The "Penta White" project is well underway, one speaker almost finished. Finding a suitable cloth for Pentas wasn't easy and I ended up using satin matt white lycra, 120 deniers or so, which is a pretty good match to original frets, with the exception of colour, of course. Acoustically it's virtually transparent (free field response change was well within error marigin) and I'm quite happy with the results.

I've been thinking about doing the same kind of mod to some other speakers as well. Has anyone researched the subject, meaning that is there some kind of list of OEM-look speaker cloth types and/or sources? I'm mainly interested in best matches for Redline-series, C/CX and panel speakers (both vintage P-series and 80's 3000/4500/5000), but with some effort, this could be FAQ-material.

And, if someone knows what kind of glue to use to maintain the embossed text on RL frets, please let me know. Clear contact glue might work?

Hi,

Would love to see pictures of your 'Penta White" project.

Real speaker cloth is not that difficult to find, though the colours are quite limited. DIY speaker builders shops often carry it. (try online?)

I have also been looking for metal grills to use as frets (think beosound1 or 3), but so far haven't found anything suitable yet. 

I have recovered some RL speakers with new cloth a while back (Though I don't advise use of white fabric on those)  I did use a non-yellowing clear spray-on contact cement.  Be sure to take one that dries non-tacky quickly. Messy, but did the job.  
I did the 2 middle ridges (where the straps go) first than worked my way around the rest of the frame. Took me a couple of trials before I got it right though....  

Regards.

O.

I've tried a few "real" speaker cloths, but none of them have resembled B&O OEM frets. Patterned ones that can be found in shops that sell vintage PA eq't restoration accessories are usually far too coarse, DIY speaker shops' cloths are plain smooth and colour range is limited. There's plenty of choice on eBay but you never know what they really look like until you see them in person.

One of the speakers I'd like to re-fret are RL35:s, which have white frame. Changing the fret colour to white has crossed my mind, especially after seeing a pair of great-looking all-white RL6000:s. My whole house is extremely black & white, with some subtle accents of ash & walnut, so white speakers blend in very well. Call it an obsession if you will...

Here's a project picture of the Penta:

Hey Henri your penta's look amazing !!!

I am very impressed on how much these great speakers look updated !!!

Just  like you, I live in a very black&white kind a place with wood tones and I know exactly what you mean with obsession .....

That's it ....you convinced me... I am buying some penta's....... (only thing left is trying to convince the wife now......) 

Thanks! I like the modern, unique shape of Pentas and IMO white makes them really stand out (or, in my case, blend in.) A pair of polished CX 100:s with white frets would be a perfect match to them, as surround speakers, as well as a single ceiling-mounted center. Your pics of mirror-finish CX:s were truly amazing and now the all-white ones I have look bland in comparison.

Die-hard B&O purists may cringe, but modifying speakers to suit your taste can be really rewarding. Fortunately these speakers aren't that rare and mods aren't irreversible if you want to go resto some day.

Still... speaker cloth with OEM-style thickness and pattern is high on my wish list.

Henri:

Here's a project picture of the Penta:

Excellent! I also planned ages ago that if I ever re-cloth my Pentas, they will be white - and this picture confirms it

Too bad the original frets are still perfect

I love the white frets, so I am wondering how my cx's would look like with wite cloth frets... ....must try that one ....

My current surround setup is a AV7000 in the tv area with 5 cx's , though front ones in black and the surround ones in white. I love my polished ones so much that I am going to change the front black ones with the polished ones (the back ones are white and ceiling mounted and will stay as is, as I want them to be as less visible as possible). The polished ones were originally supposed to go into my study.....I guess I'll just have to do another pair then ......

I agree purists may cringe seeing the mods made to B&O speakers.(different colours, other colours of cloth, build-in amps, updated X-overs etc.) However non of my speakers are premium specimens, often not complete or rare to start with and by no means my intention to make a museum out of my place.... Every piece I have, I absolutely love and is in daily use. 

