redbeard74
AK Subscriber
Where did you find the foam kits?
Restoring a pair of Sansui SP L700 speakers.
- Thread starter Ken Boyd
- Start date
I was thinking after I do these, I might give my Infinity Quantums a recap. I noticed the Watkins drivers use two caps one @ 1100 uf, and one @ 700 uf
I guess finding values that large is going to be hard, will have to buy a bunch of 100 uf's and strap them together, is that right?
I guess finding values that large is going to be hard, will have to buy a bunch of 100 uf's and strap them together, is that right?
No, for those capacitors, just use Bennic electrolytic caps to take the place of the original ones. If you used Poly caps, that would be an insane amount of money for something you won't hear much, if any, difference in. If you have a DMM that can read capacitance, and they are accessible enough, unsolder/disconnect one side of those big caps and see just how far off their rating they are. Mine were WAY out there. But electrolytic caps like those (and the Bennics) have a tolerance range of +/-20%...sometimes 10%. At first, I had a Bennic 1000uf and 200uf in parallel (1200uf) and they measured around 1350uf. So, I removed the 200uf and and went to a 50uf in parallel with the 1000uf which metered a tad over 1200uf at that point. I couldn't hear any difference at at all, though, in the change.
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redbeard74
AK Subscriber
Still curious where you found the foam surrounds?
Right at the bottom of the page, I always try to use AK vendors if I can. I also just got a bunch of caps for a Yamaha M70 amp I am working on at the link at the bottom Newark. I can't say they were the easiest to work with as they first charge your card for a estimated charge, then the charge you again for the real amount, they don't tell you what the shipping will be. They estimated the shipping on the first charge of 4 dollars but then they charged my card again and charged me 8 dollars to ship some small caps, seems a bit hi to me. But anyway now they have double charged me yet the lady says they refund the first estimated charge, seems like a hard way to do it if you ask me. I guess as long as its not their money who cares.
Ok back to the foams, let me tell you these speakers were a learning experince.
I have refoamed quite few speaker before but these were kind of a bitch, excuse my French. I was much happier with the second one I did over the first. Sansui glues the surround on the back of the driver cone, well the instructions from Simply speakers says not to worry about that it doesn't make a difference to glue it on the front. Well IMO there foams are not really quite the right size. The outside portion is to large, had to cut them down, and the inside diameter is really to small. The first one I did, I glued the foam on the outside, and the edge of the foam kind extends into the cone to far and it was impossible to get it to lie down, and I didn't want to get glue on the cone. I am not happy with the results, I almost called to complain, but you know how it is, it won't get you anywhere, other than them laughing on the other end after you hang up, as I doubt they have done many or any of these drivers. The second one I disregarded their opinion of not gluing it to the back of the cone, I was barely able to stretch it over the cone to get it behind the cone, and then glued it to the back of the cone, and the roll was just barely large enought to fit on the outside of the cone and then I trimmed the outer diameter of the foam to fit inside the basket.
You can see, the one on the left the foam inner edge is on the outside of the cone and it hangs a bit to far inside the cone IMO.
The one on the right the inner lip is glued to the underside of the cone, a much better looking fit IMO.
Below is the link to the speaker kits. I need to order another set for the other speaker, I didn't order both sets, as I have found that you never can be sure of speaker foams fitting correctly, but these are the only ones that I have found to be close to the right size. And now that I have done them I know I can do the other two the way I think is correct fastening it to the back side of the cone.
But that being said, Simply Speakers needs to make some adjustments to the size to make them a bit better. And their glue although is really fast drying and strong it gives you very little time to work with, and it dries a bit shiney, you can see a few places where I got a little bit of glue on the outside of the foam, It really pissed me off, as I doubt I will be able to ever get it to come off, so I am a bit worried about trying to remove the first one and buy another foam and doing in on the back side, I am going to go with it the way it is, they don't look as bad in real life the flash makes it look worse.
http://www.simplyspeakers.com/sansui-speaker-foam-edge-repair-kit-fsk-10f.html
Ok back to the foams, let me tell you these speakers were a learning experince.
