I thought the linaeum tweeters made these Radio Shack speakers a great little bargain bookshelf speakers but the surrounds on mine finally disintegrated. I was also tired of the muddy sound of the mid range and what little low end the Optimus LX-5's had so thought I'd futz around with them. I thought about replacing the woofer and upgrading the caps but there seemed to be some controversy over the best replacement parts and whether you could even get a woofer that fit the mounting holes. Plus I really didn't feel like spending THAT much time or money on these (I mean liked the tweeter but....)
I thought I'd try to salvage them with what I had on hand (luckily I had a foam surround kit) and see how it sounded. I thought the cabinet was part of the problem so I used some left over Dynamat Extreme (sound deadening material with a sticky flexible compound on one side and foil on the other). I covered a good portion of the inside of the cabinet with it. I used some left over foam (not pretty - I subsequently found some "egg crate" foam which looks better but not sure it sounds any better) and left over fish tank filter material (it looked like the white material Radio Shack used sparingly inside the box) to glue to the sides and stuff in certain nooks and crannies.
Of course the mounting holes for the speakers also disintegrated so I drilled some holes in the front cabinet and mounted with some short screws (not pretty but I didn't care about ascetics and I was being cheap!).
Last tweak was the famous straw in the ports trick. I cut straws to the length of each respective port and stuffed enough in so that they wouldn't fall out.
And the sound.....Much improved mids and bass! Tighter too! Well they're still cheap little speakers but these were easy mods and they really did sound better and I still love that tweeter. My guess is the Dynamat made the biggest impact by damping down (and mass loading) the cabinet. A few pictures if it helps.
I thought I'd try to salvage them with what I had on hand (luckily I had a foam surround kit) and see how it sounded. I thought the cabinet was part of the problem so I used some left over Dynamat Extreme (sound deadening material with a sticky flexible compound on one side and foil on the other). I covered a good portion of the inside of the cabinet with it. I used some left over foam (not pretty - I subsequently found some "egg crate" foam which looks better but not sure it sounds any better) and left over fish tank filter material (it looked like the white material Radio Shack used sparingly inside the box) to glue to the sides and stuff in certain nooks and crannies.
Of course the mounting holes for the speakers also disintegrated so I drilled some holes in the front cabinet and mounted with some short screws (not pretty but I didn't care about ascetics and I was being cheap!).
Last tweak was the famous straw in the ports trick. I cut straws to the length of each respective port and stuffed enough in so that they wouldn't fall out.
And the sound.....Much improved mids and bass! Tighter too! Well they're still cheap little speakers but these were easy mods and they really did sound better and I still love that tweeter. My guess is the Dynamat made the biggest impact by damping down (and mass loading) the cabinet. A few pictures if it helps.
