I've had these speakers since new for 20 years. I decided to strip them right down to the bare cabinets when I found a dead tweeter. I thought this would be a good opportunity to upgrade crossover components, wiring, connectors, damping material and of course to have the tweeter repaired, since they are no longer available.
With the crossover, I'll would like to replace the woofer coils with air core. The crossover as quite a few electrolytics and frankly cheap film capacitors. I would like to replace them with polypropylene caps (Audio Grade).
I'm toying with the idea of replacing all 4 tweeters with today's drivers, but frankly don't know where to start. There are literally hundreds of choices and yes I do realize I would have to alter the tweeter crossover components. Since the M1's are bipolar, I don't know how a replacement tweeter would work in this setup if I manage to select the proper crossover components. I was also thinking about upgrading the midranges as well, but don't know if that would be taking it too far.
I've attached a crossover schematic for other M1 owners, this kinda of information is hard to come by. I've also posted a picture of the crossover as well.
Any input would be appreciated.
With the crossover, I'll would like to replace the woofer coils with air core. The crossover as quite a few electrolytics and frankly cheap film capacitors. I would like to replace them with polypropylene caps (Audio Grade).
I'm toying with the idea of replacing all 4 tweeters with today's drivers, but frankly don't know where to start. There are literally hundreds of choices and yes I do realize I would have to alter the tweeter crossover components. Since the M1's are bipolar, I don't know how a replacement tweeter would work in this setup if I manage to select the proper crossover components. I was also thinking about upgrading the midranges as well, but don't know if that would be taking it too far.
I've attached a crossover schematic for other M1 owners, this kinda of information is hard to come by. I've also posted a picture of the crossover as well.
Any input would be appreciated.
Attachments
I replaced all of mine. ALl 4. Three were blown. I bought an exact match from Lee Barron at Lab Acoustics in Canada. They work fine, and they don't push out the fabric the way the originals did with their metal protective bar. Next, I have to work on a crossover problem. Low midrange on one side. If anyone has had that problem, I'd like to hear about it. Possible a tired cap.
By the way, Lee Barron at Lab Acoustics, where I got my M-1 tweeter replacements, can be reached at
please do not post others email addresses
-Bob
please do not post others email addresses -Bob
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Hi Polar,
Can you tell me where are crossover boards location and how to take its out?
I just got M5 pair and want to inspect her crossover too but it seem I can't find out the way to get inside.
Many thanks!
Can you tell me where are crossover boards location and how to take its out?
I just got M5 pair and want to inspect her crossover too but it seem I can't find out the way to get inside.
Many thanks!
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Hi Pointed,
On the M1's the crossover is located on the bottom should be the same for the M5's. ie. you'll have to put the speaker on it's side and remove the pedestal. It's held on with 4 allen screws. Once you get that off, you'll have to remove an access panel, which I believe is held on with phillips screws. The crossover will be mounted on this panel.
On the M1's the crossover is located on the bottom should be the same for the M5's. ie. you'll have to put the speaker on it's side and remove the pedestal. It's held on with 4 allen screws. Once you get that off, you'll have to remove an access panel, which I believe is held on with phillips screws. The crossover will be mounted on this panel.
Hi Polar,
Thanks a lot for your advise. My M5 seem "produce" too much bass. I looking for her crossover schema and shall do some modification.
BR.
Thanks a lot for your advise. My M5 seem "produce" too much bass. I looking for her crossover schema and shall do some modification.
BR.
Bad news, I removed 4 screws and ... the bottom plate still there, seem it was fixed surounding by very strong bonding material. Any idea to get it out ? I don't want to break it 😀
You are not going to stop now, aren't you !
Without predrilling the plate, install a screw for wood
somewhere in the centre. Use pliers to pull it out.
Without predrilling the plate, install a screw for wood
somewhere in the centre. Use pliers to pull it out.
There are two holes at the center of the bott plate for connecting the main base. I tried to hook on it with original screws and pull out while knocking arround.
Sadlly, I can't see any smallest movement.
Sadlly, I can't see any smallest movement.
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crossover access
Hi, I just rebuilt my M3 Si's crossovers. They are accessed by taking out the woofer. the crossover is mounted on the side of the cabinet. get some shortie screwdrivers and you are good.
Hi, I just rebuilt my M3 Si's crossovers. They are accessed by taking out the woofer. the crossover is mounted on the side of the cabinet. get some shortie screwdrivers and you are good.
Dear forum members
i live in Germany and just yesterday bought a pair Mirage M1 speakers. They are in a optical Ok condition. After putting them up at my listening room i immediatelly recognized, that at least 2 of the 4 Tweeters (1Front & 1 Back) are defective, no sound at all. Don´t konw how goodthe other 2 are functioning.
I am now left with the problem to find 2, or better 4 replacement tweeters.
Understand that the tweeters are Ferro Fuoid 8 Ohm types, with this special Oval shape.
Also saw in some other posts that an older APi Tweeters might be a fit. Question is where to get 4 of such Api types ?
Have anyone M1 owner, fan replaced the M1 Tweeters and made some experiance with
with the APi tweeters ?. Does anyone have the original tweeter parameters, maybe i can use some other tweeter types, and do some modifications at the crossover network ?