I have refoamed quite few speaker before but these were kind of a bitch, excuse my French. I was much happier with the second one I did over the first. Sansui glues the surround on the back of the driver cone, well the instructions from Simply speakers says not to worry about that it doesn't make a difference to glue it on the front. Well IMO there foams are not really quite the right size. The outside portion is to large, had to cut them down, and the inside diameter is really to small. The first one I did, I glued the foam on the outside, and the edge of the foam kind extends into the cone to far and it was impossible to get it to lie down, and I didn't want to get glue on the cone. I am not happy with the results, I almost called to complain, but you know how it is, it won't get you anywhere, other than them laughing on the other end after you hang up, as I doubt they have done many or any of these drivers. The second one I disregarded their opinion of not gluing it to the back of the cone, I was barely able to stretch it over the cone to get it behind the cone, and then glued it to the back of the cone, and the roll was just barely large enought to fit on the outside of the cone and then I trimmed the outer diameter of the foam to fit inside the basket.
You can see, the one on the left the foam inner edge is on the outside of the cone and it hangs a bit to far inside the cone IMO.
The one on the right the inner lip is glued to the underside of the cone, a much better looking fit IMO.
Below is the link to the speaker kits. I need to order another set for the other speaker, I didn't order both sets, as I have found that you never can be sure of speaker foams fitting correctly, but these are the only ones that I have found to be close to the right size. And now that I have done them I know I can do the other two the way I think is correct fastening it to the back side of the cone.
But that being said, Simply Speakers needs to make some adjustments to the size to make them a bit better. And their glue although is really fast drying and strong it gives you very little time to work with, and it dries a bit shiney, you can see a few places where I got a little bit of glue on the outside of the foam, It really pissed me off, as I doubt I will be able to ever get it to come off, so I am a bit worried about trying to remove the first one and buy another foam and doing in on the back side, I am going to go with it the way it is, they don't look as bad in real life the flash makes it look worse.
http://www.simplyspeakers.com/sansui-speaker-foam-edge-repair-kit-fsk-10f.html
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bryana
You have my stapler!
Having refoamed four of the very same woofers from the exact same speakers I will attest that they are a bit of a challenge. I used some foam surrounds from MAT and cut away some of the outer ring to make them fit right. I glued to the back of the cone as well. THe heavy cast baskets make it a bit hard to work around the cone and to get the foam stuck on good but with a bit of persistance it worked out fine. I also found the tolerance on the VC gap to be rather tight. I did not use shims, instead I used a test tone and it worked fine.
As Tom indicates they are very well made but I can offer no insight as to how they will sound. The internet consensus is that they are the best sansui ever made but hearing is believing. THey did get the asthetics nailed. THey really look like something JBL would have made.
My real issue with mine is both of the horn drivers are open. My guess is the previous owner abused them a bit. As such any judgement of sound from me would as I said be meaningless.
As Tom indicates they are very well made but I can offer no insight as to how they will sound. The internet consensus is that they are the best sansui ever made but hearing is believing. THey did get the asthetics nailed. THey really look like something JBL would have made.
My real issue with mine is both of the horn drivers are open. My guess is the previous owner abused them a bit. As such any judgement of sound from me would as I said be meaningless.
Thanks for your input, I also didn't use shims, used the 18hz tone. Yes getting the surround behind the speaker was a real challenge, it was very tight, reminded me of changing my motorcross bikes rear tires in the days, at least with these you don't have to deal with rim locks!
My horns are both fine, just waiting on the caps for the crossover rebuild, I was hoping for them to show up today. I have the caps to do both, but I am going to do just this one and then put them to the amp and see if I hear an improvement. I am wondering if these speakers are going to impress me after they are done. I am thinking it will take the TOTL the SP L800II to really make me smile, but to be honest, I can appreciate something for what they are, they just might not get the play time some of my others get.
My horns are both fine, just waiting on the caps for the crossover rebuild, I was hoping for them to show up today. I have the caps to do both, but I am going to do just this one and then put them to the amp and see if I hear an improvement. I am wondering if these speakers are going to impress me after they are done. I am thinking it will take the TOTL the SP L800II to really make me smile, but to be honest, I can appreciate something for what they are, they just might not get the play time some of my others get.
