Saving speakers

[Longgone]

I love vintage electronics and I recently picked up an old pair of 6 x 9 coaxial Jensen speakers in great shape. However, the foam surrounds (while completely intact) were in serious need of replacement. Any heavy bass vibrations would soon render the edges into small pieces. Speakers like this can be brought back to life with the use of a foam surround kit. I picked up a kit from a placed called Simply Speakers. The kit is around $25.00 delivered and comes with surrounds, glue, and instructions.

 

[George R]

In my opinion, those Jenson speakers were THE best sounding speakers on the market at the time. I wish I still had some for myself.
I never knew you could buy repair kits for them. Thanks for the tip.

George

 

[Longgone]

I started by removing the speaker ring that holds the outer edge down and suspends the tweeter. I just unscrewed the tweeter from the back and unsoldered the two wires leading to it. Once the tweeter was removed it was easy to start removing the crumbling surrounds. What was left of the surrounds on the paper cone I removed with a razor and some rubbing alcohol.

When the paper cone and the metal cage is cleaned up you can glue the surround on. I started with gluing the edge of the surround to the paper cone. I ran a 1/8" bead around the edge of the cone and centered the surround to the edge of the cone. I worked the glued edges together for a few minutes.

Once the surround sat about an hour I glued the outside edge of the surround to the cage. Before gluing the surround to the cage, push straight down on the paper cone gently to make sure it`s centered around the voice coil. If you can hear it scrape, then wiggle it one way or another until it moves up and down smoothly. When it does, it`s okay to run a bead of glue under the edge of the surround and work it to the cage with your fingers. You can now put the outer ring over the edge to help hold the surround down.

After an hour I reinstalled the tweeters, soldering the two wires that lead through the woofer cone. When the surround is back on and the glue is set, she`s ready to play. I did both of these in about 1.5 hours complete with changing out two blown capacitors on the tweeters. So don`t throw those old speakers away, they can be saved. This same process can be done with 4 x 10 car speakers or full size 10"-18" stereo and pro audio speakers.

 

[Longgone]

In my opinion, those Jenson speakers were THE best sounding speakers on the market at the time. I wish I still had some for myself.
I never knew you could buy repair kits for them. Thanks for the tip.

George

They still sound amazingly good after all of these years and advances in technology. I have an old KP-500 Pioneer super tuner pushing these and they sound very good without having to add any equalizer or power amp.

 

[BrianT]

Nice work!

I did the same thing last summer to an old pair of Infinity bookshelf speakers that I've had for 20 years. I couldn't stand to throw them out and new woofers would have been cost prohibitive. Now, they sound good as new out in the garage!!

 

[Longgone]

Nice work!

I did the same thing last summer to an old pair of Infinity bookshelf speakers that I've had for 20 years. I couldn't stand to throw them out and new woofers would have been cost prohibitive. Now, they sound good as new out in the garage!!

I`ve done 3 sets of Advents, a small set of Infinity`s (as you did), a set of Bose 301`s, a set of Bose 601`s, and the odd guitar amp speaker. I`d never done a pair of 6 x 9`s before. This is a great way to resurrect old speakers. Most of these old speakers have good voice coils and are still good for all intents and purposes. In addition it`s a huge cost savings over buying new and it keeps stuff out of the landfill. Besides all of that ,don`t some of the old speakers sound as good if not better than what`s out there now?

 

[rigrunner]

awesome

 

[IfItsGotWheels]

I have an old KP-500 Pioneer super tuner pushing these and they sound very good without having to add any equalizer or power amp.

What a great deck the KP500 was.A couple of years ago I almost bought an NOS one. I stopped bidding at $450. I think it sold for $550.

 

[goldfish65]

They still sound amazingly good after all of these years and advances in technology. I have an old KP-500 Pioneer super tuner pushing these and they sound very good without having to add any equalizer or power amp.

Very useful how-to thread Longgone. I had the same combo, sure brings back some good memories....Boogie Wonder-laaaa-and!

 

[RustyRatRod]

I wish you'd look at that. Some people can fix anything. I wouldda tore those sumbitches all to hell. Those were some damn good speakers too. I had the triaxials myself.

 

['64 Cuda]

I had a perfectly good set of Jensen coaxial speakers mounted in my Barracuda. The son of the guy I was sharing a shop with stole them out of my car because "I wasn't using them."

 

[cudajim]

The Jensen Coaxial speakers were good in their day, then the came out with the tri-axials which didn't have as much bass response. I also had a good ole Pioneer deck (they were kind of robust and easy to fix) and it all sounded pretty good.