Heresy 1 clean but needs refinishing

[HDBRbuilder]

On 5/28/2019 at 6:03 PM, DizRotus said:

 

May we see a photo?

 

IMO, those woofers began as white.  I do not believe they are sun faded formerly black woofers.  If they were, IMO, the liquid Leather Dye treatment (recommended to me by djk RIP) would have worked.  It restored my grey faded woofers to like new black.

 

  

Those are the stock woofers used in 1979 era, and they all had black cones...they have been exposed to direct sunlight for too many years is all that is wrong with them.  I probably built these....there should be an "A" stamped in on the left side panel rear edge about an inch or so down from the top...when looking at the rear of the speaker.  These have seen some severe cabinet abuse!

[ZINDA89]

11 hours ago, Peter P. said:

DING DING DING; we have a winner!

My thoughts exactly;  no reason to change a capacitor that's in spec.

 

A word to the wise about refinishing; if you try to strip the paint off veneer, any liquid stripper has the potential to loosen the veneer adhesive, then you've got a real problem. Try a dry method first such as a palm sander, on the bottom panel, so if it doesn't provide good results, you won't see it. 

 

 I would not even start stripping any paint off of old veneer, for what reason would you want to do this? What do you think the results are going to be? You'll never get clean untouched wood after it's been painted black! The veneer is too thin to even consided trying to save it. Paint soaks into the grain of the wood and will fill every single hole and sanding it off of a 1/16” thick surface is not going to leave you any veneer. On top of it all, as stated, if solvents are used they will simply loosen the glue and the veneer will peel off.

Bottom line is, the cost of trying to save what is probably a bad veneer is going to take forever and cost more than simply peeling it off and redoing it right. Plus it will look 100 times better than you'll be able to get that old bad veneer to look no matter how much time and money you spend.

 Or you can sand it down to where the veneer is perfectly flat again, it might even need to sand right through it in spots just to get it all one height, then seal it prime it wet sand, prime again, check for flaws, then 20 or more coats of lacquer, wait a week then sand it to a mirror finish, start at 220 grit, then wetsand with 500, then 1000, then 2000, wait 2 days, then if no flaws appear, shoot 30 coats of clear gloss acrylic lacquer top coat, wait a week, wet sand with, 500, 1000, 2000 and then 3000. Wait 2 days look for flaws, find flaws, strip the entire thing and start over but this time grind all seams and edges away about 3/8" deep using a hard wheel on a grinder. Then rebuilt all seams corners and edges using crazy glue and baking soda, this seals everything and provides a durable tough as nails edge that will last forever. Grind it all flush with the wood and redo all prior steps that you just learned. After a few months of daily work (work on 1 cabinet, then leave it sit and do the other) and $300 to $500 you should end up with something that looks like this.

[ZINDA89]

12 hours ago, Pats3of4 said:

 

 

As a former electronics engineer, old caps will degrade over time-sometimes instantly.  I like to know they have another 30-50 years.  Components (caps, resisters, diodes, transistors, etc) are made better than they were 30-50 years ago.  

 

 

 

 

I can't totally agree that things are made better now than they were 30 years ago simply because anything that was built between 2000 and 2005 was doomed for failure due to the millions of improperly made capacitors that were used in just about everything. I've seen my share of good caps go bad in modern electronics even Panasonic and Elna brands almost daily I'm tearing something apart that's dated 2000 to 2013 with failed caps, but I have a stack of maybe 10 or more receivers from the 70s and 80s that I use daily and none of them have any bad caps in them. Infact I'll bet I could go to a Goodwill and buy 10 electronics devices dated after 2000 and make sure they all power up, take them apart and I'll see at least 3 with bad caps, and that's not including any monitors. If I picked out only monitors, half or more will have bad caps. I have a crt tv that I bought new in 1983, it still works, I tore apart a bunch of crt monitors that all worked back in 2010, bought a bunch of LCD and led monitors to replace them and over half of them had bad caps! I just tore open a power supply yesterday and all of the caps that were marked "low esr" were bad and no others had issues, I'm going to look for that board and post a picture of it. I had to laugh when I saw the low esr caps mentioned just hours after I saw those. Those are also the culprits that go bad in monitors, i replace them with regular caps and they have outlived the originals by 3 or 4 years now without any failures, those replacements were torn out of old vcrs and crt monitors and tvs from the early 80s to mid 90s they already were in use longer than the caps that they replaced and still work!

