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Royal 5a's - what to do?

sgleich

sgleich

Well-Known Member
I have a pair of Royal 5a's, nothing special I presume but the enclosures are beautiful and mint and I wonder what to do. All drivers do drive...

Option 1: Refoam woofers and be done with them and use them in the bedroom or a kids room...

Option 2: Refoam the woofers and update the tweeter and find new crossovers or even add a mid like the 6a's apparently had (see the grill image)

Option 3: Use the cases to make a all new speaker (which I want to do soon in some fashion but was thinking of making solid hardwood furniture grade new enclosures). My interest was really piqued when I had heard some completely rebuilt Genesis II speakers recently with new crossovers and they sounded phenomenal. (and I am used to my B&W 602's) This would be a test case...

Option 4: Do nothing and continue to let my Wife use them as shelf bases in her workroom :no:

Any ideas, thoughts, words of wisdom.

royal_5a_woofer.jpg


royal_5a_tweeter.jpg


royal_5a_tweeter-out.jpg


royal_5a_info.jpg


royal_5a_grille.jpg
 
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i would go with option 1. but i would upgrade the caps and see how they sound before giving them to the kiddies :yes:
 
Appreciate the answer... so how does one go about finding the right caps? They will certainly be an easy replace. Sorry for the simpleton type questions...
 
He probably means replacing the existing caps with the same values, but using film-type caps rather than electrolytics. The ones from Parts Express are decent and not too expensive.
 
Exactly! If you look on the capacitors there should be a number that ends in "uf" and a voltage rating beside it. The voltage is unimportant when find caps, the higher the voltage, the higher the power handling so I suppose higher voltage is good but for these it isn't all that important. The uf rating is what really matters. I would go with Dayton audio or Jantzten polypropylene capacitors from parts express, Solens are good as well but slightly more expensive. It really just matters on how much you have to spend on new caps.

AB
 
Here are images of the crossover parts. Anyone care to help this novice find good replacements? This would be for a woofer refoam option with no additional changes to the speaker configuration I guess.

royal_5a_cap3.jpg

I take it this is the resistor for the tweeter?


royal_5a_cap1.jpg

This Cap is marked 4.55F - 40v with the number 42540 And is Callins 7111
royal_5a_cap2.jpg
 
Thanks AB, I didn't see your post before my last post... I did look at parts express but was just a bit confused. I would like to have these be an upgrade but don't imagine top of the line would be right for these as they are not high end speakers but what do I know?
 
Here are a few Caps to replace the Callins 4.5UF I do not see any 4.5UF Caps but many 4.7UF and 4.0UF, would 4.7 be the best bet? Novice here!

Dayton Audio Cap 4.7 UF
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=027-422

Jantzen Cap
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=027-924

Seemingly High-End Cap... Overkill?
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=027-490

A Film and Foil type? Again overkill?
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=027-728

For the smaller resistor type thing... (again, novice here sorry) I am not really sure where to look... or are the caps what I need to replace?
 
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Replacing the 4.55uf cap with a 4.7 would be fine, although if it were me I would try to get a bit closer to the original value by running two caps in parallel. Look for a 4uf and a .5 if cap then solder them in parallel. For these speakers just get daytons, they are gonna be nice enough :yes:

The resistor is a 6ohm wirewound. You can find them on partsexpress. If you wanted to get a nicer resistor you could grab a Mills they are $4.25 each whereas the normal Xicon ones are only a buck or so.

It is gonna cost 10-20 bucks to get new parts depending on which ones you buy , it could cost more if you bought nicer parts.


DNU
Peace Out, from tapatalk
DNU
 
Cool.. I ordered the Dayton "Precision Audio" Caps, 4.0UF and .47UF to run in parallel. I also got the Mills resistors. Total $26.00 or something shipped. This is pretty excitin' stuff.
 
The caps arrived Friday... one day for shipping. Amazing... I will be soldering tonight.

One question for Audiobiker: Just to make sure... those two caps that equal the 4.47UF are to be soldered in "parallel", meaning the single speaker wire is to be soldered to the terminals of the two caps at the same point?
 
sgleich said:
The caps arrived Friday... one day for shipping. Amazing... I will be soldering tonight.

One question for Audiobiker: Just to make sure... those two caps that equal the 4.47UF are to be soldered in "parallel", meaning the single speaker wire is to be soldered to the terminals of the two caps at the same point?
Click to expand...

I'm not Audiobiker, but yes. Twist the ends together so they are passing signal through both and solder them as if they were one capacitor.

Like this:


100_3764.JPG by Wigwam Jones, on Flickr

And FYI, I believe your woofers are CTS brand and your tweeter MAY be Peerless. Nothing to sneeze at, good stuff for the time and should sound quite nice when you're done.
 
Thanks Wigwam, that is what I was thinking but wanted to make sure.

I can't wait to hear them. I remember reading something about CTS woofers in some of these.
 
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I would solder them both together rather then just twisting the ends. You are gonna have some pretty rad speakers when you are done :yes:


DNU
Peace Out, from tapatalk
DNU
 
Done!

Thanks Audiobiker, the surrounds fit perfectly. First attempt at refoaming and while not the prettiest job they look better than I imagined. Thanks all for the input!

ROYAL_5A_SPEAKERS.jpg


ROYAL_5A_SPEAKER.jpg


I refoamed them last night and have listened to them this AM in my messy office. Not the perfect space but not bad. Listened to FLACs via the computer through a Sony 6036a receiver @ 18 watts per channel.

I listened to all kinds of music and am quite pleased. Sinatra Brazil and Summer Wind sounded just as they should and so did Rundgren's Love of the Common Man. Todd Rundgrens Drunken Blue Rooster and Last Ride where also reproduced well and the highs are striking. The Bass is also quite good, not booming but able to reproduce the lows well. I also played a few songs from Sonny Rollins Jungoso from What's New? That sounded very nice though I had to turn down the Bass just a bit. The congas were crisp and Sax was really natural mush like the sound from my B&W P-3's. I finished with Neil Young's Like and Inca and had to plant myself on the floor 10 feet away and seriously take them in.

Not too bad for a pair of discarded speakers. That tweeter looks like a $2 tweeter but I guess even the nicest tweeters didn't look too fancy 35 years ago.

Thanks all for the help! I love this site.
 
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