Refoam or Replace????

[JesusChrysler]

Hi.


Biggest procrastinator you ever met. Had a weird impulse to start working on one of two pairs of speakers I bought with the frame of mind I would refoam them and use them because they are, well, JBL's and Altecs.

The Altecs are the query here. I believe they are Model 5's (maybe series II?), too lazy to dig thru the closet (or old posts! ), to find the cabs.

10-inch-woofers in a 12-inch-frame.

They have been sitting in my basement for a couple of years at least. Dusty, dusty, dusty DUSTY! Ick!

Started cleaning them off... removing offending old foam off the woofer... happened to push the woof down... made a scratchy noise... F!ck! What?
Flipped it upside down, pushed up on it. Scritchy-scratchy paper-on-paper noise...

The question: Do you suppose it's the dirt and crud from sitting so long or is it fried voicecoils or such? I don't want to order surrounds and install them and have the whole shebang not work because they were trashed to begin with...

Does this make any sense? This is only my second refoam attempt so I am sure I have something wrong (possibly just in my head!)

I am almost afraid to look at my JBL L46's!!!!

They seem more kick-ass to me!!!

Ideas? For having been here quite awhile I know very little.


Thanks for any input.


Matt

 

[HTHMAN]

Lay your speakers on their back with the cone facing up. Play them at a low level and see if you hear any problems. Chances are that you were not pushing straight down. It does not take much to make some speakers with close tolerances rub if you push a little crooked. If you had dust caps in place, nothing should get into the voice coil. If they were not rubbing when you stored them, they should be OK.