Allen Bowering Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 (edited) Rather than start another thread I thought I would just modify this one. I have just begun the restoration/modification of my Cs28's these have been in the family since the mid 90's and believe it or not, I saved them from the skip when my father decided he would clean out his storage room. He was a funny old bugger, the slightest scratch or dent in anything and it was "ruined" and would eventually find it's way into the trash, and as soon as he got his tannoy's these were sent to the dark room until the day he could afford to do a cleanup. in the time I have owned them they have been reasonably well looked after despite the enclosures being faded and slightly deteriated from sitting in direct sunlight for so long while in storage, the only problem being the cat scratching his way through the cover and then attacking the lower driver on one of them. I was planning on just replaceing all bass drivers (Seas P14RC) with NOS replacements and continue running the original tweeters, but have since decided to upgrade to more modern drivers, on top of this I'm going to remove the crossovers and set the cabinet's up for bi amping and active crossovers. I was also toying with the idea of swapping the dome tweeters for a pair of ribbons. The base plates have seen better days, mdf doesn't last long at floor level when the house is mopped once a week so I'll have a pair of replacements made from granite or some other stone. anyways, there's the first of the 2 stripped to it's bare bones. The box volume calculates to about 24.5L The Seas P14RC drivers, these are actually a little confusing to me atm as you'll see from the id sticker As you can see the seas code for these is H707, however I cannot find them in Seas's listing of drivers as they should be with the rest if the vintage precision section of drivers. The closest I have come is another listing for a P14RC but with the code H395, I know the voltairs used the same style of seas driver but were in a taller enclosure so I'm guessing that's what the listing is for. worst comes to worst I'll bother Brad with a message and ask him if he knows the original specs as I would like to find drivers close to the specs of the originals. The CS28 crossover network These will be carefully packed and stored, just because anyway I have started smoothing the enclosures and prepping them, now to find some drivers. Edited April 27, 2013 by DryftKult Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Spencer Posted April 26, 2013 Share Posted April 26, 2013 DIYers so often make the mistake of focusing too much on drivers and too little on the value of a good crossover. I recently came across a speaker with high end drivers, professionally designed. The performance is less than I expect with much cheaper drivers and this is mostly due to a mediocre crossover. The best drivers sound like rubbish without a good crossover. Is this a good idea? If you are ready to embrace DIY as a serious hobby and accept a major learning curve, then sure it's a good idea. But if this is simply getting better sound on a tight budget, then yes - bad idea! The fact that you ask if this is a good idea suggests that you probably recognise 2% of the challenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted April 26, 2013 Author Share Posted April 26, 2013 I understand that there are many factors when choosing a set of drivers such as box volume, frequency responce, efficiency and many more factors, but these units are seriously sentimental to me and while the replacements are available (or at least they were 2 years ago when I last checked), I can see the advantage of switching to a more modern driver, even for asthetic purposes rather than purely sonic. as for the crossovers, I'll be running actives which I'll be able to fine tune so the setup chosen, but as I have been out of this scene for quite some time while I focused on other things I have no idea what's out there these days, seas and vifa are the 2 brands stuck in my head, I've pretty much forgotten the rest :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted April 27, 2013 Author Share Posted April 27, 2013 original post edited and photo's added Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaphod Beeblebrox Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 The designer of the CS28 is Brad Serhan. Thinking that you know more about speaker design than Brad does, will be your first mistake. Use the original drivers ONLY and do not tinker with the crossovers. Brad is a seriously talented speaker designer. Respect his work and rebuild your speakers as they were originally designed and you will be happy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted April 27, 2013 Author Share Posted April 27, 2013 Sorry but I have not stated anywhere that I know more about speakers than Brad. I'm not tinkering with the crossovers, I'm removing them completly so I can run actives with a bi amp setup. And sure I can replace the drivers with the original IF they are still able to be sourced, but then what happens if I need to replace them again at some point? they'll probably be all gone. These drivers are discontinued, I have searched high and low and the only place they were still available was through another of brads audio brands and they had limited stock, that was 3 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaphod Beeblebrox Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 I am sure Orpheus can assist with replacement drivers. Either originals, or suitable replacements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted April 27, 2013 Author Share Posted April 27, 2013 I tried I tried Orpheus 3 years ago, they were the ones who directed me to Duntech. