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In what order would you inspect/test/repair an old speaker?

G

gravyrobbers

New Member
Someone in my neighborhood decided to give away their pair of Wharfedale W60D's and I decided I'm going to get into refurbishing vintage speakers. I did some research on them and it seems they have fragile tweeters - and indeed these have one broken tweeter - and can usually use a recap.

However, I've never done this before, and would like to thoroughly go through them, and was wondering if I could get y'alls thoughts on what steps you would recommend taking on inspecting and testing these speakers, and assuming the common issues each had an issue (i.e. tweeter, caps, refoam, wiring, anything else I'm not thinking of), what order you would fix those in.
 
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Considering that you can buy a nice working pair for $300 or less, is the set you have worth 300 minus the repairs you'll have to make in parts and labor? You should lay it out on paper of what it's going to cost to repair them. Are tweeters available? How much will it cost to rework the X-overs? Can you do your own refoam? Can't assume there are common issues, could be better, could be worse. Do they need refinishing? That alone can eat MANY hours of hard/messy work. Is there upgrades you will be doing? Doesn't matter which issue you attack first if you are going to disassemble them.
 
"Sound" advice above--to consider different possibilities and formulate some kind of plan/strategy accordingly. Just my 2 cents:
  • First, pop off the grills (which in addition to case refinishing can need restoring themselves if too old/worn/damaged). Then you can visually inspect the drivers, especially surrounds and cones to determine repair or replace.
  • Next, hook them up and play something through them. How does each one perform, if at al? You can listen close to each driver and you'll know it sounds OK or not.
  • Refoam: probably needed, get kits and install new surrounds; you can do this after divers are removed. (I prefer rubber gaskets but foam is fine.)
  • From there, remove drivers to access wiring; disconnect drivers. Using an ohm meter (VOM) check the voice coil of each driver for continuity (if none it's burned out, difficult/impossible to repair) and resistance (probably somewhere around nominal 8 ohms).
  • If you need to replace a bad driver, find one with similar specs and a frame than will fit the old speaker's cutout (could be a challenge, check with audio specialty shops like Madisound).
  • Remove drivers to access inside of cabinet. Remove any packing and save for reinstall.
  • Find Xover and replace capacitors (note non-polarized, value printed on each cap).
Reassembly: Place packing back into cabinet, arrange as originally. Attach wiring and install good drivers, usually have sealant/putty around edge. Install grills. Play music source to verify restored operation.
Good luck!
 
bonzoro said:
Considering that you can buy a nice working pair for $300 or less, is the set you have worth 300 minus the repairs you'll have to make in parts and labor? You should lay it out on paper of what it's going to cost to repair them. Are tweeters available? How much will it cost to rework the X-overs? Can you do your own refoam? Can't assume there are common issues, could be better, could be worse. Do they need refinishing? That alone can eat MANY hours of hard/messy work. Is there upgrades you will be doing? Doesn't matter which issue you attack first if you are going to disassemble them.
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...that's the entire reason I asked for advice on how to inspect these speakers.. ideally I'd like to have them restored with original drivers/tweeters working, but yeah if it's going to be too expensive for that I'd still like to look into getting some use out of them, perhaps utilizing the very solid cabinets to make new (better?) speakers
 
gravyrobbers said:
...that's the entire reason I asked for advice on how to inspect these speakers.. ideally I'd like to have them restored with original drivers/tweeters working, but yeah if it's going to be too expensive for that I'd still like to look into getting some use out of them, perhaps utilizing the very solid cabinets to make new (better?) speakers
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Spec'ing out drivers to fit the existing cabinets (using the existing cabinet square footage/existing holes etc...) can be a real pain in the rear. If the cabinets are not ported or even if they are, searching for drivers/tweets to work properly is DEFINITELY not my forte. We got some pretty sharp people around this site so keep looking. Maybe posting in the Wanted section will turn up some affordable original parts, you never know. I'm getting ready to re-veneer my Epicure 20+ speakers (I CAN do woodworking and have the tools) and it took me a couple years to find some original "Blue Cone" Woofers and some decent tweets so I know what you are going through. Then I had to pay the experts to refoam the woofers. Good luck, Keep us posted.
 
Did you test the tweeters on their own? If not, that should be the first thing you do to make sure you actually need a tweeter and it's not just a bad crossover cap or dirty control. The tweeters are reasonably common so I wouldn't sweat it too much if it is blown, just be mindful because I think there were a few different versions.

Either way I would plan on replacing the crossover caps (cheap insurance) and cleaning any potentiometers (use Deoxit F5 or something like that).

I think most old Wharfedales have cloth surrounds so at most they might need a re-seal (like vintage AR or KLH woofers).

After that, sit back and enjoy!
 
RossW said:
Did you test the tweeters on their own? If not, that should be the first thing you do to make sure you actually need a tweeter and it's not just a bad crossover cap or dirty control. The tweeters are reasonably common so I wouldn't sweat it too much if it is blown, just be mindful because I think there were a few different versions.

Either way I would plan on replacing the crossover caps (cheap insurance) and cleaning any potentiometers (use Deoxit F5 or something like that).

I think most old Wharfedales have cloth surrounds so at most they might need a re-seal (like vintage AR or KLH woofers).

After that, sit back and enjoy!
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best way to test tweeters on their own?
 
I'd add one thing: Inspect the inside of the cabinets for and joint separation. I found a few anomalies inside my KEF 104/2 when I restored them. I just used Elmer's Wood Glue to fill in the joints.
 
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