On 12/17/2016 3:30 PM, Mike Gordon via olympus wrote:
One subwoofer bit the dust just outside the warranty. Not being an EE had to
disassemble it and sent the board back to Canada for a look see. They said one
diode failed which they never see happen.
These are what manufacturers call "Smart Parts", smart enough to fail just
after warranty expiration.
Reinstalled it and seems fine--phew, but 140 bucks later. My other sub is now
acting up
My subs are so old and low tech that's there's little to go wrong. Do you remember the University brand of loudspeakers?
Back in the early-mid sixties, when I had no money, I made a speaker called a Sweet Sixteen, from plans in a magazine.
It used 16 5" speakers in a big, flat array, mounted to plywood, wired series-parallel to maintain the 8Ω impedance. The
theory was that they would individually never move beyond their very tiny linear excursion range.
Sounded pretty good, so when I went stereo, I built another one. Soon, University tweeters were added. Then, I wanted
bass. Another magazine project was a tuned bass reflex using lots of 3/4" deep "ports, drilled in 3/4" structural
flakeboard. One, I could swing, but what about stereo?
Enter a University 15" woofer with dual, 8Ω voice coils. In series, 16Ω, parallel, 4Ω - or - connected to two separate
signals, it mechanically mixed the inputs.
Later yet, but still oh so long ago, I inherited a couple of beautiful walnut floor mounted speaker enclosures when my
brother moved up. Acoustically poor, they boomed like drums when hit. So I rebuilt the insides, bought another woofer,
matching University horn loaded mid-ranges and their three way crossovers. I tuned the bass reflexes and had attractive
and, for the time, rather good speakers.
Time passed and they went into disuse in favor of newer things. Then came 5.1 surround sound, and the either crummy or
expensive speakers for it. Out came the old stuff. One half of each woofer wired to the center channel bass, the other
half, mid-range and tweeter for surround. The crossovers have volume controls for the two higher splits, so it was easy
to balance. Better than needed surround and bass that I can turn up to make the viewing couch jump up and down. ;-)
Even the controls are wirewound, so user serviceable. Absent a blown voice
coil, I'm good for another few decades. :-)
and a switch on my reel to reel is casing one channel to fade in and out. I
just can't abide BROKEN.
Connect tape to computer, sound inputs or A/D converter. Apply Audacity software to record FLAC. Use Cue Tools to make
variable compression MP3s. Play from computer while watching reels go 'round and 'round. :-)
Broken diodes, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken
Bob can get away with poor scansion, by the way he sings it.
I'd make it scan, and fit my world view, by changing the last line to:
"Everything but me is broken"
U. B. Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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