Xmas 2015 Restoration project - Heybrook HB2 v1 speakers -Saved from Henpecked Hubbie

[Wakefield Turntables]

These little gems got saved from a friend who decided to move. The wife was all for skipping them as she was sick of seeing them. They had previously entertained many people over many years functioning as a pair of "dinner party" speakers. All I can say they must have had some fantastic parties as the poor things were certainly bashed around.

A few little mods

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Firstly speaker surround foams were checked and found to be ok. Tweeter and bass driver were measured on the old multimeter and output was found to be bang on. I desoldered all the old wiring and crappy older solder. I soldered direct from the XO onto the speaker drivers bypassing the connectors shown in picture 4. Finally crappy old binding posts replaced with chunky solid copper jobbies capable of taking >6mm solid core copper if needed.

[Wakefield Turntables]

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The XO's in various states. Picture one shows the old XO undressed and stripped down removing old wiring and caps. Middle picture is how the XO looked freshly removed from the cabinet and final picture shows a recapped and rewired XO (1mm solid core silver).

[Wakefield Turntables]

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Some of the cabinet damage. First cabinet just suffered sun bleaching, scatches and the old dent or two. Nothing too hard to repair. Second cabinet had a much harder life. The cab was cracked, this was repaired with a few G-Clamps, much wood glue and a small amount of wood filler, see thord and fourth picture. Both cabs suffer from knocks to the edges so these will need repairing. The wood finish is shot so this is being recovered in Zebrano veneer in the next few days. Both speakers will need a black paint respray.

[Wakefield Turntables]

A little more work and some more mods. First picture shows newly fitted binding posts. Seconds picture shows the remainder of what looks like a dampening material for the port in the speaker, this proved to be very brittle so I replaced with 3mm homo-copolymer whch I superglued into place. Third picture shows resprayed speaker front. Fourth picture shows the cabinet masked up for spraying.


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So whats left?

Well they need re-veneering (already ordered) and they'll need finishing off probably with Danish oil or something similar. Both speaker work very well and sound excellent. The final job will be re-attachment of the velcro which to this day is still in good order. Stay tooned for the delights of re-veneering!!!!

[Folkboy]

Lovely job, that.

[shane]

They've got the wrong bass units in them! HB2s were originally fitted with bextrene-coned units from Audax.

[Mr Kipling]

They've got the wrong bass units in them! HB2s were originally fitted with bextrene-coned units from Audax.

If you do an image search you'll find a number have the wrong drivers fitted. A pair sold on Canuck Audio had Vifa ones. On Boxing Day a seller had a pair for sale with blown tweeters and again with different bass drivers and was wanting £170. I sent her a message mentioning the drivers, and as such weren't worth the figure she was asking. She said she would remove the ad (which she did) and investigate and thanked me.

[Wakefield Turntables]

If you do an image search you'll find a number have the wrong drivers fitted. A pair sold on Canuck Audio had Vifa ones. On Boxing Day a seller had a pair for sale with blown tweeters and again with different bass drivers and was wanting £170. I sent her a message mentioning the drivers, and as such weren't worth the figure she was asking. She said she would remove the ad (which she did) and investigate and thanked me.

I didnt realise they were fetching that sort of money. This project was mainly done for fun and to improve my basic soldering, veneering and diagnostic skills. I'm happy working on passive bits of kit, amps and active kit is best left to those with far more experience than myself. These will live in my "charity shop system" which is a system of components that have been bodged together purely to test charity shop purchases before comitting the vinyl to either valve or solid state system.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I wondered when you'd pop up! I wondered why I couldn't find any pix of the weird bass driver in the set I saved. I just see it as another bit of kit saved from the landfill!

[agk]

Weird? Soundlab provided much entertainment in my yoof. Decent drivers in the main.