There was mention of believing others that know more about things so they are to be believed based on that fact, let me ask 1 thing, do they have a vested interest in capacitor sales or parts? Because there is such a thing as a sales man, I'm not sure if you ever heard about these guys but they study up on the things they need to say to convince you to buy crap you don't really need and make it sound quite convincing since they are going to be making money from your purchase they have no interest in telling you anything other than their benefits even if they are marginal or even questionable. Because that's what they have to do to make money, they can be very convincing and even make you feel that you are completely wrong if you don't buy into what theyre telling you. That's what makes a great salesman, making you believe they're right and make you willing to argue their point even when it's been proven that what they are saying is simply opinions and when actual tests are conducted using different higher quality caps, in a controlled environment double blind tests show that people cannot hear the difference, it's nearly a guessing game at that point and the numbers cannot even be repeated. There's a sound engineer who heard of this craze when it started a few years back he has a web page and that tells how he wanted to test different caps that were labeled as superior sounding to others. So he built 4 identical crossover networks using different caps and mounted them outside of the cabinets. He then connected them through a ultra fast relay that can switch crossovers so quickly there is no lag in sound, meaning when they are changed there is no delay, it should just sound different when switched. The idea was to have people listen and tell when they heard the difference and which ones sounded the best. He had a stage and a remote to switch the relays all set up and was ready to test it out. He turns on the music gets into position and clicks the button and clicks the button and clicks the button? He figures the relays are not powered up because he didn't hear any differnce but when he walks closer to the speakers he can see the relays are working just fine! End of testing.

Edited September 24, 2019 by ZINDA89

[glens]

3 hours ago, Dave A said:

Well figuring that any additional resistance changes what you hear and ESR is resistance keep it low if possible.

 

Stands to reason.  Unless maybe the speaker system was voiced using specific capacitors based on unit cost not performance.  Along with whatever resistance and/or transformation beyond the starting ESR for level matching.

 

One could replace them with caps which have such negligible ESR that they're suitable for any and every use imaginable.  The speakers would probably sound different.  Possibly need re-voicing.

[Dave A]

2 hours ago, glens said:

Stands to reason.  Unless maybe the speaker system was voiced using specific capacitors based on unit cost not performance.  Along with whatever resistance and/or transformation beyond the starting ESR for level matching.

And there it is in a nutshell, what were the original design specs and were they dovetailed around PWK's famed military surplus capacitor buys or cheapest vendor costs. I have not found anything that specifically addresses this and if I remember to ask this at Boneheads class perhaps we will get an answer.

 

 

[glens]

And perhaps you'll merely get acknowledgement that the question was asked, if that.

[ZINDA89]

On 9/24/2019 at 6:11 AM, glens said:

 

Wouldn't it be nice to have a specification for design ESR as well as Farad?  A lot of meters get the Farad part close enough, takes something a bit more involved to check the other value.

I have an esr meter on the way, from what I've read they tend to be the best meters available now based on a kit but now China has picked up the production on them and is selling them in Mass quantities at very low cost. They used to be around $40 for the kit, now they sell for $8 without cases and up, most expensive ones are around $80 but they don't really do anything extra over the $8 models except have a nice case, a lipo battery and loop connector leads to do in circuit testing oh I forgot they also id components, and some have IR sensors readers for audrino and other remote programming. They can decide the signals so users know what the remotes are actually emitting per key press. These meters are really pretty slick and they have been praised by most all the who buy them. Some have input headers onboard to update firmware. Some will only ready caps up to 1000mf while others go up to 100kmf but take a while to display results. Some have color screens others are green and yellow, some come with cases and leads others are still in kit form. Hundreds of sellers on Amazon and hundreds maybe thousands on eBay. I should have mine in a week, I can finally find out what transistors I have when I bought a bag full of brand new in packages (maybe 100 or more pieces) from an old car stereo shop closing sale on eBay about 10 years ago. They say "ERS 153" (Exact Replacement Semiconductors) but I can't find any data sheets. I'm hoping they're substitutes for the old MTX and RF car amps that used the "Buzz" transistors. They're supposedly from the early to mid 90s, that's what the other items were dated in the lot I bought. Locking pull out plate by Craig, FM stereo tuner that plugs into an 8 track tape slot, various din cords, etc.. the meter should tell me what it is and give a bias voltage and tell pins at minimum it just depends on what it has on file for this piece. Some items have nearly full data sheet info available.

