Inside An Ultra Bookshelf Speaker

[BoredSysAdmin]

Words like Infinity primus and mods bring some interesting memories and one of most scandalous episodes this forum seen since that. Tbh even Reaction Audio eol does not comes close.

 

[slipperybidness]

Words like Infinity primus and mods bring some interesting memories and one of most scandalous episodes this forum seen since that. Tbh even Reaction Audio eol does not comes close.

Right.

The scandal was before my time, but I am aware of it, and aware of the mods that are typically recommended for the Primus line.

 

[j_garcia]

My Carnegies are also piano gloss and they came with white gloves to handle them too.

 

[Pogre]

Words like Infinity primus and mods bring some interesting memories and one of most scandalous episodes this forum seen since that. Tbh even Reaction Audio eol does not comes close.

Well now. My curiosity is piqued.

My Carnegies are also piano gloss and they came with white gloves to handle them too.

I have a lot of those cotton gloves. I use them at work a lot and they're great for handling speakers with a gloss finish. I really never have touched the finish on them with my bare hands.

 

[j_garcia]

They showed up in velvet sleeves

 

[Pogre]

Ooohhhh.... Fancy! Mine came in a foam style wrap and was bagged in heavy plastic.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Well now. My curiosity is piqued.

Edit: Per John's suggestion. Details about Chris event removed.

 

[j_garcia]

Let's not dredge Chris up. That was an unfortunate event.

 

[j_garcia]

Ooohhhh.... Fancy! Mine came in a foam style wrap and was bagged in heavy plastic.

Yeah, I was surprised they came like that. I actually do not like piano gloss for many reasons and care/dust/fingerprints are the main reason. I like the LOOK, just not the reality of that finish lol.

 

[Pogre]

Yeah, I was surprised they came like that. I actually do not like piano gloss for many reasons and care/dust/fingerprints are the main reason. I like the LOOK, just not the reality of that finish lol.

They do require a little more maintenance as far as dust goes (especially in the desert this time of year). I dust all my stuff with a swiffer at least every other day and sometimes every day.

Despite me being so bold as to take them apart I do baby them and care for them religiously. I really didn't get any fingerprints on it taking it apart or putting it back together. I was so careful with the allen wrench on all of the screws; if I would have chipped any of the paint on any one of them I would have abandoned this project.
The only thing that made me nervous was the tweeter. It had to be very carefully lined up and put back together to avoid damaging the dome.

The magnet is the part that fell inside the cabinet and it's pretty much one solid piece. I hooked it back up when I got it together, put it on all channel stereo, disconnected the woofers on all three and listened to each tweeter to make sure I didn't fudge something up. They all sound the same. I've taken apart a few speakers before and did all my own installs in my truck stereo so I was pretty confident I could do it. Everything was pretty clearly marked with a red dot and the connectors were different sizes for pos and neg so it was hard to mess it up.

 

[j_garcia]

I took my Carnegies apart within a few months of getting them because they were said to have manufacturing "defect" that essentially just required some additional polyfill. While I was in there, I also upgraded the x-overs with an upgrade kit from Danny Richie (GR, designer of the Carnegies). His kit x-overs are normally just inline, but these ones were built on boards so I had to desolder and replace components. The boards themselves had issues from how they were built and I ended up repairing the speaker leads at the same time (one broke, I fixed all of them because they all had the same issue). It took a few weeks to redo them. I don't seem to have the pics of the cabinets pulled apart anymore, but have x-overs

original x-over

Solder traces on the speaker wires popped

Upgraded x-overs

After that...the next ones I had someone build my upgrade x-overs lol. I don't know if Sean the Skiing Ninja is still around because he closed the business because he was pretty sick. He was a good guy and did some nice work.

 

[slipperybidness]

Yeah, I was surprised they came like that. I actually do not like piano gloss for many reasons and care/dust/fingerprints are the main reason. I like the LOOK, just not the reality of that finish lol.