My next project is a Cona sub... to complement my cx's. I bought one on ebay and though it works satisfactory, the plastic casing is broken[:'(] so I'll have to think of something to fix that ....and   don't think crazy glue is the answer ....  I will have to put my thinking cap on and come up with something B&O- ish looking ... any suggetions ?

I will check if I can get some more of CX style cloth if you want ?  I don't know about Penta or RL cloth though... would need a sample ..

tournedos:

Too bad the original frets are still perfect

White for (the rest of) the winter - the original for the other half of the year ...

I also like these white Pentas - much more than the newer speakers in original B&O white. But a lot always depends on the interior etc. The more (sensible) colours to chose from the better, I guess.  

Interesting!

Henri, where did you get the cloth from? Can you point me in the direction of the supplier?

Thanks,

Steve

The cloth is from a local speciality warehouse that carries a huge selection of every type of garment imaginable. Lycra like this is commonly used it figure skaters' dresses, it's very flexible, transparency is relatively low and it comes in variety of colours. It's a bit like stockin material, only thicker. It just might work for RL as well, in plain matte instead of satin. I'll have to look into that if nothing else comes up.

Cooldude: thank's for the offer, I'd really appreciate CX-style cloth - white frets are somewhat hard to come by in eBay speakers and ones that are in decent shape fetch premium prices.

I've thought about finding a Cona, the worse shape the better. Changing the driver and modifying the bass reflex tube and x-over to match its specs could give it quite a bit more kick and having it sprayed in high-gloss piano black sounds like a plan. A more dramatic "SuperCona", possibly even with an Icepower amp... tempting.

Chances are Beoworld purist fraction lynch mob will be knocking on my door shortly...

Henri:

I've thought about finding a Cona, the worse shape the better. Changing the driver and modifying the bass reflex tube and x-over to match its specs could give it quite a bit more kick and having it sprayed in high-gloss piano black sounds like a plan. A more dramatic "SuperCona", possibly even with an Icepower amp... tempting.

Chances are Beoworld purist fraction lynch mob will be knocking on my door shortly...

Not quite from the purist point of view, but why do you need a Cona for that, if there's pretty much nothing left of it at end of the day?

A good point. The answer is, for nothing more than the casing, I'm in it for the looks. That's what "the worse shape the better" -clause was for, a basket case Cona would do nicely as there's no point in gutting an intact one.

most people buy from Radio Silks Limited in North London

http://www.radiosilks.co.uk/homepage.html

Radio Silks specialize in supplying loudspeaker grille cloth, the material is supplied in a pack containing 1.42 square meters of cloth, enough to cover the grilles of most domestic loudspeakers.

The cloth is specially produced for loudspeakers, it is acoustically transparent and is as currently used by a number of major hi-fi manufacturers. It is perfect for replacing damaged grilles, or if you just want to change the colour to match a new colour scheme.

Henri:

 

Cooldude: thank's for the offer, I'd really appreciate CX-style cloth - white frets are somewhat hard to come by in eBay speakers and ones that are in decent shape fetch premium prices.

 

 

When I recovered some CX100's, I brought a pack of cheap kids white Polo Shirts. It was quite amazing how close it was to the original. They only cost about £3, and I only used one shirt out the pack for all 6 panels. To glue them on, I used a glue gun. These seem to work very well for this job.

Craig

Thanks for the tips, ouverture and Craig. The OEM cloth on C(X):s actually does resemble polo shirt fabric.

Does anyone have experience of choosing the right cloth for RL:s? A speciality shop like Radio Silks probably has a wide selection and not knowing what, exactly, to look for may make the choice difficult.

There was a link somewhere to a website which detailed recovering a pair of Redlines.

Craig

I have some RL60.2 speakers in the bedroom, so I will take one of them to Radio Silks next week and ask them what comes closest to that for you Henri

My solution as Joanns Fabrics (cloth store chain here in the US).I found some fabric that looked very close to what was used on the RL60's. More or less a shear poly blend used for making athletic wear (jersy's). Paid $3 a yard and there was plenty of color selection.

It sounds like Craig and I found the same solution from his description.

In addition to speaker cloth they also had a large selection of heavy duty fabric ribbon in more colors than I can list.