[Dave A]

5 minutes ago, ZINDA89 said:

I have an esr meter on the way, from what I've read they tend to be the best meters available now based on a kit but now China has picked up the production on them and is selling them in Mass quantities at very low cost. They used to be around $40 for the kit, now they sell for $8 without cases and up, most expensive ones are around $80 but they don't really do anything extra over the $8 models except have a nice case, a lipo battery and loop connector leads to do in circuit testing oh I forgot they also id components, and some have IR sensors readers for audrino and other remote programming. They can decide the signals so users know what the remotes are actually emitting per key press. These meters are really pretty slick and they have been praised by most all the who buy them. Some have input headers onboard to update firmware. Some will only ready caps up to 1000mf while others go up to 100kmf but take a while to display results. Some have color screens others are green and yellow, some come with cases and leads others are still in kit form. Hundreds of sellers on Amazon and hundreds maybe thousands on eBay. I should have mine in a week, I can finally find out what transistors I have when I bought a bag full of brand new in packages (maybe 100 or more pieces) from an old car stereo shop closing sale on eBay about 10 years ago. They say "ERS 153" (Exact Replacement Semiconductors) but I can't find any data sheets. I'm hoping they're substitutes for the old MTX and RF car amps that used the "Buzz" transistors. They're supposedly from the early to mid 90s, that's what the other items were dated in the lot I bought. Locking pull out plate by Craig, FM stereo tuner that plugs into an 8 track tape slot, various din cords, etc.. the meter should tell me what it is and give a bias voltage and tell pins at minimum it just depends on what it has on file for this piece. Some items have nearly full data sheet info available.

I have no idea if those are any good or not. Find someone with a known good meter to check against before trusting it would be my suggestion. I bought a used B&K 885 off ebay and it was still a bit over $400. Some of the Chinese stuff is good and it ought to be since they stole the IP from us and more than likely made it on our equipment on the extra production runs they neglected to tell their valued customers about.

[ZINDA89]

On 9/24/2019 at 7:48 AM, Fido said:

My favorite thing about online communities is the judgements people make about how people spend their $$$$$ - LMAO - I just wanted a fun project since I am retired and love to try things I have never done before. The project started out as an excuse to learn how to veneer a set of speakers. After people suggested the woofers would look much better if I used shoe polish  on them I had no choice but to replace the woofers as the polish disintegrated the one I tried the polish on. I had no desire to build my own custom designed speakers and I am quite happy with the final results of this project. I do not think I wasted $$$ installing the new crossovers even if it wasn't required because the speakers now look great and sound great. They are still Klipsch Heresy speakers - I have less then $700 into them and they are exactly the way I want them.

 

To  clarify what I was saying, since you ended up changing out just about everything except the squaker you could have just not bought those speakers for the original $450, but instead bought a sheet of good 10 ply plywood that already had the veneer on it and could have had Lowe's or home Depot cut it for you right away. Then your project could have been altered to fit the speakers you were buying, also your project would have taken a bit longer as you were saying it was moving too fast. Well assembly of the cabinets would have also enabled you to insert bracing and do a bit of research into making those cabinets. I'm not bashing you in any way, I think your speakers turned out very nice. I'm looking at this from the point of view that after it was all said and done you really only have a Klipsch cabinet with 1 true Klipsch speaker in it , Am I wrong? When I started my heresy project my main goal was to make sure I didn't change a thing as far as shape, and mechanics, no new cabinets, no new drivers, reuse every single screw, just make over the very abused cabinets and make them into something that very few if any others have but make sure to keep the the speakers a true Klipsch Heresy but not anything that Klipsch would ever attempt to do. And I'm not saying paint them psychedelic or use product names or pictures, but keep them very classy and enhance their value well beyond their actual worth. But make them appealing and fit into decor no matter what type.

