Wanted - Royd Driver for Rega Ela Mk 1

[Dylanthecat]

Hello,
I wonder if any one has a single Royd driver for a Rega Ela Mk 1 for sale?
Mine currently has a very slight hum. If anyone has any advise on the cause and how to rectify I would be very grateful.
Many thanks, Martin

[walpurgis]

When you say "hum", do you mean it makes a grating buzz in use? If so it's likely to be a misaligned voice coil (hopefully not a distorted one). There are ways of trying to rectify this.

[Ninanina]

Martin I owned a pair of Royd Minstrels and one of the drivers suffered the voice coil problem Geoff mentions. If that's the problem it's an easy fix..

[Puffin]

Turn it 90degrees, and leave it for......oooo...as long as it takes to correct it.

[Dylanthecat]

Hi, I rather naively was going on the opinion of a ‘learned’ buyer who brought them back stating that one Royd driver hummed and that a tweeter had gone. Following your replies I physically inspected the driver. No hint of any VC rubbing. Cone drum test OK. No suspicious smells. Then tested using fixed and sweeping tones and an oscilloscope, no issues there, the tweeter also working perfectly. Followed by a subjective music listening test. All OK, sound great. Apologies for wasting your time in this instance. My lesson is ‘don’t always believe what you hear’ and that is not from the speaker. Martin

[Dylanthecat]

Dear Puffin, is that a tip to correct any minor sagging in the spider, resulting in voice coil rubbing? Martin

[walpurgis]

Dear Puffin, is that a tip to correct any minor sagging in the spider, resulting in voice coil rubbing? Martin

That can occasionally work.

I have my own technique. Move the cone backwards and forwards all the way round with a finger through the side of the chassis pressing gently on the very back of the cone where it meets the voice coil pushing the coil sideways. Misalignment will show by the rubbing noise being at its worst in one area. Mark that point on the chassis with a felt tip. Put a long elastic band through the chassis openings and around the back of the cone and pull it reasonably tight in a direction directly opposite to the felt tip mark and tape the elastic to the frame. Use a hairdryer on 'hot' blowing onto the rear spider (the corrugated bit) all the way round. Don't go mad and start melting adhesives though. Then set the hairdryer on cold and use it again all the way round. The heat relaxes the spider and allows it to reposition a bit, the cold air re-sets it. Hopefully now moved enough to clear the fouling of the coil gap. You may need to try this more than once to get it spot on. I've done this a good few times and it works.

This won't work if the coil former is distorted though, as can occasionally happen from overheating due to too much power from the amp.

[Dylanthecat]

Thank you, Martin