Enjoying The Longevity

[newandold]

May 10, 2022:

It’s been roughly six years since I completed the last phase of my Allison  Acoustics Home Theater driver restoration.  I don’t touch any of the drivers unless necessity dictates, however I thought I would take a peek and see how things are holding up. I took one of the plastic grills off of the I C 20 woofers which were redone in 2012. With central air conditioning in play it looked exactly the way it did when I had them redone now almost 10 years ago. And the ones redone in 2016 the smaller woofers were equally sublime. Between this and my back up drivers I continue to be sitting pretty while putting cutting edge electronics into play with these old beasts…. Life is good!

[DavidR]

Good for you. I'm sure having rare Allison speakers (as most are) there is a fear level that you may not be able to repair/replace a driver.

Play On !

[newandold]

35 minutes ago, DavidR said:

Good for you. I'm sure having rare Allison speakers (as most are) there is a fear level that you may not be able to repair/replace a driver.

Play On !

Yes indeed! That “fear level” turned into action now 22 years ago when I transitioned the Allison’s from typical stereo duty to multichannel surround. Who does such a thing with speakers that have gone out of business??

Nuts like me (I guess!)

Most grateful that Ebay came into play in and around the same time period and became the critical element in making it all happen.

Sad now to see nothing left but scraps there nowadays. That being said beforehand I scrapped up enough viable parts for a lifetime.

[H.G.B.]

Hi guys,

I got back to my hifi/stereo life a few months ago and am using the Allison 3 speakers again. My ears have lost the ability to hear highs at my older age, yet I will not stop cold turkey and walk away from my stereo system. The selector control on the tweeter is now set to full output.

I realized that the one tweeter has blown and I used a spare which was bought years ago. This new one is now-- after some modification --was installed and it's working. These drivers are not drop in as I quickly realized. 

The little wires which go to the connector poles just about dropped off during handling and had to be soldered back into place. Luckily it held, yet I don't trust the connections, because they wires are extremely thin.

Had Roy Allison been alive and his company had prospered, I'm sure the tweeter would have been updated.

The nipple shaped tweeter was ahead of its time, still is and but needed some connecting help. 

The model 3 has a 4Ω impedance and its not to be used with with certain ONKYO receivers which only work down to 6Ω. I finally had to try the speakers however and connected them and played the system at a low output. The speakers came back to life and I was pleased. All was well-- yet I'm wondering whether I caused the original tweeter's demise because of the mismatch and cranking it up a bit. There are several factors in play here which according to some gurus on YouTube may be detrimental to the longevity of the speaker.

The age of the drivers may affect the performance. For example-- I blew a tweeter on the speaker years ago when my reel to reel was rewound with a high screaming output. A lesson learned very quickly.

The electrical mismatch such as I mentioned above... and the age of the crossover may be suspect.

Crossover have a life and the parts such as capacitors lose their values, which in turn affect the resistors and nothing is what seems anymore.

No one wants to talk about this-- yet the problem exists-- it's there-- within the bowels of the 1977 speaker cabinets in my particular case.

I'm not that gifted about the electronics here-- yet I'm curious what you could add this situation. H.G.B.

 

 

[newandold]

1 hour ago, H.G.B. said:

Hi guys,

“ I got back to my hifi/stereo life a few months ago and am using the Allison 3 speakers again. My ears have lost the ability to hear highs at my older age, yet I will not stop cold turkey and walk away from my stereo system. The selector control on the tweeter is now set to full output.”

That “slope switch” is better than the AR pots, but it still needs maintenance otherwise the tweeters can become intermittent from the poor connection. It can be cleaned by sliding it back and forth many, many times. The most effective way to go is to remove the tweeter to access the switch from the inside and use deoxit and Dustoff or equivalent.

1 hour ago, H.G.B. said:

“Had Roy Allison been alive and his company had prospered, I'm sure the tweeter would have been updated.”

He did so, and in the following years that tweeter got major updates that included rear connection and dispensing with the brass pins. Wood bezels replaced with plastic material and capped off with a protective metal screen to protect the dome.