 So I had a plan, see that's the difference, you also had a plan, obviously you knew that they needed some work and you wanted to try your hand at veneer. That's great, you did a fantastic job, as good or better than most who have tried it or have been doing it. To me that's kind of like going to Baskin Robbins and getting vanilla (vanilla is my favorite flavor of any food out there, I will always order anything vanilla, but I will look for the strangest vanilla flavored thing can get before I settle on the generic one), so if I were to veneer a set of these fine speakers I would be hunting for some very unusual grained veneer and consulting experts in the field if need be to find out what to stay away from and why. Then I would contact people who (in this case I would have been on the guitar restoration forums picking their minds on what would really be the ****, what's going to make a statement?) are in the know about working with different woods and stains and colors that can make wood look like nothing you've ever seen before. Techniques that are basically unknown to us speaker geeks. Those guys can provide so much information just by spending a week or 2 reading old forum posts. The old ones are best because they are complete projects that others have chronicled. Their mistakes, their triumphs, their heart breaks, costs, panic and then the alation, the final product done perfect, like nobody else's. Shown in pictures on display for the world to see. The weeks of time, the hours spent searching for the right materials. The lessons learned on the way. It's all right there. 

 I found my way there as I started my project and realized that there was quite a few things that can and will go wrong when dealing with paint. Even if you've painted a bunch of stuff in your life. Plastic Models, Die Cast cars that sold for $100 due to your restoration, wood chairs, Wood tables, metal cars, your own car, maybe somebody else's car, projects at work that were huge. But when it comes to painting a speaker or doing anything with a speaker cabinet you find out that many things can and will go wrong. Each and every time I had to start over was another $100! After 3 times you will want to know why things happen and how to avoid them. But there is no set plan, each project brings its own new set of issues. Mine was 30 year old wood that had water damage with splits in the veneer and  cupping on all 4 sides. I knew that before I started, nobody deals with these obstacles, they simply trash it and make a new cabinet, simple, done, just saved 2 months work and $300 by making a new cabinet. So there wasn't anyone to tell me how to work with what I had. But there are people who work with old wood and make them into pieces of art every day. 

 That's when I thought about guitar restoration, that's how I was able to get started and I had to add my own ideas to apply it to wood that isn't a solid piece, I had seAms and corners and I didn't have a solid piece of wood but rather several joined pieces of MDF to work with. So many things just don't apply. That's where you have to set yourself apart from conventional thinking, knowing that you won't be able to get the answers you need to complete your dream is frustrating and can be costly too. But someone has to be the one to do it first no mater what, if you want to create something that will thrill people when you unveil it you have to power through the disappointments, you can't just give up, you cannot compromise on your dream. 

 When you have a dream and you combine a bunch of hard work long days and many of them with  bunch of money and hope you can achieve some fantastic results. Knowing that your creation is like no other even though you took a very common place item and did nothing accept to change its exterior finish but what you have done is so sublime, so perfect, so satisfying that the look and feel have to be experienced to be appreciated. Mere pictures can only convey the visual beauty so far, the seeing up close and touching it finalizes the senses, it provides a reality to what you just spent 2 months of 10 hour or longer days working on. Putting everything else on hold in your life, that's the satisfaction I'm talking about, not I wanted to try something and it cost $xxxx. The cost is only there because nothing gets done for free, it's not even that the materials were expensive or rare, it's because that's what's it takes to get the job done right, no compromise. I would never simply paint a speaker cabinet without thinking I was making it a one of a kind, the kind of one that people see and they react, mostly in disbelief or shock in the beauty. The more simplistic things are the more the beauty can be seen. That's why my project ended up looking like this, absolutely unchanged every single last screw was used every piece of wire, crossover components etc. I planned on spending around $200 to $300 to achieve my goal and maybe 2 weeks time. 8 hours max each day, that quickly changed, I adapted and stayed focused. This is what I ended up with.

[ZINDA89]

1 hour ago, Dave A said:

I have no idea if those are any good or not. Find someone with a known good meter to check against before trusting it would be my suggestion. I bought a used B&K 885 off ebay and it was still a bit over $400. Some of the Chinese stuff is good and it ought to be since they stole the IP from us and more than likely made it on our equipment on the extra production runs they neglected to tell their valued customers about.

 Yes they did, but they do that with everything now a days! That's just a fact of life that we can't change, it's buy or blow em up! We have to make that choice every day.

From what I've read they seem to be pretty accurate but it might be hit or miss.

Edited October 10, 2019 by ZINDA89
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