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peta Posted April 27, 2013 Share Posted April 27, 2013 hmmm ... maybe because Orpeus and Duntech are the same organisation now ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted April 30, 2013 Author Share Posted April 30, 2013 Anyways, have bit the bullet and ordered replacements, lets hope I don't need any more in the near future <_< also started sanding and filling the enclosures yesterday a little undecided as to what finish I want, painted or stain then french polish. Still have a bottle of japan black stain from when I rebuilt my bass, may end up using that as I seldom do and woodworking and the amps are black anyways so it's match a little better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted May 4, 2013 Author Share Posted May 4, 2013 So went to bunnings today and picked up a bottle of timber sealer, another bottle of japan black, and a glass finish kit. The sealer is a sandable leveler and fills all the gaps in the grain leaving a completly smooth surface. The glass coat kit says it's equivilent to 70 coats of varnish and is self leveling with an extremly high gloss but takes about a week to fully cure, only problem is it can only be applied to vertical surfaces, that means I have to do one face of the enclosures at a time. Just to be sure I've purchased all these products from the Feast Watson range of timber finishing products. As a cool little touch, the glass finish kit can be tinted using the timber stain, so I can get a nice dark and deep finish to the enclosures, mmmm shiny Anyway... got one of the enclosures almost completly sanded and have sealed the first side with the first coat, it's now a little below the reccomended 20deg minimum temperature reccomended on the bottle so I'll have to wait till tomorrow to do the second coat and then wait another 6 hours to sand. I'm not a patient person at the best of times, but I don't want to rush these lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted May 8, 2013 Author Share Posted May 8, 2013 The 2 new drivers turned up today, decided I'm going to order another 2 next week and keep the 2 old ones in decent nick for backups. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sub Sonic Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Great idea DryftKult, Sounds like they'll be in near new condition when you're done, with original parts too! :-) Regards, SS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cafe67 Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Excellent thread, have enjoyed reading g what you plan to do and what you have been able to do so far, good stuff :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 I still have these but have gone no further with the restoration as I've been having some chronic health issues. Have decided against restoring the cabinets myself and will look for a talented cabinet maker soon to do them for me. I still plan on replacing the original mdf footplates with black marble as the old ones didn't handle the moisture from mopping the floors too well. once they have been restored I will keep them until I'm ready for my caravan trip, then it's likely they will be up for sale as I won't have room to store them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muzzagruzz Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 (edited) If you're in Sydney, take them to JJ Cabinets who make all Legend Acoustics' speakers. They do some refurbishment work for other brands - including Orpheus. Speak to John as he is the master craftsmen there and does magnificent work. He has done work for my Legend speakers and VPI turntable. Amazing work. They are based at Narellan. Cheers Tricky Edited August 21, 2014 by Trickster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telfer Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 hey did you finish your speakers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted February 4, 2016 Author Share Posted February 4, 2016 No not yet, but the resto is about to start again soon. I've just spent the better part of a year and a half battling cancer, am in full remission now and ready to get started. We're going to strip off the original veneer and redo it, it's simply too far gone to be saved, atm the hardest choice is what colour I want them. I also spoke in depth with Brad Serhan recently and he is going to sort me out with some tweaks for these beauties. When the cabs are closer to finished I'll look at building a quartet of mono block valve amps and a preamp to run them. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mac Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 I've just spent the better part of a year and a half battling cancer, am in full remission now and ready to get started. Congratulations!!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted February 4, 2016 Author Share Posted February 4, 2016 Thanks mate, it was a bit rough, happy it's all behind me now. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Bowering Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 (edited) Was helping a friend clean out her shed and garage and I noticed she had a Logitech Z-5500 speaker system sitting in the corner, I asked her about it and apparently the control pod for it had exploded some time ago (as they do due to inadequate cooling) and seeing as it was out of warranty they simply replaced the whole system and popped the rest into the shed. As they were destined for the bin she said I could take them if I wanted, so I brought it home with me. I tried out the satellites on my backup amplifier as you need the control pod to power the built in amplifier without a custom cable. Time in storage had taken it's toll on 3 of the 5 satellites and 2 remained usable but aesthetically displeasing. I'll spend a few dollars to make up the custom cable required to power up the amplifier and see if it still functions, I have read about these things multiple times as they are popular with the pc modding crowd and have seen a few hifi nuts in that scene recap and modify the amplifiers and subwoofer enclosure to work extremely well with all the satellites swapped out for decent monitors. I may bang the orpheus back together temporarily to see how the amp copes running them, as the amp stages for the satellites are rated at a tad over 60wrms per channel, which is over double the power my crappy linkman backup amp makes, and they seem to work fine on that. If all goes well, I might be able to build myself a nice sounding yet minimalist system using the orpheus, my super tweeters, and a bass horn, with no amplifier to be seen, this would be perfect as the system would live in my bedroom where space is minimal. Edited March 14, 2016 by DryftKult Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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