Peter P.

Update: Here's a pic of the installed system with the Bluetooth adapter. I placed the Bluetooth adapter as high as possible to maximize its range in our 75' install bay. While the range is well beyond that, I discovered one problem; in order for each user to iniitially connect to the device, the device has to be put into a "discoverable" mode. That means placing a ladder near the unit to press the button. Once their phone sees the Bluetooth adapter and connects to it the first time, it's permanent. One other problem: I wanted the FM to work as well, but the LED lighting on the wall AND on the ceiling is creating significant interference, which is unusual because the rabbit ear set top antenna was placed on the shelf above the receiver, and farther away from the lights than the same antenna at home is from my basement panel LEDs. I also tried a dipole in various orientations with very questionable improvement. I know most of the people in the shop stream from their phones or laptops but I wanted to make FM a "free" alternative. There's no possibility of installing RF filters on the LED lights.

I actually thought of that! I considered swapping the Avid's with my kg 2.2's only because the 2.2's were lighter and I was concerned about the shelf support. The Avids weigh 24lbs. and the 2.2's are 4 lbs. lighter. But 4 toggle bolts through the drywall seem pretty sturdy. Surprisingly, the 2.2's have a wider bandwidth and greater efficiency than the Avid's, a good reason for me to NOT share them at work! Now I have to wait and see if the crew in the install bay piss off the office workers with loud tunes anyway; they were doing a pretty good job of it using their boom boxes!

Update: I replaced all the internal wiring and used the proper sized spade connectors. I replaced the tweeters with factory-style replacements. And I learned on line that all that fiberglass insulation inside WAS original and the correct amount. But since I had already removed it, thrown it away, and replaced it with 1/2 polyfill, I bought more polyfill. Last, I replaced the torn and beat grill cloths. Interesting thing: They do sound great at home; solid low end, decent vocals and the highs are present. But installing them off-axis, high on shelves in such a large install bay really reduced the quality of the sound. Edit-after having a chance to listen to them in their permanent location as I pass through the shop, I'll say they sound a lot better than my initial impression, and tons better than the job box radio they were using. There's more of a fullness to the sound, clear vocals, and no boomy bass. With the speakers evenly spaced along the wall, the sound, there's no need to turn up the volume to hear music at the far end of the bay. Consequently, they don't play it as loud as if it were just a single speaker. It was a fun little project and the speakers were definitely worth the money and effort. I can't wait to have a chance to play the system for myself!

Yeah; I think you did a great job with the veneer. But the original has such patina! It spells "aged" and matches the vintage Victrola. Much more interesting to look at, like if only they could tell their story...

Ah, but they would need outlets to power them, no? Ain't no outlets anywhere near where these speakers are going!

I wound up buying a receiver and two speakers from a seller on craigslist who dabbles in audio equipment. Included in the package was a new Esinkin Bluetooth Adapter. I don't know how he was able to include it in the $200 price of the system I bought, but he did! I mounted the stereo on a wall shelf about 5ft. off the ground, then mounted the bluetooth adapter as high as I could on the wall, hiding the wiring in Panduit. I'll report back with a photo and a range report once the system is complete!

To answer mboxler's question above; the DC resistance of the tweeter measures 6.8 ohms although it's stamped 8 ohms which I presume is nominal. I've placed a 9V battery across the tweeter terminals (briefly!) and you can hear the "click" so I know it's working, and as in my post above, I can generate a tone (highest tone I can generate with my Lineman is 2804Hz) and it's audible to me, so I know it's working. I have NOT compared it to the woofer but from other woofer specs I've seen, these woofers likely roll off naturally just above 2kHz. I imagine I can perform the test and see if both the woofer and tweeter generate a similar level. Now it kinda makes sense to me. These tweeters are clearly not OEM as the OEM tweeters were a phenolic ring design. Midwest Speaker sells an exact replacement with a higher power handling and higher efficiency (which can be tempered by the speaker's tweeter control) so I'm tempted to replace the tweeters. And you're definitely persuading me to keep the 2 microfarad capacitor as it was OEM spec. My capacitor measurements indicate it's good and from what I've read polypropylene capacitors don't usually age like electrolytics so I should be good there. I'll report back when I get the replacement tweeters. Update: I generated test tones using my Lineman into the speaker terminal and yes; both the woofer and the tweeter reproduce the tones from 1004-2804Hz at roughly the same level using the "cardboard tube test tool ;-)". I ordered the replacement tweeters anyway. Down the rabbit hole I go... Stay tuned!

