Rebuilding Yorkville PULSE 12 speakers

[bundler77]

I bought these 30+ year old speakers from a nightclub I frequented VERY often. I was hoping for some advice of rebuilding, and maybe improving, them. I know these are not great, brand new, but are nostalgic for me. They need new woofers, and maybe an upgraded crossover? Any advice NOT telling me to throw them away, would be appreciated,

 

[shadyJ]

Rebuilding those speakers may be something of a project. If you are just looking for some good sounding speakers for your own recreation, they aren't worth the hassle, but if you want to restore them for sentimental reasons, it may be able to be done, but it will require time, patience, and effort on your part. In order to get them to sound like they are supposed to from replacing the woofers, you need to replace them with woofers that have similar T/S parameters. The only way to do that is to reach out to Yorkville and ask them for the T/S specs for the woofers. If the original specs aren't available, there isn't going to be a reliable way to get that speaker to sound right.

As for the crossover, the only part that might have fallen out of tolerance is the capacitors. I would replace the capacitors with ones that have the same values as the original caps. If you can't read the original values off of the existing caps, ask Yorkville what they were. If Yorkville can't tell you, and you can't see what they are from the existing crossover,.. um,.. you are screwed.

 

[bundler77]

Rebuilding those speakers may be something of a project. If you are just looking for some good sounding speakers for your own recreation, they aren't worth the hassle, but if you want to restore them for sentimental reasons, it may be able to be done, but it will require time, patience, and effort on your part. In order to get them to sound like they are supposed to from replacing the woofers, you need to replace them with woofers that have similar T/S parameters. The only way to do that is to reach out to Yorkville and ask them for the T/S specs for the woofers. If the original specs aren't available, there isn't going to be a reliable way to get that speaker to sound right.

As for the crossover, the only part that might have fallen out of tolerance is the capacitors. I would replace the capacitors with ones that have the same values as the original caps. If you can't read the original values off of the existing caps, ask Yorkville what they were. If Yorkville can't tell you, and you can't see what they are from the existing crossover,.. um,.. you are screwed.

Thank you for the advice, sounds too accurate, sigh. SOOOOO..is there any advisable way to bundle up new woofers with improved crossovers? Nobody will know what I did to restore (or improve) these speakers, and they might sound better than original, maybe? I tell my friends that only poor people are crazy...I am ECCENTRIC!! IF I can put new parts in the cabinet to make them sound great, only I (and you, lol) will know the truth. I really am out of touch with this, sorry for being so noobish.

 

[shadyJ]

Thank you for the advice, sounds too accurate, sigh. SOOOOO..is there any advisable way to bundle up new woofers with improved crossovers? Nobody will know what I did to restore (or improve) these speakers, and they might sound better than original, maybe? I tell my friends that only poor people are crazy...I am ECCENTRIC!! IF I can put new parts in the cabinet to make them sound great, only I (and you, lol) will know the truth. I really am out of touch with this, sorry for being so noobish.

If the waveguide in the speakers isn't absolutely atrocious, yes, theoretically you can rebuild them to sound better than they ever have. However, it would take a lot of work and learning on your part. You can't just install "better" components, they have to be components that would work well in that enclosure with that system and all of the other parts. I think if you knew what was involved, you wouldn't bother. It would be a serious project to redesign a speaker with the intention of having it be a good speaker. Just learning how to acoustically measure the speakers is a big project on its own, but that is what you have to do in order to know if what you are doing is working or not.

By the way, I just looked up these Pulse 12 speakers. That waveguide doesn't look very good. I don't think they warrant restoration, at least if you are just looking for good sound. I don't think there is a good way to make these speakers sound amazing with that waveguide. It will take many, many hours for you to figure out what you are doing since you are starting from scratch, and by the time your education is up to snuff, you will realize that those speakers have some intrinsic problems that can't be fixed.

Let me ask you what are you looking for in a sound system? Do you want to restore those speakers out of sentimental reasons or because you just want a nice sound system? If it is the latter, how much are you willing to spend?

 

[TLS Guy]

I bought these 30+ year old speakers from a nightclub I frequented VERY often. I was hoping for some advice of rebuilding, and maybe improving, them. I know these are not great, brand new, but are nostalgic for me. They need new woofers, and maybe an upgraded crossover? Any advice NOT telling me to throw them away, would be appreciated,

You are in luck. Those 12" Eminence M woofers are still available. I would just replace the woofers. You really will not be able to improve them just make them worse. If you want better it is time to start from scratch. As Shady suggests, replacing the caps is probably worth doing, but you might not have to.

The best plan for you is to return them to original condition. They are PA speakers, and you won't make them great. Since this a nostalgia project, you can't go wrong by making them original.

Those Eminence M woofers were actually good of their type. Those older sectoral horns for the top end where pretty much always and earful no matter what the stripe. So I would leave it at new woofers and replace the caps and no more unless the diaphragms have gone bad. They use RCF 1" mylar diaphragm drivers. if you hunt you might find what you need if you need it. There are a lot of diaphrams and horn drivers around. Hopefully the horn drivers are still OK.

 

[bundler77]

If the waveguide in the speakers isn't absolutely atrocious, yes, theoretically you can rebuild them to sound better than they ever have. However, it would take a lot of work and learning on your part. You can't just install "better" components, they have to be components that would work well in that enclosure with that system and all of the other parts. I think if you knew what was involved, you wouldn't bother. It would be a serious project to redesign a speaker with the intention of having it be a good speaker. Just learning how to acoustically measure the speakers is a big project on its own, but that is what you have to do in order to know if what you are doing is working or not.

By the way, I just looked up these Pulse 12 speakers. That waveguide doesn't look very good. I don't think they warrant restoration, at least if you are just looking for good sound. I don't think there is a good way to make these speakers sound amazing with that waveguide. It will take many, many hours for you to figure out what you are doing since you are starting from scratch, and by the time your education is up to snuff, you will realize that those speakers have some intrinsic problems that can't be fixed.

Let me ask you what are you looking for in a sound system? Do you want to restore those speakers out of sentimental reasons or because you just want a nice sound system? If it is the latter, how much are you willing to spend?

I listened to these speakers a lot, when in that particular nightclub. Pretty ladies and alcohol could have altered my perception, lol, but I never expected them to be like my home system. These are going into my shop, in my garage. Zero acoustic design, just some fun to say these are from Swackhammers (where they were used), and as a further homage to being ancient, I will use an old receiver of mine, an NAD 7080 (still awesome sounding) to drive them. I purchased them understanding the woofers are needing replaced, so I thought I might upwardly tweak the entire setup, but if it is crazy hard to do, I won't. The factory replacement woofers are 12", and cost $120 each. I thought maybe for that much, there might be a better alternative, woofer/crossover combo. It looks like my best bet is order the factory replacements?? Thank you for your very beneficial research and feedback.

 

[Pogre]

You could buy better speakers brand new for the cost of replacing those drivers, lol.

 

[bundler77]

You could buy better speakers brand new for the cost of replacing those drivers, lol.

You do not get WHY I want to restore, or upgrade, the speakers. They are parts of a place I enjoyed tremendously, for many, many years. There are many things that would be cheaper to just throw away the item, instead of restoring it. I hope you have things you enjoy enough to want to restore, instead of replace. I will definitely not get anything for these if I try to sell them, compared to my cost, but my enjoyment is far higher than just the cost,