with something a bit brighter and removing the resistor that was padding down the tweeter output. I'm more than pleased with the results.
 
Sorry about the mistaken reference.

Of course, once you pay your money, you can always do what you want to the speakers, or any other component. My point, as you indicate, was that Fisher, at that point in time, had a definite company sound. I have pairs of XP 5s, XP 9s, and XP 15s, all in original condition, and you can tell blindfolded they have a family sound.

My daughter's amazement at the surprisingly familiar sound of the XP 15s I will not forget. Interestingly, she said the sound reminded her of what she heard whilst sitting and playing with the orchestra - not sitting in the audience.
 
I came across a pair of the same speakers that look like brand new. If I am able to pick them up, I have to say most likely all the drivers will come out, as I didn't care for the voicing myself, but I love the cabinets. I really like the sound of my Fisher amp with the Yamaha Be drivers and thought of possibly taking the NS1000m drivers and using them in the cabinets.

But from what I heard on the pair I listened to the tweeters must have been dead, so I would like to make sure that maybe the pots are not dirty and would like to give them a chance with everything in working condition before I throw them to the wolves.
 
Hi Ken Boyd,

If you decide to get rid of the mid's and woofer's, let me know, I would be interested if there in great shape.
 
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