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Richard_C

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Everything posted by Richard_C

  1. If you can't find a remote don't worry, you can do it all via the buttons and selector on the unit, it just takes a bit longer.
  2. I see you have a Sony AV500 amp - I do as well, but also use a much older Sony FA3ES to drive my music speakers. You also say the bass lacks something. The AV 500 should be fine, but If you haven't done so already, check your amp setup. By default it is set up for a 5.1 scheme with a sub woofer. so it sends a fair chunk of bass to that output and cuts bass from the other speakers. Most people have 5 small surround speakers, not 2 nice big ones like you.. Its not clever enough to know what you are using, so you have to tell it. Using the amp setup menu, tell it that there is no sub woofer, and that the other speakers are large. Then using the remote select 2CH as the output mode. By doing that it behaves as a conventional amp and sends all frequencies to the 2 speakers you are using. You can still pursue all of the speaker suggestions posted here. (if you have already done all that, sorry for repeating it but worth a check before you start spending money on speaker components)
  3. Useful thanks. I can't see the voltage on the ones I have. Looking online I can order the following from UK distributors, the Solens are more expensive but that's not a problem, I only need 2 and its a trivial expense in the scheme of things. 6uf 50V Alcap Bipolar Axial Electrolytic Capacitor (10% tolerance) Solen 6.00uF 400v DC polypropylene capacitor (2% tolerance) Plan to order the Solens unless anybody shouts "bad idea" ........
  4. This might help explain, I guess its the easiest way to do it of you don't want to cut off the dust caps. The centering starts at 7.15 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boVURbet11g I looked at a few you tube re-foam videos, and picked the method that made the most sense to me in my situation. I found a better example of this method but can't find it again. I guess I should replace the capacitors, unlikely to get the originals so presumably any 6 MFD will do. In the UK we had a store called Maplin, sort of Radio Shack, but it went bust last year so there are no more walk in stores for this sort of thing, needs to be amazon or ebay so you need to know exactly what to order. Richard
  5. All done, straightforward apart from one last minute near disaster on a tweeter wire. I have added pictures and gone into some detail on the tweeter fix. For those AR fans who like detail, here are some numbers: AR25EP, serial numbers I've already posted above, 164399 and 400. Inside is another numbered sticker, Ingham MItrefold AX9399 and 9401, I take them to be the cabinet numbers. Units are 200001 woofer/mid, and 200014-3 tweeter, both "made in USA". Crossover is set in a lot of epoxy resin, toggle switch for 0db/-3db tweeter adjustment, capacitor is ELCAP 6MFD. So to work. It took along time to clean up the cones and spider, not difficult but painstaking. My home made foams of 20 years ago were a mistake, using hot melt glue was an even bigger mistake! Remember back then you couldn't use ebay or amazon to find the proper things. The dust caps looked in very good condition, the new ones hadn't arrived yet, so I decided not to cut them off and use shims to center the cone but instead to use the clothes peg and rock method which was fine. I know most of you will know far more than me about how to re-foam but I have put a bit of detail in below for those who are about to do it for the first time. Skip it of you've done it before. Foam was fixed to the cones with some care, you can use feel as well as eye to make sure they are even, squeezing round you can feel the edges. Once set, you need 8 pegs, the extra 4 help. Use a pair of pegs opposite each other to fix the foam to the rim. Using thumbs on the cone near the pegs, rock the cone and feel it foul the coil on each side. Adjust the pegs until the 'rock' needed to touch the coil is equal each side, Then push the cone up and down near the center, nice and free. The add 2 pegs at 90 degrees the to the first, repeat. With them in all place check that the cone moves freely. Smear some glue under the foam in the sections between the pegs, let it set for a few minutes until tacky then put the 4 extra pegs on where you have glued. That holds it all in place while you take the original 4 pegs off and glue there as well, then put them back on. Gently push cone done to check it is free. That's it - leave to set. Reassembly was going well, 180g of stuffing in each one, then the mini disaster. The spade terminal on one tweeter popped out of it's body as I was re-fixing it, breaking through and breaking the wire where it went across the cone. Looking carefully, the small plastic mount had disintegrated probably through age. I tried to fix it and surprised myself by succeeding. First step make a scissor cut in small piece of white paper and slide it down the side of the cone so that the tiny wire sticks through. That means you can see it and it protects the cone from solder drips. Then cut a length of lighting flex and pull out a couple of strands of the thin copper, twist them together. Magnifying glass time, solder the new bit to the old bit. Then run the new bit through the hole where the old terminal was, insulate carefully (I used self amalgamating tape) so it can't touch the metal body, fix to the old spade terminal which is now floating rather than secured to tweeter body, job done. I fixed the old bright solder spot on top just for cosmetic purposes. Last act was to cheer the cabinets up with Danish Oil, polish and enjoy. They sound good and the sealed cabinet design means you don't have to worry about resonances from a back port. I can see that the top end might be too much for some, but my living room is fairly dead acoustically. I might do the -3db cut in summer when the curtains are open so there is a lot more glass in the room. In dark winter evenings big heavy curtains kill any nastiness. I do wonder, people who spend ££££££ on a piece of wire to make their speakers sound better might get a bigger impact by moving a few cushions on the sofa. Few of us can afford a 'listening room'. Altogether a satisfying project, 2 old speakers restored to everyday use. Here are some photos, covers off - first post showed them on. The second success this weekend was to de-hum my old Pioneer PL512 turntable. Thanks all for help and words of encouragement.
  6. Thanks for that information. No worries about delay, I've been thinking about restoring them for 20 years so a day here or there is a blink of an eye, and we are 6 hours apart in timezone. I have 500g in total so slightly over filled, will leave a bit out. Foams arrived today so hope to get it all sorted over the weekend. Mine had binding posts already, all metal ones, and a toggle switch for the 0dB, -3dB tweeter control.
  7. The question comes at the end if you don't want to read through the first bit, but I thought a bit of context might be useful. First post here, stumbled on the forum while searching for all I could find about AR25s. I'm in the UK. Almost 40 years ago I bought a Pioneer PL512 deck, a Trio Receiver and a pair of AR25's, the best I could afford a the time. The AR25s are labelled AR25EP, the label has a UK and US address and serial numbers 16399 and 16400. Looking at price lists on here, it looks like they were the "value option", priced well below some similar models. About 20 years ago the Trio began to die, and what I now know to be the foams on the speakers began to disintegrate. I did a quick fix using rings I cut myself from thin closed cell foam, and soon after I got a Sony FA3 amplifier and at the same time some Tannoy Mercury M2 bookshelf speakers. That suited us with young children crawling round the house. The Trio went to recycling, the speakers (fortunately) to the loft. The PL512 still works well, a CD player and FM tuner joined in along the way. This week, with a bit of time on my hands, I went up into the loft and brought down the old AR25s. The cabinets cleaned up nicely, the grille foam is missing, I might find it but meanwhile have used some acoustically transparent speaker cloth that I had left over from a job on my car many years ago. They look pretty good, and sound very good to my ears - I listen to all kinds of music - the top end is excellent with orchestral music, glock, triangle and suchlike very clear. I have new foams and dust caps for the combined woofer/mids on order so will do a proper job on those using the advice I found in this forum. The question: a very long time ago I remember adding some stuffing, they were in a small room with odd resonances and I was trying to kill that off. Trouble is, I don't remember what they were like originally. They are of course sealed cabinets, so in a range none - loose packed - tight packed, what should be in there? A secondary question: there is a very small dent in the dust cap of one of the tweeters. My instinct is to leave it well alone, what does anyone think?
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