Interesting little Onkyos

[mashaffer]

I ran across some interesting little speakers that I picked up at a garage sale for $1 (actually he was going to give them to me but they were raising money for their homeschool so I insisted on giving him a dollar).

The back panel says Onkyo HS-202 12cm woofer, 8cm tweeter, Max power 20W, rated power 8W, Imp. 16 ohms. Yep, 16 ohms. Interesting. The binding posts are big knurled knobs. Construction is vaneered plywood with a particle board back panel securely screwed into place.

The cabinets looked pretty nice and judging by the weight they were pretty well built. so I figured even if they sounded lousy I could reuse the boxes. The bass is not very extended and is a little muddy but maybe something can be done to help them out. So time to open them up.

The first thing I see is a second order crossover and a cabinet full of fiberglass stuffing. So not a cheap throw together. The crossover has 2uF on the tweeter and two 5uF in parallel across the woofer. I don't know the inductor values but one should be able to figure that out pretty easily.

So I removed the stuffing and what to my wondering eyes should appear but what looks like a pair of rather large Alnico magnets. The magnet on the woofer is at least twice the size of the magnet on the old Philco 8"er that I am using on my OBs. And they went to the trouble of bracing the little box with one brace from side to side right about half way up the side panels.

Hmmm... 16 ohm, AlNiCo... could these be from the late tube era, Or maybe early SS?

I am just recovering from a system crash (been offline for a few days) and haven't had the time/energy (flu) to finish my TL sub but when I do I think I am going to pull those drivers and take a shot a measuring the TS params. With that large magnet it may be that the driver would be happier with an appropriately sized port on the back. The front panel has no room for a vent.

The back of the tweeter is marked.
TW-807
10W 16ohm
Onkyo Japan

The back of the woofer is marked.
W-1201
8W 16ohm
Onkyo Japan

Anyone familiar with these little guys. Will post pics when I get the camera batteries charged.

mike

[Ang]

my 14 ohm 8" Alon alnico woofers are designed for tubes so your guess makes sense...not that this is anything concrete

[planet10]

eagerly awaiting pictures... Onyko actually made drivers, but a W prefix often indicates an Atomix OEM.

At any rate these deserve a better cabinet (i've burned literally 100s of this style of box)

dave

[mashaffer]

Well I took the pictures but the system crash seems to have screwed up my ability to download pictures. I downloaded and installed new epson drivers to no avail so maybe there is a problem with the USB drivers. The diagnostics indicate that the USB is OK but that nothing is connected even when the camera is connected and turned on. The only thing that I know that I did while I had the system apart is to remove the floppy drive and put in an extra hard drive for the system.

Oh well, I'll keep working on it.

mike

[planet10]

Originally posted by mashaffer
but the system crash seems to have screwed up my ability to download pictures. I downloaded and installed new epson drivers to no avail so maybe there is a problem with the USB drivers. The diagnostics indicate that the USB is OK but that nothing is connected even when the camera is connected and turned on. The only thing that I know that I did while I had the system apart is to remove the floppy drive and put in an extra hard drive for the system.

I'm sure glad i'm on a Mac....

dave

[sreten]

Originally posted by mashaffer


......The cabinets looked pretty nice and judging
by the weight they were pretty well built..........

.......And they went to the trouble of bracing the
little box with one brace from side to side right
about half way up the side panels...................

........to finish my TL sub but when I do..........

.......the driver would be happier with an
appropriately sized port on the back.......


mike

Originally posted by planet10


At any rate these deserve a better cabinet
(i've burned literally 100s of this style of box)

dave

Hi,

reflexing or new cabinets doesn't make sense with a sub involved.

/sreten.

[mashaffer]

Chnaces are that they will be used as a second set of speakers in a different room than the sub. They might however end up as surround speakers if I ever get a HT system going. I haven't sent them any test signals yet but just judging by a quick listening session I think that they probably have a bump slightly above 100Hz which it would be nice to tame.

It might be interesting to see how they would sound in a larger sealed box. But of course step one is to measure.

mike

(edit) Just had a thought. If after measuring it is determined that more volume is needed I could make some stands that bolt to the speakers with a passage inbetween so that the volume of the stand adds to that of the boxes.

[planet10]

Originally posted by sreten
reflexing or new cabinets doesn't make sense with a sub involved.

Trust me... it is easier to build a new box than fix the old one. I have also found that most of the drivers in these boxes are fairly high Q (whether they started out that way or whether they have aged i don't know) -- often over 1. A quick experiment is to have a listen with the back off.

Also, they (almost guaranteed) have the driver mounted from behind on the flexi-baffle which means a new baffle at a minimum is required...

dave

[mashaffer]

Thanks Dave. I did listen a little bit with tha back removed. The bass pretty much dissapeared. Will have to sort it all out when I can make some measurements.

mike

[planet10]

Partly based on your discovery, i picked up a set of onkyos yesterday...

This set has a 16 cm midbass with a whizzer cone. 5-spoke basket. Tweeter is a fairly skookum looking thimble tweeter.

dave