The Workbench

Re: Good used RL60 woofers and tweeters now available.

mfishmike — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:13:23 GMT

Many folks have come to me for help to convert their Redlines using my redesign and replacment of the failed ABRs. I have been asked to sell them woofers and tweeters because some have burnt crossovers and have been overdriven.

I've sold several drivers now. I have been buying speakers that look like they have been taken care of and remove the drivers and test them. If they aren't in good shape or look bad, I throw them away. I am in the states and am selling them for $70.00 each plus shipping. Tweeters and woofers are the same price.

My last sale was to a fellow that had the 60.2 and his drivers were exactly the same as the drivers I removed from a pair of RL60s.

I'm now selling other new subwoofers and the newly designed Audience A3 3" full range drivers.

Mike www.SpeakerHobby.com

Re: Yet Another RL60 conversion ...

mfishmike — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:50:44 GMT

Since I've posted my redesign of the Redline 60s last year, several people in several countries have used my design and modification and have been very pleased with their results. Below is an email I just received from another Redline owner that used my passive radiator modification and he is experiencing lower and tighter bass now. He only used the design in is Redline 60; not his 60.2.

Cut & Pasted:

[Quote] Mike,

Both sets of speakers are rebuilt and back up and running. They sound fantastic. Although their looks are identical and the drivers are the same the difference in bass reflex designs and two very differently designed crossovers makes the speakers sound completely different from one another.

The 60's with the radiators really deliver the bass better than the 60.2. The 60.2's on the other hand deliver a little better at the higher end.

Either way I am happy and getting the speakers off the floor in my living room just adds the extra touch. The other set which I will use in my other living room I plan to hang from the ceiling.

I have picture of all the work and will set up a Picassa Photo page since I already have an account there in a day or so and send you the link.

Thank You so much again for all your help. As it turns out several new threads have popped up on Beoworld regarding the RL60's and ABR foam rot and general rebuilds. Cooldude and myself both plugged your passive radiator design. [End Quote]

When I posted my design, my results could sound biased. When you read the results from someone else that has also duplicated my design, that affords some credibility. I hope that this can help others with their Redline 60s. I have full pictorial and text instructions on my website to help you.

Thanks guys,

Mike

Re: Yet Another RL60 conversion ...

mfishmike — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:10:32 GMT

Oliver,

Visit my website and see how I modified mine using passive radiators. They are awesome and look beautiful in my HT living room.

Not too difficult to build either.

Mike

www.SpeakerHobby.com

Re: My New RL 60s are now installed, look fantastic, and sound even better!

mfishmike — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:29:51 GMT

Hey guys,

I spent 8 hours Saturday night and have them installed in my home theater. They are beautiful, especially with my red pinstriping instead of the clear plastic bands. The red matches the red around the housing. The install photos are now posted on my website towards the end of the page of my "Bang and Olufsen Modification" link.

A couple of folks have now followed suit and are modifying theirs like I did mine. I'm helping them with the dismanteling of them and the sourcing for the passive radiators.

These speaker sound so fantastic as side surrounds! I'm glad I was persistant with trying to figure out how to mount them.

MIke

Re: My New RL 60s won't fit my home theater....

mfishmike — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:54:47 GMT

Hi Puncher,

After all of this work, today was my scheduled install date for the addition of my old/new RL60's in my home theater as the surrounds. I've spent hours on the ladder today and with the double crown moulding on my ceiling and my laminated support beam separating the kitchen from the living room, they won't fit.

I'm going to have to garage sale them in my forum. I'm sure disappointed.

Well I've at least come up with a fix for them to share with everyone and the lucky new owner will have an awesome pair of RL60's and perhaps an extra pair for spare drivers.....

It's been fun chatting with your guys in this forum and perhaps as Diana Krall sings, "We'll just do it again".

You fellows take care,

Mike

Re: I found a company that could fix them.......the "Nobody Company"

mfishmike — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:38:26 GMT

Hey Puncher,

I called my Speaker Surgeon again, and they said they would replace the ABR rubber if "I" could come up with the replacement parts, in other words, if I would do all of the R & D to have a product that would be similar in compliance with the original ABRs, which is what HI-FI and that other fellow in Demark are already doing. They certainly aren't going to tell me what product they are using that would be a foolish business practice. They weren't willing to go out on the limb to help grow their business unless they could profit at learning.

They changed their tune a bit from a few days ago. I told them I was prepared to bring them a speaker and the ABR already opened up to see if they wanted to tackle the job so they could get referrals from my site, my contacts, and the B & O forums.