 

“The model 3 has a 4Ω impedance and its not to be used with with certain ONKYO receivers which only work down to 6Ω. I finally had to try the speakers however and connected them and played the system at a low output. The speakers came back to life and I was pleased.”

Of course….those speakers are actually 6ohm. nominal and are an easy load for any typical receiver.

 

“The electrical mismatch such as I mentioned above... and the age of the crossover may be suspect.”

Nah

“Crossover have a life and the parts such as capacitors lose their values, which in turn affect the resistors and nothing is what seems anymore.”

Very high quality crossover components in the original Allison lineup with “ computer grade” caps. 
Caps do drift, however on these, no one I know that swapped them ever heard much of a difference.

 

 

 

 

[H.G.B.]

Well new and old I'm still learning and I appreciate your input.

I will check out this impedance issue further however. I didn't realized computer grade caps were already used 

in 1977 by Allison.

 

Thank you

[newandold]

15 hours ago, H.G.B. said:

Well new and old I'm still learning and I appreciate your input.

I will check out this impedance issue further however. I didn't realized computer grade caps were already used 

in 1977 by Allison.

 

Thank you

This is the last version (around 1988) that was drop in compatible with your A3. Could drop into Both first and second generation versions of your speaker. The later Allison 3 had rear connections only as the brass pins had been eliminated.

[H.G.B.]

In my case I have the older ones with the spring loaded pins, which I like by the way. My replacement tweeter had the rear push on connectors.

After locating the connector's position a small I pilot was drilled through the wood followed by clearance holes so the push on terminals could be embedded into the cabinet. They have no function at this time. The 2 thin wires from the tweeter fell off so I held them captive in the push pins and laid them over the original connection. The wires didn't like soldering but they are connected now..

Do you know any one who has repaired Allison tweeters?

I am using a pair of RDL F-1 and I suspect they share the same tweeter. e.g. wide dispersion. 

So I purchased a pair of ELAC speakers about 6 weeks ago and when I a/b them-- they just can't compare to Roy Allison's speakers in any way.

They are going back. I did own a pair of model 6, model 4, the power hungry modern model 8 or 9 where the woofer is pointing at an angle to the floor.

I still have the ESW in the closet. It's sad when one makes a decision to sell one's equipment and then its gone are. Such is life.

Oh yes, I have 2 Allison 3 woofers which were overhauled-- yet they were placed in storage facing each other. Well I won't do that again. LOL

[newandold]

49 minutes ago, H.G.B. said:

In my case I have the older ones with the spring loaded pins, which I like by the way. My replacement tweeter had the rear push on connectors.

After locating the connector's position a small I pilot was drilled through the wood followed by clearance holes so the push on terminals could be embedded into the cabinet. They have no function at this time. The 2 thin wires from the tweeter fell off so I held them captive in the push pins and laid them over the original connection. The wires didn't like soldering but they are connected now..

Do you know any one who has repaired Allison tweeters?

I am using a pair of RDL F-1 and I suspect they share the same tweeter. e.g. wide dispersion. 

So I purchased a pair of ELAC speakers about 6 weeks ago and when I a/b them-- they just can't compare to Roy Allison's speakers in any way.

They are going back. I did own a pair of model 6, model 4, the power hungry modern model 8 or 9 where the woofer is pointing at an angle to the floor.

I still have the ESW in the closet. It's sad when one makes a decision to sell one's equipment and then its gone are. Such is life.

Oh yes, I have 2 Allison 3 woofers which were overhauled-- yet they were placed in storage facing each other. Well I won't do that again. LOL

I knew a few of these forum members who had some limited success with tweeter connection repairs (like yours) but no one with real voice coil repair replacement which of course is the heart of the whole thing.

Interesting to note that Allison Acoustics themselves repaired no drivers for customers. If you returned one you could perhaps get an answer from them about what went wrong with yours and you would get a replacement. That was it. 
I’ve had some midrange drivers repaired outside of Allison and the woofers but never a tweeter