Ok replaced caps, installed the bass drivers after re-foaming them, hooked it up to a Yamaha M70 amp, Sansui CA2000, and a Yamaha CD player, and I am happy to say its a completely different speaker! Sounds great, a bit more forward midranges than I am use to but the bass is so much better, and the hi's are more quick and clean and airy, have to say I am glad I went to the trouble of going thru them rather than just putting in a back room to collect dust. I have to order another set of foams for the other speaker, as I have only got one done. I have the caps to do the other, but I only ordered one set of foams. Right now I am using one of the Sansui's on one channel and a different make of speaker on the other channel, as the foams are to far gone on the Sansui's to waste time with. And one great benifit is the much more increased efficency of the Sansui over the Infinity's. Well got to go order the other foam will post when both are done, with pics.
Well I finally got around to getting another set of foams for the other pair of bass drivers to finish this project. I don't look forward to doing another pair of these speakers as they are not fun. But after listening to the one that I have already done, and the huge improvement over what it sounded like before the re-foam and crossover recap, I am looking forward to hearing the pair together.
And I still need to source some good castors to put under them. Orginally from Sansui they came with castors on them to roll them around, they have holes in the bottom where the castors went.
Maybe something like these?
http://www.amazon.com/Antique-Brass..._9?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1330191126&sr=1-9
And I still need to source some good castors to put under them. Orginally from Sansui they came with castors on them to roll them around, they have holes in the bottom where the castors went.
Maybe something like these?
http://www.amazon.com/Antique-Brass..._9?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1330191126&sr=1-9
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Ok I finally received the resistors in today as one of them was burn in two, all the caps are in, drivers refoamed, just hooked up the wires to the amp, all I can say is the difference is like night and day, so much better, nice tight bass, and the hi's are quite transparent and detailed. Now I just have to let them play and give them some breakin time, if it makes a difference. I currently have Adele 21 playing on a Yamaha CD player. I am using a Sansui preamp the CA2000 and doing amp duty is a small Phase Linear 3000 II, which I beleive is 150 watts per channel. These are quite efficent as I barely have to turn up the volume control to get a pretty good level, compared to the Quantum Line Source 5's that I was using on this set up I hardly have to turn it up. As far as comparision a bit less bass, but still plenty to keep you happy, and whats their is very nice not boomy like many of the Japanese speakers from this period. and the horn is doing a great job of handling the mids and hi's.
redbeard74
AK Subscriber
Thanks for the review Ken. It is very interesting.
Please let us know your thoughts as you have time to form an opinion after extended listening.
It would be cool to have a JBL comparison, but I realize you are an Infinity man.
Please let us know your thoughts as you have time to form an opinion after extended listening.
It would be cool to have a JBL comparison, but I realize you are an Infinity man.
Well just because I have a lot of Infinity's doesn't mean I don't like other brands of loudspeakers. I like my Phase Linears just as much, and I have heard some good electrostatics that I thought sounded wonderful. There are many speakers that I am sure sound great, its just a person can only have so many and I was on an the Infinity wagon for quite some time.
Another nice upgrade would be some air core inductors to the woofers.
MCM_Fan
AK Subscriber
Hey Ken, I realize this thread is approaching 6 years old, but was wondering if you still have your Sansui SP-L700 speakers, and if you ever got any casters for them?
I picked up a pair of SP-L800s that are in my restore queue. Like yours, they came sans casters. The inserts for attaching the casters appear to be threaded. Since a 1/4" bolt is too small, and a 3/8" bolt is too big, I assume the thread size is 5/16", which is actually a fairly common size for threaded casters. I'll probably pick up a 5/16" bolt at the local hardware store to confirm its the correct thread size and pitch before I order some casters.
I never got castors as I built some stands that put them off the floor and tilt them back at a slight angle. Lucky you to get the 800's I was unable to find any of the larger ones at the time I was looking for some.
MCM_Fan
AK Subscriber
From the specs (they list the height with, and without, the casters), it looks like the original casters were 2" diameter. It looks like options in that size, with 5/16" threaded stems, are plentiful. I may go with 3" diameter wheels. We'll see. Either way, I'll probably go with two locking and two non-locking casters per speaker.
Unfortunately, I just discovered one of the tweeters is bad. I've never worked with a compression driver, but it measures open circuit with a meter. Sounds like a fried voice coil. Hopefully, something that can be fixed, as I doubt I'll be able to find a replacement tweeter.
