MCS 8224 Speakers never used. Keep them as they are or replace all the guts with good stuff?

Keep them as they are or replace everything with Peerless drivers Vifa tweeters and real crossovers.

  • Keep them as they are

    Votes: 17 100.0%

  • Turn them into something worth listening to

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
KingBubba said:
I have a pair that is the same or similar to yours. I refoamed them and capped them and, in my opinion, it was a waste of money.
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I'd agree with that for the most part. These we're built for a 20 watt receiver. In fact I have a Nikko NR-515 I bought for 6.00 at goodwill that would be the ideal rig for them as they are. I'm got some new foam surrounds that I expect to arrive tomorrow. Will get them restored and list them and see if all those nostalgic peps really want them. The get 1 auction cycle and if they don't sell I have Technics EAS 8'' drivers and some tiny Sansui horns (D50's?) in the on deck circle. Will see.
 
New surrounds arrived at 11 am and were glued in before 11:45. Now I must wait a few hours before we can give them a listen. The nice thing about that black glue is on paper cones it sets up and cures fast. If they were graphite or plastic I'd give them a day before I dare to test them out.
 
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The new surrounds are in and I've run them through tone generator. 45hz is the bottom the top makes the dog howl 18khz That's better than the specs said they'd be. As for their performance, well played a few tunes at low volume and they work. I'll leave them running overnight and tomorrow I'll raise the volume and see what we got. I just wonder what the performance of 35 year old caps are:dunno: My ears will have to be the judge on that tomorrow. If they are getting pulled I am just going to replace the whole crossover with a prefab I got from Madisound that was intended for some old A60's that had cone tweeters.
 
Nice work! Ya, I would replace those caps if they are electrolytic. Should sound even better with some nice film caps.
 
Lavane said:
Nice work! Ya, I would replace those caps if they are electrolytic. Should sound even better with some nice film caps.
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Yeah they sound really awful and just to be sure it's the caps I pulled the driver and stuck it in my old and grungy atlantis (Dayton) speakers. And it was confirmed those old caps are no good. The drivers still need a we bit more breaking in yet. Thanks on the refoam I've done at least 100 pairs over the eons.
 
My electronics tech buddy stopped over and recapped them. (Wish I could solder that well) Well guys we fired them up and my buddy said "god these suck I hope you don't plan on selling these to anybody".:thumbsdown: BTW He has 6 foot tall golden ear speakers in his LR so take it for what it's worth. He is right the drivers handle 10 watts and the tweeters 20 watts. See the problem. It's like they were just made from leftover components. They sound okay at low volumes but once you hit that 15 watt threshold those drivers begin to distort and with a little more power they pop. Not good. Nobody deserves speakers they can't crank at least a little. So even though the consensus was keep them as they are. They're getting better drivers but were staying within the Matsushita family as there getting ones I scavenged from freight damaged Ramsa monitors. They handle 20-25 watts instead of 10 watts and they're new old just like the speakers are. I just have to find them first...
 
Well, at least you know what they sound like and now you can use some of your misc. drivers you have in storage. At least the hard part is over. Now you can have fun with trying different drivers.:)
 
Thats too bad. I had a pair of MCS three ways with 12"woofers that tend to get a nod. Not great but listenable. Maybe these were sold with a cheaper all in one unit.
 
Issue with the driver solved..or identified. The spiders are bad. They're cracked in several spots. The looked good when I replaced the surrounds but obviously cracked as soon as I began to use them. Obviously at low volume they don't move but that popping sound was the spiders. SOB! Now I have to separate the surround from the basket and.....WHAT A BUMMER! WHAT A PAIN! :mad:
 
Yay, speaker projects. Sometimes it works out, sometimes they do not. I feel your pain brother man.

Biggles
 
Cabinet value and driver trimming is probably their high water marks! If they were mine and I tried to sell them, and could not, I would be tempted to convert them into "fraken-speaker" project. You would probably get a good education and perhaps come up with something you might well like!

