Zenith console speaker wiring/removal

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Hello, I am new to this so forgive me if my inquiry is vague or unclear. I will try to be as specific as possible. I have a Zenith Cabinet stereo from the 1960's. I was thinking of building new speaker boxes and removing the speaker components from the old cabinet to place in 2 newly build boxes.
1. Is this possible?
2. How can I get information on the wiring system? I would want the speaker wiring to be the normal way to input into a 1970's pioneer receiver. I removed the back panel of the entire cabinet to view the wiring. The wires from each side go into another "thing" sorry don't know what it is, then go into the built in receiver.

My cabinet is a Zenith model X940W (The Kirsten)

Please let me know what can be done here and let me know if you have questions. Thank you very much.
 

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Hello,
I can not help you because I don't know the stereo console. But first I would try to understand if
The loudspeakets impedance.
The loudspeakers drivers are fullrange (meaning there's no crossovers). Probably they are already in a optimal enclosure for them, if you are building new ones (external).
 
The designer probably already put the speakers in an enclosure and engineered the crossover network to go with everything to begin with.

If it were me, and I am not nearly as skilled with audio engineering as 90 percent of the people here, but I would take volume calculations of the current speaker boxes, mimic them in the boxes you are making. Take detailed pictures of all the wiring and components, and carefully simply move them and replace the wiring, wiring everything up exactly as it was (just the crossover networks in the new speaker boxes instead. If the wiring is all in good condition, I would just take everything out and reuse it copying the volume requirements of the original enclosures for the speakers themselves. Point being someone already engineered the crossover network and volume requirements for the components, no need to come up with anything new 🙂 . Just shift containers.
 
Sounds good to me however I want them to be individual speakers with typical input into a normal receiver from the 70s. The crossovers are away from the speakers and located centrally in the cabinet. Do I need to put a crossover in each new speaker? How can it be wired to be a typical speaker connection to a normal receiver?
 
There is just a lot more information needed I believe to answer your questions.

You have crossovers because from what I can tell for the model there is a woofer, midrange, and tweeter on each side of the cabinet. Which means you need 3 way crossovers, this cabinet was near 500 dollars when it was purchased which is close to about 3500 dollars today. It is a beautiful piece of history and furniture, are you sure you want to tear it apart? Have you thought about repairing it, in it's current state?

You should have a turntable and amp in the cabinet too, but if you really wanted to just reuse the speakers in separate cabinets, more pictures would be needed, or an owners manual or something of the sort. There might already be 2 3 way crossovers if it is a stereo amp, or possibly just one.

Pictures are your friend, of the amp, the back of the amp, the speakers on each side of the cabinet, and all of the wiring and crossovers.
 
There may be some confusion here. I am reading that Johnny wants to remove the drivers, leave the console as is, build new speaker boxes with new components including a new crossover and place them in the console so the new speaker boxes radiate the sound through the existing speaker cut outs in the console? Is this correct Johnny?
 
It's not correct. Console wood and tunner will not be utilized. I want to remove the woofers, horns, midrange and tweeters (4 items on each side of the console) and from that, build completely separate boxes to be 2 individual speakers which can be used for any receiver.
1. Is this possible
2. How can it be done (the wiring part)

Again, I will not be using the primal cabinet receiver/tuner and the cabinet/console will not be used. I just want to make 2 individual speakers in their own speaker boxes.

Thanks.
 
Dbhokie, I can send more pictures but it seems that I can only do this when starting a new thread. Is there a way to attach more pictures to this thread? If so, please let me know.
The speakers are 4 components (woofer, midrange, tweeter and horn)
 
Hi,

Its possible. You need to trace the wiring and the internal x/o,
and replicate in the new boxes. Replace old caps in the x/o.

rgds, sreten.

Most likely there will not be much to the crossovers.
 
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No problem Cal! I'm just a layman vinyl listener and thought the quality of these speakers are too nice to throw away. I was thinking of making boxes the same dimensions of the current spaces inside the console. I have individual units for turntble (Philips 312 from mid-late 70's) and receiver (Pioneer 950x from 1978ish). I just want to inquire if the speaker components (woofer, horn, midrange, tweeter) can be placed in their own new boxes (of which I can construct) and be used which a normal receiver. The main questions are the wiring and what I've learned of these crossover things.
 
Johnny, Sreten's told you how to do it,
but there's some prerequisite knowledge you need:
1: Safety - there are probably dangerous voltages inside that machine, even with it turned off;
2: Some idea of what simple electronic components do, in this case capacitors ('caps' - oh yeah, you have to learn a new language too...🙂, and how they are used in a crossover ('x/o')
3: How they are represented in a schematic (i.e. how they are connected together)
some light reading (ignore the math): Electrocution
Beginners' Guide to Electronics, Part 1 - Basic Components Explained
Passive Crossover Network Design
 
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Dbhokie, I can send more pictures but it seems that I can only do this when starting a new thread. Is there a way to attach more pictures to this thread? If so, please let me know.
The speakers are 4 components (woofer, midrange, tweeter and horn)

You can post pics here.
You can eliminate the horn and buy a couple of modern tweeters.
They'll be mounted on vertical axys, as the other drivers.
 
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