Yup, same for my car. Gloss black is awesome for like the first hour after the car wash

Down here in central TX, we get silly pollen. Give my black gloss car an afternoon in the driveway and it then has a yellow tint

 

[Pogre]

I took my Carnegies apart within a few months of getting them because they were said to have manufacturing "defect" that essentially just required some additional polyfill. While I was in there, I also upgraded the x-overs with an upgrade kit from Danny Richie (GR, designer of the Carnegies). His kit x-overs are normally just inline, but these ones were built on boards so I had to desolder and replace components. The boards themselves had issues from how they were built and I ended up repairing the speaker leads at the same time (one broke, I fixed all of them because they all had the same issue). It took a few weeks to redo them. I don't seem to have the pics of the cabinets pulled apart anymore, but have x-overs

original x-over

Solder traces on the speaker wires popped

Upgraded x-overs

After that...the next ones I had someone build my upgrade x-overs lol. I don't know if Sean the Skiing Ninja is still around because he closed the business because he was pretty sick. He was a good guy and did some nice work.

Very cool! I have some soldering skills and an iron. I would like to tackle something like that sometime.

Yup, same for my car. Gloss black is awesome for like the first hour after the car wash

Down here in central TX, we get silly pollen. Give my black gloss car an afternoon in the driveway and it then has a yellow tint

I was in Texas recently and you ain't kidding about the pollen. My sister and mom live in New Braunfels, close to San Antonio and I got a good dose of it. I had allergies I didn't know I had!

 

[Klipschhead302]

Always wondered why those tweeters had 8 screws....

Back in the day every tweeter that was softdome had screws holding the magnet on, looks like some still do that which is good in case of failure, replace the top and good to go.

 

[Klipschhead302]

They do require a little more maintenance as far as dust goes (especially in the desert this time of year). I dust all my stuff with a swiffer at least every other day and sometimes every day.

Despite me being so bold as to take them apart I do baby them and care for them religiously. I really didn't get any fingerprints on it taking it apart or putting it back together. I was so careful with the allen wrench on all of the screws; if I would have chipped any of the paint on any one of them I would have abandoned this project.
The only thing that made me nervous was the tweeter. It had to be very carefully lined up and put back together to avoid damaging the dome.

The magnet is the part that fell inside the cabinet and it's pretty much one solid piece. I hooked it back up when I got it together, put it on all channel stereo, disconnected the woofers on all three and listened to each tweeter to make sure I didn't fudge something up. They all sound the same. I've taken apart a few speakers before and did all my own installs in my truck stereo so I was pretty confident I could do it. Everything was pretty clearly marked with a red dot and the connectors were different sizes for pos and neg so it was hard to mess it up.

Try living a mile away downwind of a gravel pit that runs 16 hours a day, we dust, 4 hours later nobody can tell. If you go two weeks, it looks like you never clean the house, I power washed my house earlier this Spring, you can't tell, it's filthy again, the rain makes it worse.

 

[Klipschhead302]

Lol. My wife was a little nervous, but she sat on the couch and watched me. I was explaining the different parts to her while she nodded and pretended to be cool.

She's seen me do stuff like this a hundred times so she didn't have an aneurysm, but I think she held her breath whIle i put it back together...

I can't think of a time I didn't take my systems apart, been doing so since the 70's. I even did a science project on speakers in 1979 and went down state. They have changed so much since that time, still take 'em apart, haven't done so with "The Sixes" yet but I'll get to them!

 

[lovinthehd]

Back in the day every tweeter that was softdome had screws holding the magnet on, looks like some still do that which is good in case of failure, replace the top and good to go.

Back in the day? LOL, just how old are you? Haven't had such a tweeter in the speakers I've had....

 

[Klipschhead302]

Back in the day? LOL, just how old are you? Haven't had such a tweeter in the speakers I've had....

Ok, I may be a bit older than most of you. Back in the late 60's and early 70's speakers had tweeters with mounting screws for the magnet, damn I guess I am old.

 

[j_garcia]

I wasn't around in the 60s lol. Speaker design wasn't exactly that advanced through much of the 70s either though. I took EVERYTHING apart as a kid. I wanted to know how it worked; getting it back together was a different story.

 

[lovinthehd]

Ok, I may be a bit older than most of you. Back in the late 60's and early 70's speakers had tweeters with mounting screws for the magnet, damn I guess I am old.

Could be, didn't get my first good set of speakers until I was in high school in the early 70s At least I don't remember seeing the 8 screw thing much before the SVS speakers....