My bits and pieces

[Reid Malenfant]

Rob, you are not going to be able to remove the dust cap on the drivers so I suggest you do the following to get the best voice coil alignment.

Remove all the perished surrounds & then see how the cones sit. Then measure how far you can tip each cone north to south & east to west if you get my meaning

You need to position the cones so you have maximum voice coil clearance when you fix the new surrounds on, so a little measuring & careful positioning could go a long way. Maybe a bit of masking tape to lock the cones in the desired position before applying the new surrounds at strategic points between the tape would help?

PS, use thin or should that be narrow tape? 1/4" wide or less as used for doing curves on paintwork would be best imo...

I hope it works out for you. Take your time & you'll have a ball at the end of it!

[hoopsontoast]

Ok cheers, will see if i can get hold of some acetone.

It had occured to me about the alignment, masking tape seems the best idea.

[istari_knight]

Nice catch!

I've refoamed many a speaker & yes acetone is ideal for removing the old gunk after soaking it you can just gently peel it away with a stanley blade.

I find it best to glue the internal ring first evenly as possible then immediately after gluing the outer ring you can center the cone without shims by using a AAA battery, connect + on the battery to the + solder tab & likewise for the negative. You need to connect & immediately disconnect until its centered (normally 5-10 times) - This way it centers itself... Providing the pva hasn't set!

The best advice I can think of when refoaming is just take your time & dont panic if you make a mistake, pva is very forgiving and will let you peel away and try again a couple of times.

You may do it an entirely different way but I've had success using the above method numerous times in the past.

[MartinT]

That battery method sounds excellent, James. I can see how it would encourage the cone to self-centre.

[hoopsontoast]

Thanks chaps! And James, cheers, no worries about the Kubs, they were only going into a bedroom system anyway!

[hoopsontoast]

Thanks for the advice chaps, I wimped out and going to send them to Audio Loudspeakers, they can do them for just over £100 which seems a really good price.

[hoopsontoast]

Update with the AVR200 running as pre, and the Sony as power amp-


System by hoopsontoast, on Flickr

[istari_knight]

I'm quite surprised you prefer the Arcam preamp over the Sony's.

I too recently had a play with a AVR200, Gave the thing a full service & it still sounded like a tv amp trying to play music. Just shows how room/speaker/listener dependent everything is !

...... Unless your just using it because of the remote controlled volume

[hoopsontoast]

Yes, having a volume control, and a remote that can be used for the CDP is a bonus!

[hoopsontoast]

New Flat, Single and system in the living room for the first time properly-


System by hoopsontoast, on Flickr