What speakers would they have used back then?

[Jac Hawk]

1st off shellac and french polish are one and the same, the stuff you need to do a really good job can be found in any good diy shop or even b&q. the 2nd thing you need to know is, it's not hard to get great results here's a link to my castles http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8600 just to show you how fcuk'd up the cabs can be and still save them.

tools you'll need:

orbital sander (the smaller the better)
production paper or wet n dry from 600 to 1200 grit
fine wire wool
cork sanding block
cotton cloths
alcohol the stuff used in record cleaning solution or thinners
a small sponge
a tin of shellac
wax polish
an iron
a wet t towel

if you need any more advice pm me

[DSJR]

Are they mk1's or mk2's?

Not a speaker I could live with (they squeak too much for me ), BUT they'll only increase in value and if you get the crossovers upgraded and the wooden bits restored, they'll sell in a year or two for far more then the amount you paid for them.

[worrasf]

Are they mk1's or mk2's?

Not sure - I think Mk1's - photie attached.

Steve

[worrasf]

here's a link to my castles

Nice job Mike! Thanks for the PM invite - I may well take you up. At least the 149's are tiny weeny compared to your Castles

Steve

[Jac Hawk]

any time steve those 149's look in pretty good nick, i notice the wooden plates on the tops have that fake aged look i.e. dark round the edges, i'm not a fan of that finish, if they were mine i would sand it off and shellac them, the shellac will lift the grain and give the wood a real warm look.

[worrasf]

if they were mine i would sand it off ans shellac them, the shellac will lift the grain and give the wood a real warm look.

Yep - me too. I want to lighten them up a few shades but get a honey colour into them (if that makes sense) - then they'll be a good match for the teak sleeve on the Quads and the teak G-Plan furniture in the study.

Seve

[worrasf]

So spent much of the first part of my weeks leave fettling the pair of JR 149's I bought from eBay.

Although in fair condition I didn't much care for the wood finish so took this back to bare wood - filled in the dents and dings with uber fine filler - applied a light coat of Burmese Teak stain then worked away with the French polish before a final beeswax. These are fairly early Mark 1's and I was specifically aiming not to put them in "just out the factory gates in an unopened carton" condition but rather to give an impression of a pair of well loved and looked after speakers that have always been in the system. Pretentious moi?

I replaced the original crossover capacitors without ever having heard how the originals sounded so unable to comment on any sonic improvement with the new Alcaps.

Having read that Jim Rogers himself was no great fan of esoteric speaker cables and wanting to keep the original look as much as possible I opted to connect using a run of Maplin multi-strand copper speaker cable akin to QED 79 strand but not before succumbing to see how it compared to the Chord Odyssey cable I was previously using with the Ruarks. Long story short I was hard pressed to tell any difference and if anything I think I preferred the sound of the Maplin cable in that there was a tad more openness but I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference after a while - bottom line is that the cheapo Maplin cable (I got 2 x 4 metres second hand for 99p) was every bit as good as the much more (although not uber) expensive Chord cable.

I prated about for hours with speaker placement on the Kan II stands and finally decided that the best SQ was with them placed directly on top of the stands so that's how they stayed. Anything like rubber pads/sorbothane/bluetac made the bass muddled and poorly defined. I guess the aluminium end cap acts as it's own "isolator" - old JR new his stuff methinks.

To say I was pleased with the sound is an understatement - they sounded so much bigger and spacious tan the cabinet size would suggest and I went to bed a happy chappy. But something was nagging at me - I spent ages re-capping and soldering new speaker plugs and applying Deoxit to all connections yet the connections of the speakers to the crossovers was via 4 pretty nasty push on connections which although cleaned and "tightened" still seemed to me a weak link. After debating for hours about it I took the plunge and soldered the connections direct to the crossovers having very carefully removed the push on connectors so as to be able to return the units to original in the future if required first. The improvement in SQ was startling. Better dynamics, more air/space to the presentation and all together more musical. I can't help thinking that thousands of users of these units have been missing out on even better performance over the years purely down to these nasty push on connections.

Finally, the new grill foams arrived from Wilmslow and these IMHO really set the JR 149's off well. However, I am awaiting contact from Graham Hartle who sources "proper" JR 149 foams with the ridges and I'll fit these as and when.

I am really pleased with the JR 149's now both sonically and aesthetically and they perfectly fulfil the quest for a pair of speakers "they would have used back then"

I've uploaded some photos to photo bucket if anyone is interested.

http://s640.photobucket.com/albums/u...view=slideshow

Steve

[Welder]

Interesting.

I replaced all the connectors both inside the enclosures and from amp to speaker spades by directly soldering; a bit of a sod when working with heavy gauge cable.
The drivers had Lucar style spades. Many years ago, before WBT became the audiophile must have speakers terminal, I replaced the standard binding posts with WBT posts; I think they cost more than the speaker cable.

I'm connector free now.

Now, I could swear the direct soldering improved the sound but not wishing to get nutted off by the objectivists and also not wanting hugs and kisses from the subjectivists I didn't bother making a big deal of it.

Interesting someone else believes they can hear an improvement.
Doesn't this just save a fortune in super quantum tunnelled, rhodium on gold on silver on copper base, cryogenic treated, super polished,uber expensive metalwork.

[Marco]

Indeed, and congrats to you guys who have done it, but I'm afraid that it doesn't exactly make it quick and easy to change your speakers or cables!

I have no doubt of the efficacy, sonically, of removing connections, as far as possible, but doing away with speaker terminals and binding posts is for me a step too far, and would achieve more annoyance, through the impracticality of it, than anything else.

Using top-notch speaker terminals and binding posts, for me, reduces the problem to near insignificance.

Enjoy your tweaking, though!

Marco.

[Welder]

I realise convenience may be a factor for many, but particularly if your crossovers are outside the enclosures, cable changing only requires a soldering iron at one end and just one set of banana style plugs on the other so in reality it works out rather cheaply.

I don't think many change the internal wiring on a regular basis.