They said if I would pay them to do the R & D and repair my other pair, they would attempt it. I reminded them I already had created a very good modification and had the extra pair of RL 60's for spare parts and had no intentions of spending any extra money. I'm already doing a lot of work trying to help spread the news about my very acceptable modification and was only trying to help them get a reputation and more business to be able to rebuild them as well as helping the members of this forum.

I took it a step further. I contacted the Houston Galleria Bang and Olufsen dealer and asked who their warranty and service center is. He said they send their products to Austin Texas to Pyramid Audio. I called Pyramid and got a very unfriendly person who didn't want his time wasted and said if I can't provide the part for him because they aren't available either to him, so he can't fix them. He referred me to Austin Speaker Service. For the third time I got the same answer.....You supply me the surround part and we can fix them.

I don't think there is a person in these forums that couldn't glue and trim a piece of rubber to a pair of plates if we knew which product to use.

So, across the large pond from you I come up empty handed except for my modification that I am so happy with.

You asked me to let ya know what I found out; and now you know......

Mike

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

mfishmike — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:47:35 GMT

Thanks for the compliments on my site. I figured after ten years of speaker building projects for myself, it was about time to give back some of my free time to webmaster and host a free site to help others with my links, resources, suppliers & limited knowledge.

I enjoy helping others, and without the forums and other people "helping me out" while I was building and learning, I couldn't have the wonderful system I have the privelidge of owning now! I've met a lot of unselfish people who have been very helpful to me.

Let's cool it with the praises to Puncher......he is on his third order of hats, and they seem to be getting smaller by the post.....

Bit of a dark horse, you Puncher!
Mike, love your web site, keep it up[;)

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

Puncher — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:20:21 GMT

Jandyt:
Puncher:

Hi Mike,
The voltage rating od the parts should not affect their performance, although the 63V parts in the RL60's are marginal (~ 40Vac rating with the Amp of the BM5000 having 40V rails). The replacements were 100V rated devices.
An aged electroytic will shows itself first by an increasing disapation factor (tan d) which is related to it's ESR. As you can see from the measurements on the individual parts the old ones are as good as the new.
No - it would just seem that these parts survived 24 years and still within original specification - remarkable!
Bit of a dark horse, you Puncher!

Oh, I'm not just witty and handsome you know!

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

Jandyt — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:18:29 GMT

Puncher:

Hi Mike,
The voltage rating od the parts should not affect their performance, although the 63V parts in the RL60's are marginal (~ 40Vac rating with the Amp of the BM5000 having 40V rails). The replacements were 100V rated devices.
An aged electroytic will shows itself first by an increasing disapation factor (tan d) which is related to it's ESR. As you can see from the measurements on the individual parts the old ones are as good as the new.
No - it would just seem that these parts survived 24 years and still within original specification - remarkable!

Bit of a dark horse, you Puncher!
Mike, love your web site, keep it up

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

mfishmike — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:23:09 GMT

Puncher,

I just found your attachment. I can't beleive how close those numbers are!! No wonder you were disappointed!

I don't know if this matters, but if your speakers were in storage and not being used like mine were, versus being hooked up and were used regularly, maybe that is what kept those electrolytics in good shape with yours? Mine were dead. I don't have the test equipment you have, but listening to mine before and after, it was like listening to two different sets of speakers for me. I'm impressed with your audio skills, test equipment, and spreadsheet results. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Mike

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

mfishmike — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:05:13 GMT

Puncher,

I agree that the 100 volt should be plenty. I chose the 400 volt Solen caps because of their build and audio quality. I've used them in many audio applications with outstanding results. They are a French company and also have a build house in Canada.

This goes back to what I tell a lot of folks about audio.....It doesn't have to be textbook to work and sound great, meaning that your caps should have died like mine did, but didn't.....I broke some box calculation textbook rules with my subwoofers but they perform better than what the size of my enclosure is recommended for them, probably due to the use of the passive radiators.

This is what keeps the DIY stuff so interesting....

Mike

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

Puncher — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:59:28 GMT

Hi Mike,

The voltage rating od the parts should not affect their performance, although the 63V parts in the RL60's are marginal (~ 40Vac rating with the Amp of the BM5000 having 40V rails). The replacements were 100V rated devices.

An aged electroytic will shows itself first by an increasing disapation factor (tan d) which is related to it's ESR. As you can see from the measurements on the individual parts the old ones are as good as the new.

No - it would just seem that these parts survived 24 years and still within original specification - remarkable!

