Hi Guys, I'm back...........
Polkaguy58
Posts: 352
How's the forum been ?
I've been away for quite awhile, but still very active in the quest for new sound.
Lately, I've been aquiring inexpensive speakers from my youth via Ebay and Craig's list and toying with them.
It's how I deal with my winter doldrums.
My latest venture was with a pair of 1974 Lafayette (Creative) bookshelves.
These were in very good shape cabinet wise and had CTS drivers, mainly a 6" woofer with a tiny alnico horshoe magnet and a 2.5" paper cone tweeter.
I say had, because I wanted the very ornate molded edge wood veneer cabs for a full range project and already owned a better pair of 6" blue paper CTS woofers from the same era with whizzer cones and large accordian pleated surrounds.
My original plan was to just unhook the tweeters and run the cabs as a sealed unit, but I eventually had to see what they would sound like with a port.
I did this by making a wooden inlay to fill the tweeter routs and then cutting a hole through the center of the plug to mount my ports.
These speakers from yesteryear have very nasty fiberglass insulation in them, so I made a small foam port bung to both filter the evil dust from exitting the cabs and also creating a mild acoustic brake for the 10 watt drivers.
I have to say, that they exceeded my hopes and dreams and sound quite nice.
I did have to pad the mids a bit and boost the treble, but I'd rather do that than to have to add resistors and such.
I also have a new pair of Dayton 6.5" point source full range drivers which are going into the cabs that the donor woofers came from (Realistic Solo1's).
My carpenter friend already fashioned some new face plates for those and seeing that the old ones are bolted in, I can swap in the new drivers without modding the cabs.
Still a month until motorcycle season, so this is what I do with my spare time.
I've been away for quite awhile, but still very active in the quest for new sound.
Lately, I've been aquiring inexpensive speakers from my youth via Ebay and Craig's list and toying with them.
It's how I deal with my winter doldrums.
My latest venture was with a pair of 1974 Lafayette (Creative) bookshelves.
These were in very good shape cabinet wise and had CTS drivers, mainly a 6" woofer with a tiny alnico horshoe magnet and a 2.5" paper cone tweeter.
I say had, because I wanted the very ornate molded edge wood veneer cabs for a full range project and already owned a better pair of 6" blue paper CTS woofers from the same era with whizzer cones and large accordian pleated surrounds.
My original plan was to just unhook the tweeters and run the cabs as a sealed unit, but I eventually had to see what they would sound like with a port.
I did this by making a wooden inlay to fill the tweeter routs and then cutting a hole through the center of the plug to mount my ports.
These speakers from yesteryear have very nasty fiberglass insulation in them, so I made a small foam port bung to both filter the evil dust from exitting the cabs and also creating a mild acoustic brake for the 10 watt drivers.
I have to say, that they exceeded my hopes and dreams and sound quite nice.
I did have to pad the mids a bit and boost the treble, but I'd rather do that than to have to add resistors and such.
I also have a new pair of Dayton 6.5" point source full range drivers which are going into the cabs that the donor woofers came from (Realistic Solo1's).
My carpenter friend already fashioned some new face plates for those and seeing that the old ones are bolted in, I can swap in the new drivers without modding the cabs.
Still a month until motorcycle season, so this is what I do with my spare time.
Comments
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Hey man, good to see you.
Interesting project on the old Lafayettes. I say that like I know what they are and look like. I don't
but it sounds like you're enjoying yourself.
Can't really find anything on them. Think you'll be posting any photos of your project?
And yeaht, ready for Spring here, too. Haven't really ridden at all this winter. Too much work getting all the gear on!I disabled signatures. -
Sure, here they are:
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Nice. And you're putting the Daytons in at some point?
Curious to hear your impression of those compared to the vintage drivers.I disabled signatures. -
No, the Dayton's are going into the Solo1 cabs that those blue CTS's came out of.
I like these guy's just the way they are (for now).
It's funny, because I know in my head that they're not accurate and a bit on the "wooly" side, but damn, I could listen to them all day long.
My daytime radio on my workbench is an old 70's KLH Model 21, so maybe my ears are just used to a paper full range sound ?
Here's a pic of the Solo 1's:
Lest you think I've gone over to the dark side of things, I also have these in my arsenal. (Tannoy 6's)
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Well, I got bored again and converted those Solo 1 cabs into these.
I had a pair of Dayton Audio 6.5" full range drivers and had a friend cut me the front panels to accomodate them.
Right now, they're stuffed with the original, horrible 60's fiberglass and sealed, but I do have a pair of ports that I may try out in the future.
That would mean pulling out that scratchy old stuff, vacuuming the cabs, drilling out the port holes and re-packing them with some fiberfill.
We'll see.................
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Actually, they sound quite nice !
A little loud in the mids, but they only have a couple hour's worth of use so far and they claim that it takes 100 hours to open them up.
I can't believe how efficient they are.
I have to pin my sub's volume to match them.
Those twin cigar boxes that you see on the lower shelf have high pass filters built into them that filter out anything under 100 Hz.
They have in's and out's in the rear.
I built them for my 60's Creative full range speakers that couldn't handle the low frequencies at a loud volume.
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Are those drivers these?
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ps180-8-6-1-2-point-source-full-range-neo-driver--295-344
Those are nice looking drivers -- fairly high sensitivity, at close to 95 dB SPL per 2.83 VAC @ 1 meter per PE.
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Well, the ports are in and the horrible fiberglass has been replaced with dacron polyfill.
I knew that there'd still be fiberglass dust in there, so I wrapped the port tube ends with fine grill cloth, held on with rubber bands to act as a filter, without restricting the airlfow.
They're even more efficient now and sound good with completely flat settings.
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Those look nice. Great DIY. Would the low end be much different if you'd have put the ports on the rear?Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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I'm not a big fan of rear ported speakers, as they seem to boom in my place and there's not enough realestate to move them away from the back wall.
Funny thing is, that I re-hooked up my Tannoy 600's last night, forgetting that I still had the external high pass filters inline and damn if it didn't sound better !
My guess is that the 6.5" woofers are being relieved of the low end duty and can focus their energy on frequencies that more suit their size.
