Refreshing hi-fi speakers?

giovanni

giovanni

Well-known member
Hey guys, a bit of a random post. I have a pair of very old speakers I got from a used hi-fi system from the 80’s about 14 years ago from goodwill. They each have an 9” speaker and two smaller tweeters (4” and 3”). The main speakers have seen better days: they are both a bit banged up. Overall the speakers sound ok and they have been my main living room speakers forever. But I have been wondering if I should get a new pair or if I could just replace the 9” speakers and give them new life instead.

What do you all think? Is this worth some diy? Any recommendations on which speakers to get and where from? Any tips is appreciated!
 
You might get lucky finding a woofer that matches the enclosure, tweeter(s), and crossover, but it might end up being pretty hard to adapt unless you can figure out the existing woofers’ original parameters. There are kind of a shocking number of variables in speaker design, especially with multiple drivers.

if you can remove the drivers conveniently and non-destructively, it might be worth checking for model numbers and googling around to see if you can find any info. You might get lucky and find there’s a good modern equivalent!
 
Band of Dans said:
You might get lucky finding a woofer that matches the enclosure, tweeter(s), and crossover, but it might end up being pretty hard to adapt unless you can figure out the existing woofers’ original parameters. There are kind of a shocking number of variables in speaker design, especially with multiple drivers.

if you can remove the drivers conveniently and non-destructively, it might be worth checking for model numbers and googling around to see if you can find any info. You might get lucky and find there’s a good modern equivalent!
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I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated than I imagined! What if I just remove all drivers and put in three that make sense together even though they don’t match the original?
 
giovanni said:
I was afraid it would be a lot more complicated than I imagined! What if I just remove all drivers and put in three that make sense together even though they don’t match the original?
Click to expand...
The original speakers would’ve been designed around a passive crossover network (probably) specific to those three drivers. You almost certainly wouldn’t be able to reuse that crossover with totally new drivers and designing your own crossover from scratch is pretty technical and requires special equipment. Though possibly fun and rewarding for a pedal building enthusiast.

Out of curiosity, what model are the speakers?
 
A few years ago I designed and built some small two-way bookshelf speakers from the ground up. It was super rewarding but a huge pain in the rear. My approach was to model the drivers, crossover, and box design using some inscrutable desktop software, order a bunch of components from Parts Express, test with a measurement mic, realize I messed up, buy more components from PE, rinse/repeat. This was before I got into pedals and I hadn’t amassed a stockpile of passive components, so every iteration required another parts order. Replacing the drivers/crossover for existing cabinets would be basically the same process except you can’t change the box dimensions. And you know a lot more about circuits than I did when I started.

I think they sound really nice now and they’re exactly what I was after (super compact full-range speakers with really wide dispersion). But it was a TON of work, not all of it fun. But I’m glad to have done it.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a sense of what’s involved. Could be a fun project or could be a huge time suck depending on what you want!

Now that I work from home, my “office” is where my table saw used to be so I haven’t built anything in a while, unfortunately.

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I still say if they’re working probably leave em alone, but I have replaced some blown drivers on speakers before. If you’re lucky and the speakers are a popular enough model you can find listings for matched replacements.
 
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