Long story short: I picked up a pile of McIntosh speakers a half year ago in some sorry shape (at least they were cheap). In particular, I'm dealing with a pair of XR-5s and their external EQ.
I've replaced the tweeters (they were bad), and reconed/refoamed the rest of the drivers, and cleaned up the crossover and EQ, but the cabinets were mistreated and need to be replaced.
Since I will not be able to recoup the costs of an entire re-cabineting in a sale regardless, especially given that they will no longer be stock: I think I'm going to replace the cabinet design of the XR-5 with one of my own. It will be good experience at speaker building.
It would be simpler for me to mount the 12" facing backwards on the rear of the cabinet. The crossover of the 12" is 250Hz. Can this placement be done effectively with that crossover: or do I really need to put the 12" foward firing in line with the other drivers?
Also, and unlike the above I'm not sure that anyone can answer this off the top of their head: the XR-5 is a sealed box taht over-damps the 12" and compensates in EQ. I have more space to work with. Does anyone have suggestions for a box dimension that might remove the need of the external EQ without requiring a redesign of the crossover?
