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Speakerlab Seven restoration

Those 12" woofers sure look nice.;)
Nice job, I don't think I could have done that level of work when I was your age.
 
TerryO said:
Hi Dave,

I thought they actually sounded pretty good although the bass was very pronounced. Will has been burning the candle at both ends to get the Sevens finished for the Meet and as he mentions a couple of posts back, hadn't used any stuffing inside the cabinet. I believe that as soon as he recovers, he'll attend to it. I can't recall an acoustic suspension design that didn't need to have the damping provided by stuffing it with fiberglas or whatever.

I hadn't heard any Sevens since '76 or so, although I almost built a set back then, but decided to go with the K-Horns instead. I do remember that the Sevens had plenty of bass, but my tastes (or hearing) have changed since then and that may have something to do with what I now consider correct tonal and octave to octave balance.

Overall, I think that what he has accomplished is absolutely praiseworthy and hopefully will get to hear them again when they're fully sorted out.
:music:

Best Regards,
TerryO
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I'm enjoying the pronounced bass for a while, to me that's better than them being too bright. I'll stuff em later on

marqueemoon said:
I had the same general comments re: the bass.

They really came alive on the tube system.
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So THAT's who you were! I knew it.

goandy89 said:
they look absolutly beautiful
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Thanks Andy!

tarior said:
Those 12" woofers sure look nice.;)
Nice job, I don't think I could have done that level of work when I was your age.
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Sure you could have, if AK had been around.

aidynphoenix said:
wow byrd your room is soo clean and tidy..
whats up with the labled rooms? room d2?
makes me feel like those are in a school building or something.
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Only the ones with the orange wall are in my house... unless you are being sarcastic and I'm totally missing it.
 
Great news! I have figured out the midrange issue!
The two diaphragms sound different from each other even though both have the same DCR. However when I opened up the midrange drivers both looked visibly perfect and identical. My theory is that the phenolic material has aged differently in each driver causing one to be "harder" than the other tweaking the tone. Tarior is going to hook me up with a diaphragm exchange and then I should be in business again!
 
It's also possible that they were out of different production runs as well. If you want both horns to sound the same, it might be a good idea to replace both diaphragms at the same time.
 
tarior said:
It's also possible that they were out of different production runs as well.
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That is quite possible because the other EV drivers in the original kit (T350) were different in many ways, one of them being the screws flat vs. philips.
Hopefully the only difference is in the diaphragm but I am 99% sure that is the case.
 
Also, I had an issue with the drivers being a PITA to install/remove with the bronze slotted screws and thick weather stripping. I got stainless steel hex head screws and new thinner, narrower weather stripping. I just put in the 12" woofer in about 2 minutes, and it compresses flush with the cut out now, no more grill problems (the grills would hit the cardboard gaskets on the 10" and 12" woofers.)
 
Okay on the drawing board:
Replacement diaphragms ~$100
Reconing of the 10" woofers ~$100
Poly fill (5 pound bag) ~$45
Carpet spikes, satin nickel ~$55

So about $300 and these will be all done.

Also, I'm contemplating refinishing these in a laquer or something... oil looks too unfinished to me even after numerous coats.
 
DavidGoncalv said:
If you've done several coats of oil with no sanding, try buffing with 0000, then applying finishing wax.
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I've done about 3-4 coats of oil, and then I waited for that to be "dry" and then I did three coats of Feed N Wax in the following three days.




So I put them back together with the still funky mids and the new screws and tape on the woofers. The bass has tightened up some, I think the woofers before were too isolated from the cabinet so they moved around too much since the gasket tape was too thick and the screws were too hard to tighten. I've since put on new tape which is narrower and thinner and it seems to couple them to the cabinet much better. You can really feel the bass now!
 
If that is what you've done, then it would look a little rough; the oil would be thick in the veneer's denser areas, and thinner where the pores/veins are. If you did a pass with steel wool, you'd have evened those waves out to something very satin and flat. A couple passes of paste finishing wax would then fill in those tiny scratches made by the steel wool that, making for a final, lustrous finish.
 
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