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Tannoys always full of surprises...

So I acquired some HPD Tannoy Berkeleys in need of a refoam and a bit of tic to the veneer...

All part of the rich tapestry that is Tannoy refurbishment so not pointing any fingers(I dont have a clue who was responsible anyway).

On removing the drivers I'm greeted with some comedy gaskets, count the leaks ;-)

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Further digging into the cabs really had me scratching my head in a WTF? way....
 
Pretty standard refresh of these enclosures entails removal/replacing the old foam, re-fixing the existing bitumen pads and lining the inside with dead sheet.

Result! these enclosures were already done, well when I say done...for some reason they were missing quite a bit of foam.

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And the dead sheet(which isn't exactly cheap) had been applied over the remains of the old foam. The mind boggles really.

Bar looking ok to the casual observer it was doing nothing.

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It looks like it would have had a better seal without the gaskets!

It was clearly done by someone who didn't know why they were doing, what they were doing.
 
It looks like it would have had a better seal without the gaskets!

It was clearly done by someone who didn't know why they were doing, what they were doing.

Yeah, I do hope though that they realised that the speakers weren't working well, and that something was wrong. The thing is, we all learn by trying and making mistakes, but only can improve if we realise that things aren't right. The danger is that this person thinks they've done it well, and go on to make the same mistake elsewhere. There could be other similarly 'improved' cabinets out there...
 
The old dead sheet came out easily but half was no longer sticky.

Not the most pleasant or easy job, soften/shrink the old foam with solvent then scrape off.

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Half a day later and we're good to go

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Cone out, looks to have been reconed before judging by the state of the basket.

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Protect the horn and the gap.

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Fortunately these gasket/clamps can clean up in soapy water.

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A somewhat dodgy and unpredictable practice in the 'tired PA driver' repairers toolkit is to paint the spiders with PVA, it stiffens them up but is short lived and can play hell with the T&S figures.

Wet the spider and if it turns milky they've been got at. As a result these HPD 385's were in for a full refoam and brand new spiders.

Soften the cyan acrylate adhesive then ease the spider off the cone neck/former..

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Assemble new spiders from Lockwood Audio.

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And install(I used a Tannoy set up jig to set the spider position) using 2 part cyano adhesive.

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Notch the new surrounds for the struts on the rear of the cone.

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Glue them to the cone then after 12 hours line up the cone assembly and glue in position in the basket(after thoroughly cleaning the gap) ensuring free cone travel without any rubs or scrapes. You can fine adjust using the 4 spider clamp bolts.

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That refoam looks like new - not the “trousers tucked into socks” style of lots of the refoams seen these days. Brilliant
 
Quick measurement showed response match wasn't great so time to clean and realign the HFs

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Drivers are measured with their paired crossovers and then swapped to see if there' any change which might point to crossover issues

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3 hours later.....

Pink noise, iPhone, Octave RTA, IM6 calibrated mic.(ignore below 500hz)

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Close enough, better than factory.
 


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