Very much appreciate your feedback.
Best regards Ernest
i live in Germany and just yesterday bought a pair Mirage M1 speakers. They are in a optical Ok condition. After putting them up at my listening room i immediatelly recognized, that at least 2 of the 4 Tweeters (1Front & 1 Back) are defective, no sound at all. Don´t konw how goodthe other 2 are functioning.
I am now left with the problem to find 2, or better 4 replacement tweeters.
Understand that the tweeters are Ferro Fuoid 8 Ohm types, with this special Oval shape.
Also saw in some other posts that an older APi Tweeters might be a fit. Question is where to get 4 of such Api types ?
Have anyone M1 owner, fan replaced the M1 Tweeters and made some experiance with
with the APi tweeters ?. Does anyone have the original tweeter parameters, maybe i can use some other tweeter types, and do some modifications at the crossover network ?
Very much appreciate your feedback.
Best regards Ernest
Tweeter help for Mirage M1s
Hi there. Just saw your post about buying M1's with dead tweeters. This is common. It happened to me, too. I recently looked at another pair to purchase cheap ($400) and they, too had dead tweets. They are known for burning out once the liquid heat-conducting silicone (or whatever) around the voice coils dries up. I had to scout around and find replacement tweeters. But there is a guy who can rebuild them, or so he told me. He's in Canada. Google around and you will find my posts about this.
Bob
Hi there. Just saw your post about buying M1's with dead tweeters. This is common. It happened to me, too. I recently looked at another pair to purchase cheap ($400) and they, too had dead tweets. They are known for burning out once the liquid heat-conducting silicone (or whatever) around the voice coils dries up. I had to scout around and find replacement tweeters. But there is a guy who can rebuild them, or so he told me. He's in Canada. Google around and you will find my posts about this.
Bob
Can anybody point me toward a guide on how to disassemble the M1? One of mine has a blown woofer and I just cannot figure out how to take the fabric covers off. Any access from top or bottom has me worried about damaging the cabinet.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Congratulations. You have bought an amazing pair of speakers. Unfortunately you're going to have to do some searching for a driver.
Unlike some of the other models such as the M5, the M1 does not have a single sock that goes around the entire speaker. It is tricky to get the cloth covering off, but it's not too difficult. Obviously you pop off the side panels. Be careful because they scratch easily. I lean them up against the wall someplace where they won't get knocked over. Take off the top. Store those safely away, also. Notice at the top that there are four small strips of wood with Phillips head screws Holding them down. On my speakers, there are a total of 10 screws. Remove those screws and carefully place the wooden strips aside and put the screws in a cup or something to keep track of them.
Now things get interesting. You can see that the wooden strips were holding down the top of the grill cloth. You can lift the edge Of the fabric and disengage it from the groove where the black wooden strips were just sitting. The inventive thing that the cabinet designers did was to use a long, wooden dowel to anchor the grill cloth on the sides from top to bottom, On either side of the black wooden side pieces that you have removed.
So on my left speaker, the Mirage insignia is on the upper right-hand corner side right near the top. Well, more or less immediately behind the curve at the upper right-hand corner of the speaker, you can stick your finger down in there you'll find the very top of thin, wooden dowel. So, stick your finger into the area where the grille cloth comes all the way up to the top of the cabinet and find the top of the dowel. CAREFULLY begin to pry out the dowel, starting at the very top and slowly down the speaker. Repeat for the other side. Note that the sock is anchored on the bottom, too, in an indentical way to how it's done on the top of the speaker.
However, you don't have to flip over the speaker, and remove the little strips of wood unless you really want to fully remove the grille cloth. If all you need is to access the driver(s) for replacement, not x-over parts then just let the cloth/dowel combination hang there and navigate around it to remove drivers. I don't recall right now, but I seem to remember that the drivers were soldered to their leads, not just connected with push-on connectors. If you end up getting a soldering iron close to the fabric and fear the worst (a slip of your soldering iron which could instantly put an unwanted hole in the fabric), then you'll want to remove the cloth all the way down around the bottom of the speaker. It's your call. These suckers are heavy, as you know.
If you decide to remove the pedestal bottom for some reason (such as to get to the crossover), just remove all the shiny black parts (sides and top), get help flipping the speaker over or lay it down on its side, remove the four allen-wrench bolts that hold the pedestal on, and remove the little woody black strips that hold the material cloth anchors just as you did on the top of the speaker.
I hope that gets you started. Feel free to write here as a followup, and I should receive an email for the foum, alerting me to your questions.
In general I'll say these are among the best speakers I've ever heard. A refurb job is well worth your work. You're lucky if you have operational tweers. I'm not sure whether you can find a woofer replacement or not. But I would try Madisound. While I do they have no API tweeters that look like the ones I bought from Lee Barron.
