Quick backstory: I bought the Transar on eBay few summers ago and drove to Ohio from Maryland (outside of DC) to pick them up. They were in rough shape, unknown if they worked, and incomplete. They did not come with the external crossover/current source amp box or the 5-pin XLR cables.

Now: Few weeks ago, I gutted my ESS AMT-1a crossovers and mounted four new 5-way binding posts to the backside of the cabinets to wire directly. Then I used a MiniDSP as an active crossover to bi-amp with solid state powering the drivers and a tube amp powering the AMT tweeters.

The result was breathtaking.

After years of being unable to find the Transar external crossover/amp box, I got to thinking if I could direct wire the Transar and use the MiniDSP in the same way. I spent all day Sunday (12/9/18) on this project. Here we go:


Here is the backside of the Transar. See the small black box at bottom of the five pods?


This thing. Years ago, I opened this up and found four wires soldered to the 5-pin XLR plug. Two wires (blue and purple) went straight to an RCA plug, and those wires led to the top of the Transar baffle to the Heil AMT tweeter. The other two wires, I presumed, were for the Transar "low frequency" driver.

You'll also notice that giant magnet underneath the box. Inside that is the Transar voice coil.



Here is the Transar voice coil and its two leads.


Here is the inside of the small black box. This was the point of no return: I was going to cut the two wires feeding the Transar. I left enough wire on the small PCB to resolder if I later decided to put it back to normal.


Once I clipped the wires, I had to determine how I was going to direct connect them to binding posts. The Transar itself does not have speaker binding posts--those are on the external crossover/current source amp that I didn't have.
 
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Last summer, when my in-laws were visiting, my fil made two small boxes for me that I planned to use on another project. They were perfect for this application:


That's one box per speaker, two binding posts per amp per box--solid state stereo amp for low frequency and tube stereo amp for high frequency.

Next, I placed the box in a position behind the Transar to determine placement, which would further determine the length of wire I'd need to mate to the two Transar wires and also to the two AMT tweeter wires.

Instead of directly soldering new wires to the leads, I decided to clip with male and female spade connectors. I soldered the connectors onto the wire and then shrink-wrapped them for a nice, tight look.


Unfortunately, working close to the magnet, it yanked my needle nose and I reflexively pulled away. When I pulled away, the negative voice coil lead ripped a part, crimped in my fingers.


I sat dejected and broken inside for several minutes. I was crying. You can't just go get a new voice coil or Transar driver... (ok, actually, you can--for $3000.00).

Welp. Huh. So, I just got up off the floor and tried soldering the wire back in, unsure if it would work. In fact, at this point, I wasn't even sure if these speakers worked...

 
Good work on getting them running. I read the old thread and it was 'amusing'. :)

I think the digital solution is a powerful one as you can play around with the crossovers live etc. And I think we will see a lot more of this type of solution in the DIY and resto communities. Again, good work!
 
Good work on getting them running. I read the old thread and it was 'amusing'. :)

I think the digital solution is a powerful one as you can play around with the crossovers live etc. And I think we will see a lot more of this type of solution in the DIY and resto communities. Again, good work!

Thanks. :)

Now that I know they work, it's time to fix up and clean the baffles. Eventually, I'll also need to figure out what to do with the bases, as they are cracked and slightly wobbly. One leans forward a bit, too.

In the meantime, I'm vacillating between 6db and 12db crossover slopes in the MiniDSP. The BW vs. LR (12db) is not as subtle as one would imagine! I've also toyed around with 800, 900, 950, and 1100 crossover points, but 1000hz seems best to my ears--and is also where it was initially set from the factory. :thumbsup:
 
It's been a while since I've updated this thread. The Transars have been inop for more than a year. I heard a pop one day and then one LF-AMT stopped working. Of course, it's the one that I broke and fixed and now need to fix again. In the meantime, I'm listening to a pair of Altec Lansing 846U Valencia's that I picked up locally.