They had some really nice irredescent white fabric I was thinking about recovering a set of my Redlines with along with some black ribbon.

Only just caught up with this thread - but those Pentas in white do look really excellent.  I may just buy another set of Pentas to recover!

It is a pity Radio Silks do not state the width and length as 1.42 sq metres could be a thin long rectangle through to a square (thinks - 1.42 is almost the square root of 2!) 

Brian 

Henri!!
I too am late catching this thread.
Your white Pentas are absolutely drop dead gorgeous!!

Andy T.

ouverture:

I have some RL60.2 speakers in the bedroom, so I will take one of them to Radio Silks next week and ask them what comes closest to that for you Henri

That would be absolutely fantastic. If you really would do that, I'd appreciate it very much - I used to take my old RL60:s with me to my summer cottage a couple of times a year so I have some first-hand experience that they're not the easiest speakers to haul around.

I just checked the RL35:s, drivers are fine (not prone to foam rot in the first place?), the white edges of the housing are slightly scratched so I'll probably mask & respray them and frets look even worse from the inside than they do on the outside. I've also sketched up prototypes of RL35 wall mounts, I'll have to weld together a prototype to see how it'll work; I really can't figure out why the most obvious candidate for wall mounting, ie. the smallest speaker of RL series, isn't wall-mountable by default.

Let's sum up this speaker cloth issue so far:

Penta: Generic, 100den+ matt satin Lycra

C/CX: Shear poly blend, Jersey / Polo shirt fabric

Redline: TBA...

P30/45/50: ???

3000/4500/5000 panels: Find a wino, mug him, get the well-worn gray shirt...

As a sidenote, replacement bands for RL-series are still a problem. Heavy duty packing band that was mentioned in another thread might work, the width on RL35/1000 is 5mm, the same as narrow "standard" metric band. I'd suppose the band on RL45/60/140 is close to other standard widths too. Finding a source that will supply anything less than a full 1000m roll of it can be difficult, though.

the width of the roll is  142cm  wide,  so they send you in the post a 1 metre cut from this roll,  so  142 x 100 =  1.42  sq metres

the pricing on the website includes VAT and postage and packing.

my Beovox Redline 60.2  measure about 55cm high x 45cm wide  - so I can easily cover 2 speakers with a 1 metre cut.

however, the bigger RL140's may need a few centimetres more, and if someone could get back to me the exact measurements of the RL140's, then I will speak to Frank at Radio Silks and see if he can do a special for owners of RL140's

As an aside, the fabric industry sells cloth mainly in 142cm and 183cm widths, and more increasingly fabrics sourced from Europe are coming in 100cm, 150cm and 200cm widths

the gunmetal grey that B&O use for the RL speakers is not an exact match that Radio Silks can offer, they have about four different greys, but if you email me your address Henri, I will send you in the post a sample of each colour, and you can see which one you like the most !

ouverture:

the gunmetal grey that B&O use for the RL speakers is not an exact match that Radio Silks can offer, they have about four different greys, but if you email me your address Henri, I will send you in the post a sample of each colour, and you can see which one you like the most !

Thanks!

On the other hand, in the case of these RL35:s, I'm rather leaning towards white - again. This means that all I really need is to know the type / model # of cloth that's closest to Redline original frets, besides the colour.

The wall mounts seem to work and they're pretty simple to make. A steel plate with three 6mm holes, corresponding to the holes in the back of the 35, so that they grip the inside edges of the housing. I'll probably weld two of the screws in place and use the third to tighten the mount in place. A regular M8 thread nut can be welded on the other side of the steel plate so it'll attach easily to the majority of camera mounts, swiveled wall mounts etc.

Henri:

The wall mounts seem to work and they're pretty simple to make. A steel plate with three 6mm holes, corresponding to the holes in the back of the 35, so that they grip the inside edges of the housing. I'll probably weld two of the screws in place and use the third to tighten the mount in place. A regular M8 thread nut can be welded on the other side of the steel plate so it'll attach easily to the majority of camera mounts, swiveled wall mounts etc.

See here for wall mounted RL35's

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=140308394343