Update: I found a post in another forum along with photos that clearly showed the Avid 100 DID come from the factory stuffed to the gills with fiberglass insulation. Even though I've tossed the fiberglass and replaced it with polyfill albeit with 1/2 the volume and the woofer is NOT the factory woofer, I'm going to stuff each one back up to the full 16oz. of polyfill, because it's too late to recover the fiberglass! Thanks for the recommendations; I've only peered inside two speakers in my life; a Mission bookshelf speaker which I don't recall having ANY material inside, and my Heresies which only has that sheet of foam surrounding the woofer. Kinda confuses someone, know what I mean?!

It's a sealed cabinet.

Thanks for the replies so far. Remember; this speaker was clearly not factory stock; the woofers are from Radio Shack and the tweeters are something other than OEM. I found aftermarket crimp connectors inside. That's why I suspect the fiberglass was added "after the fact". Besides, I would imagine most manufacturers would NOT use house fiberglass insulation for damping material. I haven't looked inside many speakers but in the couple I have peered inside there was substantially less damping material. In fact, compare my Heresy IIs, which only have a foam sheet curled around the woofer section of the cabinet.

From the ad, "the passive radiators put out a lot of bass". Note the subwoofer in the background...

I measured the tweeter's DC resistance and it's in spec. The capacitor measures 1.9 microfarads so it should be good. I don't have an ESR meter to test with so I can't compare. The tweeter does have a level switch. It measures 0, 8, or 16 ohms depending on the switch position so I know it's functioning, you can see the wire wound resistors in the switch circuit, and I did clean the switch. I barely tell the difference in any position but the tone generator I used below shows different levels of load equivalent to +3 and -3dB from a nominal position. I did put my voltmeter across the input leads while driving the speaker and there's definitely voltage across the terminals and like I said, using the cardboard tube test I do hear audio. I'm wondering whether the the non-OEM tweeter has different characteristics such as lower output level. I did grab my test tone generator from work and applied test tones to the tweeter; the driver is definitely working.

I'm doing minor work on a used pair of Avid 100s I bought. Doing my research I found the factory crossover point is 2500Hz and elsewhere verified the factory capacitor value is 2 microfarads. While I was hearing output from the tweeter, it was only by performing the cardboard tube test (and it does not appear it's the factory tweeter although the resistance value is correct). I was suspicious something was amiss. Since there's only a simple capacitor in the crossover I used an on-line crossover calculator to confirm the capacitor value and here's what I found. Factory value: 2 microfarads What's in the speaker: 2 microfarads The on-line calculator results: 8 microfarads From the on-line calculator that 2 microfarads should yield a whopping 9.5kHz crossover! What's going on here? Maybe the factory tweeter has higher output? Why the discrepancy in capacitor value-a factory change to protect the tweeter from being over driven? I'm not going crazy on throwing money at these speakers but using this as an educational experience.

I bought a used pair of Avid 100 speakers, over 40 years old. While I'm not doing a restoration, I am opening them up and making minor repairs. Well, I opened them up and found they were positively STUFFED with fiberglass insulation. There was so much damping material you had to push the drivers down to set them against the motorboard. I looked up what the rule of thumb is for damping material and found it's 1-1.5 lbs./cu.ft. . I bought 2-8oz. packages of polyfill which would be about right for the speaker's internal volume and discovered trying to fit all of it into the cabinet yielded the same results as the fiberglass I found. Are my numbers right? I wound up only stuffing 1-8oz. polyfill bundle into the cabinet as from a practical standpoint that seemed more reasonable. Can I tell a sound difference?- not really, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

Thanks for the replies! I'm working on a solution and hope to post pics once installed as well as tell how the bluetooth is working.

