A Proper Reconing Job?

[antiquekid3]

Hey guys,

I recently bought some Klipsch Heresy speakers, along with a McIntosh MA 6100 (which now works!). One Heresy has a reconed woofer. The other has a bad K-77 tweeter. The other woofer (not reconed) is missing a dust cap, but it seems to work very well.

In fact, it seems to work much better than the reconed woofer! I can move the cone in at least a quarter of an inch in either direction with my hand. The reconed woofer, however, is very stiff and can barely move. I figured this would drastically decrease the low frequency response. With the woofers removed from the cabinets, I hooked them up to my frequency generator and set it to 10Hz. Sure enough, the original woofer was moving back and forth a good 3/4", whereas the reconed woofer was barely moving 1/8".

I felt the spider, and the reconed woofer's spider is very VERY stiff...the original is quite supple. The same can be said about the surround.

Is this just a bad recone job? It's been about 5 years according to the guy I bought them from. If speakers have a "wear-in" period, I think it would've definitely surpassed it by now. What do ya'll think?

Kyle

[nigelwright7557]

Could be the voice coil wasnt centered properly with shims and is rubbing.

[antiquekid3]

I definitely don't hear it rubbing. Everything about it just seems to stiff. Even if it wasn't centered, it still seems to boil down to a bad reconing job, right?

Kyle

[nigelwright7557]

If its sticking then the only place it can stick is around the voice coil.

Unless the suspensions are really stiff or have been glued badly.

[antiquekid3]

It doesn't seem to stick. It just doesn't want to move much. The spider and surround are too stiff from what I can tell.

Kyle

[nigelwright7557]

Originally Posted by antiquekid3

It doesn't seem to stick. It just doesn't want to move much. The spider and surround are too stiff from what I can tell.

Kyle

I suspect the only way to truly tell would be to strip the speaker down.
Remove the magnet assembly and see if it is still stiff.
There are usually a few screws holding the magnet on.

[speakerdoctor]

don't **** with the magnet or you'll be screwed worse than you are now. You got a bad recone job done by someone who didn't care about dublicating the originals. Stiff spider - that's your problem.

It's difficult to get proper recone kits for all vintage speakers unless you go right to the factory or an authorized factory rep. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of the after-market kit sellers.

[antiquekid3]

I mean, I can feel the spider: it's way too stiff in my opinion.

Who made the Klipsch K-22EF woofers? I doubt it was a Klipsch product (considering Electro-Voice made their tweeters), but I could be wrong.

I've emailed Klipsch Support to see if they still sell recone kits for the K-22s. Something tells me they don't. But it's worth a try!

Kyle

[benb]

Yeah, it sounds like the wrong/bad cone/spider was used in the recone. Since you've got a signal generator, here's another way to prove it to yourself. Put something like a 20 ohm resistor in series with the woofer and sweep it through the bass range with a low to moderate volume. The resonant frequency should be obvious, as it will be clearly louder with more cone movement than other frequencies. I'm betting in open air the reconed speaker resonates around 60Hz and the original, good one around 20-30 Hz.

Also, a different/wrong cone/voice coil is almost sure to affect sensitivity. Parallel them and put in about 200 to 500 Hz, and see which one is louder.

This really won't tell you anything you don't already know, but it gives you something to do while waiting for a proper cone.