With the pandemic allowing me to work from home full time, which means no more coaching baseball and no more lost time to the commute, and with the weather somewhat cooperating, I decided it was time to finally fully refurbish the Transars.

At the moment, I pulled out the first Transar that I could get to. It was locked away in storage. This is the unit that works, though I've pulled the AMT and put it in a box.

The first step was to tap out the base/stand/footer. I love the look of these, but they're not very sturdy. You can see the rod that secure the baffle to the base. If you look close, you can see that each of the four corners is either broken or cracked.

Here's the baffle without the base. I put the rods in just to show where they go--it has only two, not four, and they are the same rods from the previous picture above.

In my shed, I laid the baffle down so that I could remove the bottom strip. This is the backside of the speaker. The front side is missing this little strip at the bottom, so I removed this one to copy it.

Same as above, with the strip removed.

With the stay-home order affecting local business, I didn't chance going out for wood, so I found whatever I had laying around. I found a piece of moulding that was long enough and only slightly thicker than what I needed. I'm not very skilled craftsman--I broke my thumb last November when my Chop Saw snagged something and now can't bend it fully. And that's a pretty tame and safe machine. I'm terrified of my portable table saw that my FIL uses when he's here, so I resorted to orbital sanding away material to my desired width. Lame, I know, but so what. The line here shows how much I needed to take off, and I used 60 grit. The type of wood and its exactness didn't much matter since I would be veneering it.

Here's a test fit of the new trim piece in the front baffle.

Another angle on the test fit. You can see it's not precise, but I did shave some more and got it better fitting.

Then I glued and clamped the original piece back. I specifically did this upside down (the black painted part should be facing up and the non-painted side should be down) because I liked the grain pattern match better.

Same as above. End of Day one.
 
I felt really productive after the first day on the project, which is important for me because if it's easy for me to abandon certain projects. But these really are my babies, my holy grail, and I know they deserved better. Now is the perfect time for me to tackle them. So, the next day is also actually Day 2.

Actually, the first couple photos here are the night of Day 1. I decided I would veneer the cut piece that night so that I could glue it on Day 2.

This is in my laundry/storge/photo darkroom. I brought the wood and a piece of walnut veneer in and applied the stinky contact cement to both the wood and the walnut veneer.

Then I carefully placed the veneer atop the wood. I used the plastic scraper/spatula thing to go with the grain to smooth out air bubbles, ensuring a good, snug fit. Next to it is a roll of red tape. Yes, I work for the federal government and yes, this is really literally red tape.

Okay, the next day is Day 2, and here's the veneered strip. Again, I'm not super good with tools, so I didn't use my router. I instead resorted to a utility blade to trim the excess veneer.

I should've used some painters tape to preserve the cross grain. Nothing a little sanding didn't take care of.

But it actually turned out pretty nicely.

Here's the spot.

And here it is in place.

And here it is glued and clamped, an altogether easy but laborious job that I'd neglected for several years.
 
As I'm updating this, there are six days that I've worked on this, but I don't remember which was which. This is the third and fourth day of updates.

In the previous two posts, I mentioned the missing piece at the bottom of one baffle and how I had created a new veneered trim to fill that gap. But that's not all that was wrong with these rough shape Transar.

The Transar is a di-pole, open-baffle, two-way speaker. The baffle is a sandwich of veneered MDF. Both the front and rear contain four pieces of veneered MDF--two long vertical strips and two small horizontal connectors.

On this speaker's REAR side of the baffle, both of the long vertical pieces had come unglued from the meat part of the sandwich, the innermost board in the baffle. So, I dug it out with a series of flat blades screw drivers and pried it up.

Here's the ugly--with one panel pulled off the baffle.

Man, this side veneer was a pain in the ASSSSSS to remove. I had to remove because so much of it was damaged or chipped or split or missing. I had to chisel a lot of it out--and even chiseled into the MDF in some parts. :(

Here's the panel and its underside on the baffle. I used contact cement for these and got the boy (now almost 15) to help me lower them into place.

