restored a model 44 cathedral and all went well, however, the speaker cone is a mess; almost totally covered with glue and tape. Goes without saying that the sound is vey muffled with little highs. I looked into some of the speaker reconing services but none of their web sites gave any idea of price although one stated $45 an hour.
In your opinion, would I be better off trying to find a good original replacement (if they exist)? I have heard of using a PM speaker with the original speaker choke altho I have not seen it done. All replies greatly appreciated
You should contact Rich Stamer at Sound Remedy in New Jersey.
http://soundremedynj.com/
He does excellent work and does not charge by the hour. The last time I had an 8 inch (RCA) speaker reconed by him, I think the price was around $50, plus shipping.
Give Rich a holler
index (soundremedynj.com) It's $45+ the ride.
The main issue is the opt is setup for a 1 1/4 ohm voice coil. When you connect it to a modern 8 ohm spkr it makes the primary of the opt look like roughly 8 times as much. A 3.2 ohm spkr is a better match at only 3X to high. If you rip out the cone and vc and find a narrow 6" spkr you mount inside the original. The fact that you haven't seen one is good. It's suppose to be that way.
It's not unusual for dirty and dust to build up in the gap limiting the movement of the vc. This restricts the frequency response and along with warped or damage cone can turn a once good sounding spkr to bullhorn. Some of the older Philco spkrs have a screw in cone which is easy to remove and clean the the gap. The later ones not so much.
Good Luck
very helpful. Thank you!!
Of course, depending on how adventurous you are, and how good at such things, you might venture to re-cone the speaker yourself. I first did this when I restored a Philco 37-61, and have had to do several since.
https://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=22924
https://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=22691
I tried sending a speaker to a "pro", for an odd little nameless radio I worked on a couple of years ago, but instead of him using the original voice coil, which was perfectly OK, he replaced it with one of a different resistance, and the radio does not sound right. Ever since. I have just done my own. I buy my cones off eBay. You have to be vary careful about that to get just the right ones, diameter, depth, voice coil hole diameter, etc.
For the prices Rich charges (and he did many a speaker for me), unless I derived some sort of sadistic pleasure of learning the trade myself, I would not even move a finger to touch that speaker.
And he is a very decent fella, and does a top-notch job every single time.
I had to learn how to repair speaker cones some years ago simply because I had no source for replacements, and was told, at the time, that most reconing outfits had ripoff prices. If a speaker was to far gone to be repaired, usually with contact cement, or patches, I would use ones salvaged out of a junker radio, since most were 4'' ones anyhow. If they were warped I would cut photo negatives into strips and use them as shims between the voice coil and pole piece. This is why I wince at people using replacement cones with foam surround/hinges, that's usually the first part to rot away on more modern speakers, plus the clearance issues since they often stick out from above the rim on vintage speakers.
I have a six tube Emerson, the speaker was shot. Rich did such a nice job it was one of the best sounding AC/DC sets I own. I think he loves what he does. Paul