AR93 Questions

[Guest]

I came across this great site while researching replacement speakers for my "old, worn-out" AR 93's. It quickly became apparent that the best thing to do was restore not replace. I decided to take a look at the guts of these 50 lb. bricks, no easy task considering the "condom" of grill cloth these bad boys are wearing. Needless to say, there was very little foam intact. I have ordered refoaming kits for the woofers and mids. The cones (dust caps?) on the tweeters are both indented, but otherwise they seem to be ok. Should these be replaced since everything is apart? Is there a way to "pull" the dents? I would appreciate any input anyone has.

Doug

[Guest dogmeninreno]

>I came across this great site while researching replacement

>speakers for my "old, worn-out" AR 93's. It quickly became

>apparent that the best thing to do was restore not replace. I

>decided to take a look at the guts of these 50 lb. bricks, no

>easy task considering the "condom" of grill cloth these bad

>boys are wearing. Needless to say, there was very little foam

>intact. I have ordered refoaming kits for the woofers and

>mids. The cones (dust caps?) on the tweeters are both

>indented, but otherwise they seem to be ok. Should these be

>replaced since everything is apart? Is there a way to "pull"

>the dents? I would appreciate any input anyone has.

>

>Doug

I am not 100% sure about the performance of the dented tweeters but would guess that there is little sonic difference if any. Just a guess but I have hade some dented tweeters and noticed no audible difference at all. Are the tweeters the upper or the ones just below. If they are the uppers, there are a couple on eBay now. Items 3014992747 and 3014993467. Good luck!

[Guest Nigel]

>Are the tweeters the

>upper or the ones just below. If they are the uppers, there

>are a couple on eBay now. Items 3014992747 and 3014993467.

The 93 and 94 have only one tweeter, it is similar (same?) as the AR18.

The 93 has two 8" woofers (one on each side like a 9 or 90), an 8" mid range (also like a 9 or 90) and a cone tweeter. The 94 has a single forward firing woofer, a 8" mid/base driver and a cone tweeter. The 94 was the first 2½ way design. At low frequencies both 8" drivers operated, and as the frequency increased, the lower one dropped out.

Nigel

[tysontom]

>

>The cones (dust caps?) on the tweeters are both

>indented, but otherwise they seem to be ok. Should these be

>replaced since everything is apart? Is there a way to "pull"

>the dents? I would appreciate any input anyone has.

>

>Doug

The best way I know of to restore a pushed-in dome or woofer dust cap is to take a small sewing needle, puncture the indented portion, and pull it back out. If the material is paper, you obviously must be careful not to tear it. Yes, you will have a tiny pin hole, but that's much better than looking at a dented-in dome or dust cap. The tiny pin hole will have no effect on performance.

--Tom Tyson

[Guest Bret]

>The best way I know of to restore a pushed-in dome or woofer dust cap is to take a small sewing needle, puncture the indented portion, and pull it back out.<

Tom, we used to use tape on dust caps, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work for a tweeter dome, too. But it had to be either masking tape or duct tape and I don't remember which. Transparent tape wouldn't do it.

You just gently, gently put the tape on the dust cap, waited a few seconds, and slowly, ever so slowly, pulled out the dent.

Maybe what we need to invent is a "dent puller" for dust caps and advertise it over-and-over-and-over during the all-night-commercial, I uh, mean, uh, movie on Turner.

Bret

[Guest Brian_D]

If you superglue a pin to the middle of the dent, you can usually exert enough pressure to pull it out without the glue breaking loose.

It worked on a pair of 18's I had in college, but it left a little "splinter" of glue on the cone. Better than the dent I suppose.

If you couldn't exert enough pressure with the point of a pin, maybe you could use the back (not the big plastic balls on most pins you see nowadays, but the simple "mashed head" end on sewing pins)

At any rate, I'm not sure that it's worth it except for aesthetics. I'm pretty sure it won't affect the sound to the point you would notice.

[Guest Jstas]

My experience has been that dust caps offer little to support sound quality. They are there to keep the dust out of the voice coil. Dirt can shred a voice coil in a matter of minutes so a dust cap is important for that. In a tweeter though, I am not 100 percent sure. Some of the newer tweeters are fluid filled and you have to replace those if they are damaged. Cloth tweeters like silk dome tweeters can be very very difficult to repair. Paper tweeters however, I do not think that squished dust caps are an issue. My dad has a pair of Electro-Voice speakers and the tweeters on both speakers have squished dust caps due to my siblings and I in our much younger days. It doesn't seem to affect the sound at all.

The pin idea works well but its easy to tear. If you don't have a steady hand or a gentle touch, it may not be best for you. The super glue also works. However, I watched a friend try to fix a paper woofer with that method and end up slashing and tearing the speaker with the pin. Again, not for those who are jumpy. I haven't tried the tape idea but it works on the same principle as the super glue with less chance of additional damage. I think I would try that. I think I'm going to try that on my dad's speakers myself! I mean, I probably owe it to him to fix the speakers that I damaged, right?