My contact cement said that clamps weren't necessary, just that it needed a lot of pressure per square inch. I don't know if I had enough weight per square inch, but I got what I had.

I guess I should've taken a pic of what the panel to baffle gap looked like, but anyway, with weight on, here's what it looks like, as it should look like--secured.

Then I got to work on lifting the other panel.

Actually, this is the next day. Day 4? Who even knows anymore.

Repeat.
 
While all the glues and contact cements were drying, I decided to take a look at the broken and cracked stand/base/footer thing.

Here's the construction. It looks like two pieces secured by metal connectors, two rods, and four bolts. You can see that the wood at all four corners with the plastic pads is either broken or cracked. And, when I had these running, most of the weight was on the center, not the four edges.

Here's what most of the corners looks like--broken, at the same spot.

Ohhhhh, wait. The base/stand/footer is actually made of FIVE pieces? HOLY SHlT. That's kinda complex, not easy for someone like me to recreate. The Beagle is watching a squirrel.

Alright, so I gotta make something that better secures the heavy-ass speaker and evenly distributes its weight. I want to use these metal things. I'd even love to replace the shiny cones with IsoAcoustic Gaia IIIs. That'd be sweet.

So, here are the dimensions and a couple lame sketches that I came up with. The biggest problem is that the AMT tweeter is very many inches above my ears at my listening position. The Transar is tall, and its tweeter is not known for its vertical dispersion.

I'm going to need help with this one. Who's got an idea that adds stability and preserves the look?

Yeah, it's broken. I thought I'd just secure it in the meantime, but NOPE.
 
This update is actually today, the day I'm posting this. Yesterday was a nice spring day in the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia), so I applied some Citrus Stripper to the rear side of the baffle, inside the shed. I left it for 45 minutes before scraping, then cleaned up with mineral spirits. It looked less glossy, like it hadn't done anything and, depressed, I gave up for the night.

Today was gloomy, but this afternoon became beautifuller, so I grabbed some 120 grit and hand sanded a bit of the baffle. It started to look nice, so I moved my bench and the baffle outside.

I was going to take today off from the project, but my quick sand looked so nice that I just kept going. This is with the 120 grit by hand.

And here is after 120, 180, and 220 by hand. It was looking goood. I also scraped off the side veneer.

Then, I turned the baffle over to the front-facing side and laid down the Citrus Stripper. This photo shows it drying, but I gave it 40 minutes in 72* temperature. When I scraped it, it just looked less shiny. I guess I'll finish sanding it tomorrow, again with the 120 to 180 to 220 grit papers, by hand.

This weekend, I need to veneer two of the three sides, but I need longer clamps to do that. Once that's done, I can set these aside or stain them. But the base/stand/footer remains an issue. If I set them aside, they won't stand on their own anymore, I'll have to lean them. :(

Thoughts on a new or repaired base/stand/footer?
 
Re the footer, what a sh#t show on the original design I'm sure there are far simpler options if given some pondering time.
Unfortunately I'm deep in it at the moment with on the go projects.

BTW nice to see @ron-c perusing the thread.
 
re: base
Here's one idea. Remake #1 use BB plywood .... #'s 4&5 will be remade as one piece using BB plywood, shape as desired.
2" aluminum angle will substitute #'s 2&3 ... fasten along the length of #1 were it joins remade base. This can then be concealed using a stock crown moulding
available at any lumber yard/home center. Cap ends as desired.
 
The biggest problem is that the AMT tweeter is very many inches above my ears at my listening position. The Transar is tall, and its tweeter is not known for its vertical dispersion.

I'm going to need help with this one. Who's got an idea that adds stability and preserves the look?
Go with the metal stands. Get a taller chair!
 
I saw these speakers in the ESS room at the 2015 Rocky mountain Audio Show. Very cool!
Enjoying watching the progress on your speakers!
 
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