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Sansui 2500X woofer replacements

Pretzelogic

Pretzelogic

New Member
Got a pair of Sansui 2500X’s along with a 2000X receiver (which I’ve had restored) from a good buddy last year. The woofers don’t sound that wonderful right now with the cloth surrounds. The audio repair shop around here recommends changing them out to some Daytons or Peerless’s. They also told me the capacitor(s) may not need replacing if A) the tweeters seem to work with the crossover settings knob and B) on some Sansui’s they used small capacitors which rarely took on much use and wouldn’t need to ever be changed. Has anyone done a woofer change on these speakers on here? I know they won’t transform into good American/European speakers but would the change be worth it? Looking at these on parts express: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-DC300-8-12-Classic-Woofer-295-320?quantity=1
 
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I would find a new audio repair shop. The advise they are giving is not sound.

The Sansui ####X series is plagued with a low travel, large woofer in a small box. They are not bass boxes. My Sansui speakers sounded better after playing heavy bass music for a day or two (I put them in a closed room and let 'em rip). Others have had luck with applying brake fluid to the corrugated surrounds. I have not resorted to that. Search AK for more info.

Replacing the woofers will likely not help much because of the small, flimsy box. There is a lot more to replacing a woofer than just finding a driver that fits in the hole.

As for the caps, they are more than 40 years old. Electrolytic caps have a chemical based electrolyte that degrades over time, regardless of the caps being used or not. If an electrolytic cap is used at rated voltage, its life is around 10 years, typically. An electrolytic cap sitting on the shelf, unused, will last longer, maybe 20 or a few more years. Replacing old electrolytic caps is easy and generally takes less time than thinking and discussing whether it is worthwhile to replace.

It would be wise to replace the caps. I recapped my Sansui speakers with electrolytic caps. I do not consider the speakers valuable enough to spend additional money on film caps. My general rule is to not spend more on caps than the speaker is worth.

In my opinion, depending upon where you live, it would be less expensive to get some better vintage speakers than spending money to rebuild/restore the Sansui. Most of my vintage speakers (Advent, Dyanco, EPI, KLH, Realistic (Optimus), Rectilinear, Polk) far outperform my two pairs of Sansui speakers, and I paid about the same for each of them ($100 or less).
 
RTally said:
I would find a new audio repair shop. The advise they are giving is not sound.

The Sansui ####X series is plagued with a low travel, large woofer in a small box. They are not bass boxes. My Sansui speakers sounded better after playing heavy bass music for a day or two (I put them in a closed room and let 'em rip). Others have had luck with applying brake fluid to the corrugated surrounds. I have not resorted to that. Search AK for more info.

Replacing the woofers will likely not help much because of the small, flimsy box. There is a lot more to replacing a woofer than just finding a driver that fits in the hole.

As for the caps, they are more than 40 years old. Electrolytic caps have a chemical based electrolyte that degrades over time, regardless of the caps being used or not. If an electrolytic cap is used at rated voltage, its life is around 10 years, typically. An electrolytic cap sitting on the shelf, unused, will last longer, maybe 20 or a few more years. Replacing old electrolytic caps is easy and generally takes less time than thinking and discussing whether it is worthwhile to replace.

It would be wise to replace the caps. I recapped my Sansui speakers with electrolytic caps. I do not consider the speakers valuable enough to spend additional money on film caps. My general rule is to not spend more on caps than the speaker is worth.

In my opinion, depending upon where you live, it would be less expensive to get some better vintage speakers than spending money to rebuild/restore the Sansui. Most of my vintage speakers (Advent, Dyanco, EPI, KLH, Realistic (Optimus), Rectilinear, Polk) far outperform my two pairs of Sansui speakers, and I paid about the same for each of them ($100 or less).
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MAN that is good to know! I won’t bother wasting any time and money on these old boxes then. However, I am looking for a good pair speakers for my basement office/lounge for jammin out while I work. I just set up a second system down here with my old Pioneer VSX-D307 400 watt (100 watts per left and right front speaker respectively) and an old Technics SL-220 turntable that I had tuned up. Nothing too high end down here. I’ve got the Sansui’s hooked up but they sound horrible next to the ones my old man had when I was growing up, which I thought sounded amazing, shook our farmhouse. Those looked identical to mine but they had little brown/orange tags with the model number attached under the Sansui label on the grill.

But anyway, what would be a good reasonable pair of floor speakers I could use with this setup that I could find on FB marketplace and online?
 
Pretzelogic said:
But anyway, what would be a good reasonable pair of floor speakers I could use with this setup that I could find on FB marketplace and online?
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I suggest watching FB and Craigs List for speakers. When you see something in your price range, you can ask about it here.

Just remember, older vintage speakers will likely require recapping and refoaming, which adds to the cost. If you feel comfortable doing it yourself (which many do), you can reduce your costs. Newer used speakers (2000s and up) will likely not require any work, which may result in a similar cost as a vintage speaker requiring restoring.
 
Pretzelogic said:
Got a pair of Sansui 2500X’s along with a 2000X receiver (which I’ve had restored) from a good buddy last year. The woofers don’t sound that wonderful right now with the cloth surrounds. The audio repair shop around here recommends changing them out to some Daytons or Peerless’s. They also told me the capacitor(s) may not need replacing if A) the tweeters seem to work with the crossover settings knob and B) on some Sansui’s they used small capacitors which rarely took on much use and wouldn’t need to ever be changed. Has anyone done a woofer change on these speakers on here? I know they won’t transform into good American/European speakers but would the change be worth it? Looking at these on parts express: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-DC300-8-12-Classic-Woofer-295-320?quantity=1
Click to expand...
I would give them the brake fluid treatment, easy to do and cost next to nothing.
here's a thread I posted to a while ago with some info on the how to.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...2000-should-i-add-brake-fluid.1006105/#post-1
 
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f0427ea said:
I would give them the brake fluid treatment, easy to do and cost next to nothing.
here's a thread I posted to a while ago with some info on the how to.
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...2000-should-i-add-brake-fluid.1006105/#post-1
Click to expand...
Man that sounds like a good idea. Little dot 3 with q-tips. I’m starting to realize I don’t need audiophile-grade speaks down in my basement setup. I got the Cambridge Soundworks Tower II’s upstairs with my Sansui 2000X and that’s good enough. Downstairs I just need something to pump early 70s rock and prog.
 
Put these old girls down on their backs and applied the dot-3 to the old cloth the surrounds. Crankin some Humble Pie Rockin’ The Fillmore thru them now on vinyl. Sounding damn good. Woofers are moving free and easy.
 
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