Caveat Emptor, my friends. I'm getting together the parts for a stereo system for our shop where I work. Fact is, I'm a road tech so I'll get little chance to use it but I think it will be a great improvement over the bluetooth job box radios our shop personnel currently use. So I'm hunting for speakers on craigslist. I see a great ad from a guy with a huge selection of bookshelf and floorstanding speakers. We meet and he's the nicest person; we chatted for over an hour. I picked up a pair of Avid 100 speakers- 8" woofer, 3" tweeter, with a selector switch for tweeter level. Simulated woodgrain vinyl cabinets are beat as are the grills, but they're not for show and they'll be up and out of the way once installed. I remember the brand back in the '70s when I bought my first stereo. Seller even pointed out in advance one of the tweeter cones had a good 2" tear in one of the 3" tweeters. $60 for the pair; I can't go wrong and they demo just fine. I take them home and remove the damaged tweeter; I'm gonna ******* the tear with silicone caulk, hopefully from the rear. Removing the tweeter one of the spade connectors broke but that's no big deal to replace. But looking inside, I start to see "the rest of the story"-the tweeter is not original and there's A TON of fiberglass in the cabinet for fill. I mean there's no airspace for the fiberglass to do its job. So I decide I'm gonna remove it and replace it with the proper volume of polyfill. I remove the woofer to pull out the poly fill and I see the connections to the woofer are not OEM, AND the woofer is a Realistic model, not OEM. Can't wait to see what's inside the other Avid! By the way; while this speaker was well reviewed in its day, the only crossover component was a single capacitor to the tweeter-talk about high tech! Hey; for the price they're worth it and the speakers do sound good. I'm not upset at all. I also picked up from the seller an 80W/ch Yamaha R-V98 receiver, 100ft. new spool of 16ga. wire, a new bluetooth adapter, and 300-75 ohm balun, all for a paltry $200 as I expected to pay $400-500 for a system. I'm not disappointed at all, and I didn't feel the seller was being deceptive-he wasn't a detail oriented audiophile who might likely disclose all the speaker's faults, but it makes me think sometimes we as buyers have to pay more attention to what we're buying.

Currently our installers use their modern bro-boxes with Bluetooth in our install bay and play from their phones to the bro-box via Bluetooth. I'm thinking of installing a receiver and two speakers in the room. It's mostly for them but while I hardly spend time there for the times I do and the system isn't taken over by them, I want to listen to the radio. My concern is the Bluetooth range of whatever I install. The bay will fit a tractor-trailer so it's roughly 53' long. Their bro-box is at one end of the bay. I want to ensure any Bluetooth adapter I buy will cover the length of the bay. If I buy a receiver it will be shelf mounted in roughly the same location. The two speakers will be equally spaced along the length of the bay because that's the easiest install solution for them. I see two options: 1. Buy a used receiver and an aftermarket Bluetooth adapter. I've read these adapters can have considerable range, easily meeting or exceeding my requirements. 2. Yamaha sells a receiver with built-in Bluetooth. I don't know its Bluetooth range, and it certainly has more power than I'll need, but it's an all-in-one solution that may cost more than the used receiver and aftermarket adapter. Make a recommendation but recommend I buy it anywhere BUT AMAZON!

...plus hearing aids!

From the pics they look pretty presentable to me! I have veneered Heresy II's that were coming unglued. I used finishing nails to re-secure them, and hid the countersunk heads with a wax furniture pencil. Invisible results. The uneven finish, if that's what's bugging you, could be caused by uneven absorption of the stain. It might be too late to remove the existing stain, but MinWax makes a pre-stain which results in an even absorption. They claim it works best on soft woods but that may equally apply to thin veneers. I used the pre-stain on my solid pine doors and the result was perfect. You could practice on a cabinet bottom to see if the results are acceptable to you.

Here's what I suggest: Practice on the cabinet BOTTOM using a belt sander to see how well it removes the paint without damaging the veneer. Another option is to refinish the cabinets as you mention, but repaint only the top in black. Last idea would be to have some opaque glass tops cut and placed on top of the cabinet. Heck; you could even use self-stick pantry shelf liner material. The most extreme repair would be to remove the veneer from the top only and apply a new piece. Or better yet; position them upside down!

Your LaScala wasn't beat up; it had PATINA!

Make sure your A/V equipment is set to properly send a signal to the sub. And make sure the cable is plugged into the correct jack on the A/V. Lastly, try another cable. Also, your sub probably has an Off/Auto/On switch. Most people leave it in Auto and I presume you do too. So turn it to On and see what happens. According to the manual, the LED is on when the sub is on AND receiving a signal. So unplug the cable from the sub and see if the LED goes off. Sometimes it takes up to 10 minutes. That will at least confirm a signal is reaching the sub, and you could ignore my suggestions above.

Yeah, the easy thing to test has been suggested; borrow another receiver and see if the problem remains. I didn't think it was the receiver, however. To me it sounds like the woofers have come detached from the spiders, which control excursion. But do the easy test first.

Skip the upgrades; it's all snake oil.

If you get Heresy's you WILL want a sub. No need for two subs. Otherwise you'll be disappointed compared to your RF-35s. If you get Cornwalls you can get away without a sub, but you'll still need the sub for movies. You'll have plenty of room for either speaker assuming you'll be replacing the RF-35s. The Heritage speakers may not match your existing setup for timbre when watching movies. I personally would either keep what you have or get the Heresy's; the Cornwalls will look out of place in that small space.