I would strip them down. Make them mirror image by cutting the front baffle (only on one speakery) evenly between the lower tweeter and the top of the woofer holes, then tri down the baffles other three sides. Take some small wood square stock, wood.75" or so, and glue the square wood around the 4 sides, so your baffle piece will glue flush, on all 4 sides, on the front baffle Flipping the cut out front baffle will let them look and become mirror imaged! Gorilla glue works well here. As it dries and fills the cut out voids, you can scrape the glue flush after dried. Wood putty the cut line, sand and repeat as needed and paint to match

Measure the exact internal cubic volume in feet. and go shopping for a tweeters and or mids and a couple woofer. You can cut make them 4 or 8 ohm, 2 ways or three ways. Read up on various designs having near the same box volume you do.

Your speaker now reminds me of an older Radio Shack type was sold by them.
DC
 
dc270 said:
Cabinet value and driver trimming is probably their high water marks! If they were mine and I tried to sell them, and could not, I would be tempted to convert them into "fraken-speaker" project. You would probably get a good education and perhaps come up with something you might well like!

I would strip them down. Make them mirror image by cutting the front baffle (only on one speakery) evenly between the lower tweeter and the top of the woofer holes, then tri down the baffles other three sides. Take some small wood square stock, wood.75" or so, and glue the square wood around the 4 sides, so your baffle piece will glue flush, on all 4 sides, on the front baffle Flipping the cut out front baffle will let them look and become mirror imaged! Gorilla glue works well here. As it dries and fills the cut out voids, you can scrape the glue flush after dried. Wood putty the cut line, sand and repeat as needed and paint to match

Measure the exact internal cubic volume in feet. and go shopping for a tweeters and or mids and a couple woofer. You can cut make them 4 or 8 ohm, 2 ways or three ways. Read up on various designs having near the same box volume you do.

Your speaker now reminds me of an older Radio Shack type was sold by them.
DC
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I've created a great many pairs of Franken-speakers. I must admit I despise the look of non-mirrored speakers. However I have about 5 speaker projects going at once and modifying the baffle isn't worth the trouble as their Ebay bound once I am done with them. Here's a pair of Realistic Nova's I turned into Boston A60'boston.JPG The MCS original drivers are junk so I have a pair of old Ramsa 8" that I have to put surround in and will give them a test drive if the sound quality still sucks I am jerking all the MCS out and have Peerlees drivers and Vifa tweeters as well as a set of good prefab crossovers I got from MCM or someone like that. The drivers at optimum would need a slightly smaller cabinet and a slightly larger port I can glue in a piece of styrofoam to reduce the volume of need be. The port can stay as is unless the chuffing is bad. I also have the part to make them 3 ways but I have more ideas than time..
 
Follow up. Long story no point but I dude I once worked with put me in touch with a elderly gent who owned a electronics repair that happened to be and authorized Matsushita service center. This dude has volumes and volumes of parts reference books and more. The woofers in these were only used in one production run because Penny's wanted a lower price point for their Christmas Catalog that year. There were so many complaints that Penny's halted sales of them with many from that run still in the warehouse. Yeah this dude had binders upon binders of service bulletins and sure enough there was one on these. I offered him 20.00 for the page. NOPE no can do. He did unbelievably have a pair of the original good drivers. The boxes were filthy and the speakers had rotted surrounds and he wanted 50.00 and I said get bent! We settled on a 20.00 for them. That old dudes 12 x 20 for shed had shelves upon shelves with boxes upon boxes of ancient TV parts. Who the hell want's a 19" picture tube. ALL JUNK!
As for Techniques or Panasonic audio he sold all that off years ago. BUMMER! He did have some old Thruster's parts:thumbsdown: and one pair of 8" woofers for me.:banana: Who can say lucky? The good drivers are not EAS but they're a dammed noticeable improvement. I refoamed them this morning. I got 180 miles and 20.00 in these woofers not to mention the surrounds them selves but the consensus was 17-0 to keep them as they are. Now all I need is the caps to arrive and will finish them up. I'll post the results of this endeavor in a few days. Nevertheless how does a pair of speakers go unused for 35 years and a pair of replacement drivers sit for as long and somehow in Macgyver fashion "the plan comes together".
This was allot of work for one pair of speakers but it has been interesting.
 
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