Why Recap Speakers and When?

[leesonic]

Caps are relatively cheap, it makes sense (to me anyway) to replace them when you are working on other areas of the speakers, like refoaming. I've always had good results using the caps from Erse Audio, but sometimes they are out of stock and I substitute some from Parts Express. The Erse yellow film caps and Dayton films from PE go in the signal path (cost permitting) and the electrolytics can be used as the shunts.

I've done several KEF speakers this way, as the results have all been positive, proving that you don't have to use the caps they were built with, which were mostly all electrolytic anyway.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/kef-103-2-crossover-upgrades.692236/

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/kef-104ab-recap-and-restoration.441578/

Lee.

 

[RJolly87]

What do you mean by back off?

The tweeters won't be as 'forward'. The crispiness and edginess you are in love with will fade out a bit in the next couple of weeks, and will settle back down to 'normal' once the capacitors settled in. I had the same experience when I first replaced mine. It made me just as sad too.

 

[Geigartt]

Howdy --

Been searching AK and reading old threads about recapping speakers. This was a good one: http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=74979&highlight=recapping+speakers.

My question however isn't answered in any of the posts. At what point does a speaker need to be re-capped? How many years after original purchase? How long in storage without any use before it's time to re-cap? Do the caps last longer if the speaker hasn't been played, or if it's been in constant use?

Thanks for the help!

I'm a total newby here; I'm a DIYer with a car; I know what a capacitor is, knowledge ends there; I have never opened a speaker elec board. I searched. I would like to cap my AR-2ax speakers. But I don't want to chance damaging them. I'm in Long Land, NY. Is there a step-by-step for dummies, complete with what to buy for the job for these particular speakers? Better, anybody refer me to a shop that might do this in LI or NYC? Thanks in advance.

 

[Drugolf]

Hey Geigartt. You are
in luck in that there is a guide to restoring AR speakers. It is written for the AR3 and 3a, but can be used for the most part on most AR speakers of that vintage . it is found over at Classicspeakerpages.net for download. YOU can get some additional help where the 2ax varies from the 3a, primarily with cap values, otherwise near the same.

 

[Darby Crash]

Geigartt, i have no previous knowledge doing caps either but practiced soldering, bought the parts (Parts Express) and did a total crossover rebuild. It was a great experience and ice breaker into this hobby.

 

[Geigartt]

Darby (and Drugolf and all who are part of these threads) thanks for the links. This is very helpful. What great resource this is.

Geigartt

 

[WAXX]

I don't like to do it, because the cap won't have the same effect on the speaker as intented (except when you have exact the same cap but NOS). It's better to redo the whole crossover (to original specs) with all new caps and resistors, or do nothing. Just replacing one cap often causes a lot of problems.

I have old 1974 Goodman Mezzo SL speakers, full original and full on spec, so replacing caps of 25-30 years old is not standard needed. But with such old crossovers it's good to check them if they are still more or less on spec, and if not, redo the whole crossover (inductors can be recycled in it, but caps and resistors replaced). I already had to fix to many "repaired" crossover networks of others because the guy (or woman) who repaired just dropped in an other cap of the same uF (but did not look at the ESR and other factors) so they sounded like ****, and once blew a very rare and expensive tweeter...