Not sure if DIY repairs go here, but I did anyway.
I recently bought these Mosaic speakers at a local Goodwill. They were scratched, dinged & molested by crayons. I didn't know anything about them, but a quick Google on the phone told me that they were probably worth taking a chance on.
They were originally priced at $150.oo, but I had a few bucks on my GW club card, and I'm old, so $100.oo to me.
It seemed like a good idea, at the time.
When I was checking them out, I noticed that one of the top frames seemed a little floppy and found a few cracks in the plastic. Not a problem for me, I have glue technology.
I got them home & gave everything a good cleaning & inspection. Sure enough, one of the top baffles was cracked in about a hundred pieces.
When I plugged them into the Marantz, they played! They sounded pretty good! This is a win!
But... The planar tweeters on both speakers were dead silent.
I gotta fix this. Blame it on my OCD.
Disassembly was easy, using Phillips screwdrivers, Allen wrenches & small pliers.
I kept all of the little broken plastic pieces and tossed the screws into a handy bowl.
Here's what I got:
3 1/2" planar magnetic tweeters.
8" planar magnetic mid-range.
6 1/2" aluminum cone woofer.
I left these in because they're working OK, & they seem to be glued into the cabinet. They did not want to come out.
But I did take off the bottoms, just to see what's inside.
These cabinets are one-inch-thick, molded MDF and it looks like two inches thick on the fronts. When you knock on them, they do not resonate. At all.
Crossover board, port tube, & you can just see the cast aluminum-frame on the woofer, way back there.
Now for the plastic stuff.
The upper frames (where the tweeter & mid are mounted) are two-piece, molded black plastic.
Both speakers had cracks, but one side was just falling apart.
Personal opinion: I think they went a little light on the design. The plastic cracks & shatters far too easily.
I understand that they were never intended to be man-handled, but these things are fragile.
Keep children & ham-handed movers away from them.
Considering that the Mosaics were sick when I rescued them, I can't honestly comment on how they sound. Not yet, at least.
I'll check out the tweeters by switcheroo testing with the mids. If the tweeters still don't work, they're bad, if they do work, the problem is in the wires or the crossovers.
Result: Both tweeters are not tweeting, regardless of how I move the wires around.
It's nice to know the mids & crossovers are working OK though.
Funny thing.
When I Googled 'MartinLogan replacement tweeters', this popped up.
Damned near identical replacements. $40.oo each.
There's even one customer that claims to have used them on his Mosaics.
So I now have a solution to the tweeter issue.
But wait...
Right below that listing, was this one.
Identical to the originals.
So out of curiosity, I looked for '6 1/2" Aluminum cone speakers'.
The dust cover is an 'outie' vs ML's 'innie', but everything else seems to be the same.
Interesting.
I've got some plastic repairing to do. Will post more later on how that goes.
I recently bought these Mosaic speakers at a local Goodwill. They were scratched, dinged & molested by crayons. I didn't know anything about them, but a quick Google on the phone told me that they were probably worth taking a chance on.
They were originally priced at $150.oo, but I had a few bucks on my GW club card, and I'm old, so $100.oo to me.
It seemed like a good idea, at the time.
When I was checking them out, I noticed that one of the top frames seemed a little floppy and found a few cracks in the plastic. Not a problem for me, I have glue technology.
I got them home & gave everything a good cleaning & inspection. Sure enough, one of the top baffles was cracked in about a hundred pieces.
When I plugged them into the Marantz, they played! They sounded pretty good! This is a win!
But... The planar tweeters on both speakers were dead silent.
I gotta fix this. Blame it on my OCD.
Disassembly was easy, using Phillips screwdrivers, Allen wrenches & small pliers.
I kept all of the little broken plastic pieces and tossed the screws into a handy bowl.
Here's what I got:
3 1/2" planar magnetic tweeters.
8" planar magnetic mid-range.
6 1/2" aluminum cone woofer.
I left these in because they're working OK, & they seem to be glued into the cabinet. They did not want to come out.
But I did take off the bottoms, just to see what's inside.
These cabinets are one-inch-thick, molded MDF and it looks like two inches thick on the fronts. When you knock on them, they do not resonate. At all.
Crossover board, port tube, & you can just see the cast aluminum-frame on the woofer, way back there.
Now for the plastic stuff.
The upper frames (where the tweeter & mid are mounted) are two-piece, molded black plastic.
Both speakers had cracks, but one side was just falling apart.
Personal opinion: I think they went a little light on the design. The plastic cracks & shatters far too easily.
I understand that they were never intended to be man-handled, but these things are fragile.
Keep children & ham-handed movers away from them.
Considering that the Mosaics were sick when I rescued them, I can't honestly comment on how they sound. Not yet, at least.
I'll check out the tweeters by switcheroo testing with the mids. If the tweeters still don't work, they're bad, if they do work, the problem is in the wires or the crossovers.
Result: Both tweeters are not tweeting, regardless of how I move the wires around.
It's nice to know the mids & crossovers are working OK though.
Funny thing.
When I Googled 'MartinLogan replacement tweeters', this popped up.
Damned near identical replacements. $40.oo each.
There's even one customer that claims to have used them on his Mosaics.
So I now have a solution to the tweeter issue.
But wait...
Right below that listing, was this one.
Identical to the originals.
So out of curiosity, I looked for '6 1/2" Aluminum cone speakers'.
The dust cover is an 'outie' vs ML's 'innie', but everything else seems to be the same.
Interesting.
I've got some plastic repairing to do. Will post more later on how that goes.
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