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

mfishmike — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:51:59 GMT

Puncher,

That really suprises me!!!!

Electrolytic caps do fail and die over time, just like an electrolytic automobile battery. I noticed a tremendous improvement when I went to the higher grade Solen capacitors & Mills resistors. It was like the speakers woke up after a long nap!

Did you go back with the 63 volt caps? That could explain why you didn't notice a difference. I would use a minimum of 250v to 400v replacements caps. The Solens I used are 400v.

16 years ago, I purchased an absolutely beautiful Baldwin Organ with all of the bells and whistles on it from a wealthy doctor for $100. It had a huge bank of amplifiers inside of it. When you would power it up and push any note on the keyboard, it would squeal or wail and none of the notes were what they were suppposed to be. I knew it was broken when I bought it. I would estimate it's value new was 2 to 3 thousand dollars or more. This was a full size organ with beautiful woodwork and all of the console switches and bass pedals..

I turned it around and faced towards my living room wall, and I started removing all of the banks of amplifiers, one at a time. There were 6 or 12 of them. It's been a few years and the ole memory is what it used to be. I went through every amplifier in the organ and replaced every electrolytic capacitor with new "Orange Sprague" capacitors, which was a very long project. I had another couple of hundred bucks in parts not counting labor. When I got the last amplifier finished and reinstalled, I turned it back around and powered it up. It sounded as clean as it would have if it were brand new. I ended up trading the organ for a dual axle 18' trailer to the man that bought my last house because I needed the trailer to move, and he wanted the organ for his girls.

I'm really surprised you didn't notice an improvement, and yes, I agree with you, while it's open change them out!

Mike

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

Puncher — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:11:01 GMT

Find attached a pdf detailing the results from changing the crossover capacitors from my ~24 year old RL60's (apologies for the poor quality pictures but I compressed them right down to be able to load up in a single document).

What this shows is the equipment I used to measure before and after results for the capacitance (and their disapation factors) and before and after spectra of 10sec bursts of pink and white noise for speaker 1 (similar results for speaker 2 but omitted to maintain small file size).

I also recorded the same track (Song to the Siren - Tim Buckley) before and after. The net result was -

I couldn't measure or hear any real differences during my audio tests. A few days later, when the removed capacitors were measured, the reason became obvious - the twenty four year old parts were as good as those I replaced them with.

I was so dejected - I had thought I was going to get the improvement mentioned many times here, the increased detail, the sharper focus and definition etc. - instead I got nothing. I'm just starting to get over it

This of course does not mean that replacing old caps in crossovers is not necessary - I'm amazed that my devices survived all this time unaffected, it certainly isn't typical of electrolytic parts. My recommendation would still be if your speakers are old then go ahead and renew the capacitors in the crossovers

Re: My RL60 conversion completed and available for your review....

Puncher — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:41:10 GMT

oliver:

Wow ... you guys seem to have a lot of fun around here

i just wanted to let you guys know that the ppl at "Good-Hifi" are able to get replacement surrounds, though it may take 6 weeks for them to deliver and they can't give a price yet, though the estimate is around 25€ for each ring.
Also i identified the bass speaker as an ITT and some verry helpfull ppl at some other forum could provide the specs for the reflex tube.
With the diameter at 6,8 cm the length is 13,93 cm, however their actual advice was to close the box and try to reduce the volume by half to 8 / 9 Liters rather than repairing the ABR or converting to bassreflex, since the speakers are actually designed fore much smaller boxes.

Puncher, you really made my day. Thanx alot for the pic. I'm sure the two guys from this other forum who helped me out would like to take a look at it. If it's OK with you i'd like to steal it and reupload it for them ??? Though i doubt it would produce any meassuerable traffic, i guess a deep-link would not be apreciated by the admins?
And can you verify the size with what they came up? Judging from the pic, the lenght could be ~14cm, but it does look thinner.
Anyways, i've already spend more time researching and nagging around then i would have wanted to spend repairing the speakers, so i'm not really sure about what i'm going to do now ... especialy since i'm sitting in the middle of nowhere here in switzerland and DIY is an almost unknown phenomema in this part of the world. Like not beeing able to find a suplyier for caps ...

@mike: Verry nice site and pic-tutorial !!!!!!!!!!!!

Feel free to re-use the photo

The measurements you mention are certainly of the correct order however to get a better measure of the B&O solution (I didn't measure anything - sorry) you could measure then distance between the outer casing screw bosses shown in the photo and then use this as a scale to measure the port dimensions.