Lee was selling the API tweeters designed for another API speaker, but after his M1's blew tweeters too, apparently he tried the newer tweeters (instead of cloth they are metal (titanium) with a cloth surround. I think that serves to tone down the metal sound that so many metal tweeters have had. (as an aside, I phoned him the other day and asked about those tweeters, because I am scouting for another pair of (cheap-o) M1's to fix up. Lee said he had sold all the stockpile he had had, which was a large number. Somehing like70 or so? Anyway, too bad.
If there are any hopeful M1 refurbishers out there, I've been working with Madison to try to find a decent replacement tweeter, but that is still in progress)
Oh, and by the way, once you are happy with the driver(s), you have to put the cloth back on. You basically reverse the process. Pull up the cloth, clampt it down with the strips, put the screws in, etc. Sounds easy, but it's not. I'm very dextrous but even I couldn't pull the cloth up high enough to pull out the wrinkles, etc. for a clean look. So, I resorted to staple gunning the fabric up at the top of the speaker under the black cap. I spaced the staples about 1" apart. If I ever have to get back behind the cloth again, I'll have to pull the staples out, but oh well. I did a good-looking job and the fabric is all very nice and tight.
Best of luck,
Bob
Unlike some of the other models such as the M5, the M1 does not have a single sock that goes around the entire speaker. It is tricky to get the cloth covering off, but it's not too difficult. Obviously you pop off the side panels. Be careful because they scratch easily. I lean them up against the wall someplace where they won't get knocked over. Take off the top. Store those safely away, also. Notice at the top that there are four small strips of wood with Phillips head screws Holding them down. On my speakers, there are a total of 10 screws. Remove those screws and carefully place the wooden strips aside and put the screws in a cup or something to keep track of them.
Now things get interesting. You can see that the wooden strips were holding down the top of the grill cloth. You can lift the edge Of the fabric and disengage it from the groove where the black wooden strips were just sitting. The inventive thing that the cabinet designers did was to use a long, wooden dowel to anchor the grill cloth on the sides from top to bottom, On either side of the black wooden side pieces that you have removed.
So on my left speaker, the Mirage insignia is on the upper right-hand corner side right near the top. Well, more or less immediately behind the curve at the upper right-hand corner of the speaker, you can stick your finger down in there you'll find the very top of thin, wooden dowel. So, stick your finger into the area where the grille cloth comes all the way up to the top of the cabinet and find the top of the dowel. CAREFULLY begin to pry out the dowel, starting at the very top and slowly down the speaker. Repeat for the other side. Note that the sock is anchored on the bottom, too, in an indentical way to how it's done on the top of the speaker.
However, you don't have to flip over the speaker, and remove the little strips of wood unless you really want to fully remove the grille cloth. If all you need is to access the driver(s) for replacement, not x-over parts then just let the cloth/dowel combination hang there and navigate around it to remove drivers. I don't recall right now, but I seem to remember that the drivers were soldered to their leads, not just connected with push-on connectors. If you end up getting a soldering iron close to the fabric and fear the worst (a slip of your soldering iron which could instantly put an unwanted hole in the fabric), then you'll want to remove the cloth all the way down around the bottom of the speaker. It's your call. These suckers are heavy, as you know.
If you decide to remove the pedestal bottom for some reason (such as to get to the crossover), just remove all the shiny black parts (sides and top), get help flipping the speaker over or lay it down on its side, remove the four allen-wrench bolts that hold the pedestal on, and remove the little woody black strips that hold the material cloth anchors just as you did on the top of the speaker.
I hope that gets you started. Feel free to write here as a followup, and I should receive an email for the foum, alerting me to your questions.
In general I'll say these are among the best speakers I've ever heard. A refurb job is well worth your work. You're lucky if you have operational tweers. I'm not sure whether you can find a woofer replacement or not. But I would try Madisound. While I do they have no API tweeters that look like the ones I bought from Lee Barron.
Lee was selling the API tweeters designed for another API speaker, but after his M1's blew tweeters too, apparently he tried the newer tweeters (instead of cloth they are metal (titanium) with a cloth surround. I think that serves to tone down the metal sound that so many metal tweeters have had. (as an aside, I phoned him the other day and asked about those tweeters, because I am scouting for another pair of (cheap-o) M1's to fix up. Lee said he had sold all the stockpile he had had, which was a large number. Somehing like70 or so? Anyway, too bad.
If there are any hopeful M1 refurbishers out there, I've been working with Madison to try to find a decent replacement tweeter, but that is still in progress)
Oh, and by the way, once you are happy with the driver(s), you have to put the cloth back on. You basically reverse the process. Pull up the cloth, clampt it down with the strips, put the screws in, etc. Sounds easy, but it's not. I'm very dextrous but even I couldn't pull the cloth up high enough to pull out the wrinkles, etc. for a clean look. So, I resorted to staple gunning the fabric up at the top of the speaker under the black cap. I spaced the staples about 1" apart. If I ever have to get back behind the cloth again, I'll have to pull the staples out, but oh well. I did a good-looking job and the fabric is all very nice and tight.
Best of luck,
Bob
Rob L, I just wrote up a long set of instructions. I'm having trouble seeing it here as posted, though. Now sure what is happening. Maybe it has something to do with my iPad. Or there is a delay when responding. Anyway, you can write me at [bob at cowart dot com].
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