3" speaker pod mod

I found a pair of speaker pods in the garage and wanted to fire them up and see what the could do alas that want to be as they were truly broke.

So anyway I went ahead pulling them apart and seeing if i could put something new inside. I kind of forgot to take pics at the start but here we go anyway.

What was in there

I damaged the surround as it had sealed itself to the grill section of the speaker, the voice coil was all jammed up too.

Again no before pic but there is two bits of plastic that i took down with my dremel. One was were the cable goes in and out of the pod and the other was from the forming of the plastic. The other crap you see is the poly fill and glue that held it.

Now for some new speakers HiVi B3S Fullrange speakers.

beside the old pos

Now then its a very tight fit I had to coax it in with a bit of force and because the original speakers used non standard mounting dimensions i need to retrofit these speakers.

Holes made, I also shave a small amount off of the grill piece poles to match the thickness of the face of the speaker so it'll be sandwiched in.

Plastidipped the interior of the pods

Put in the poly fill

And in with the speakers

Now for some final shots with the speakers all wired up, the awesome little stand/mounts for the pods and finally with it hooked up to my portable 2x15watt amp

Pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out. Sound is pretty good for 3" speakers in a pos enclosure, when i feel properly motivated i will properly seal the speakers off and deaden behind them fully. But for now they'll do for a bit of portable fun at work.

Nice work! I like the look of the larger concave cone way more than the original dustcap driver. With those brackets they would make a great pair of workshop speakers as you could mount them out of the way and aim them toward the workspace.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheMainMan

Nice work! I like the look of the larger concave cone way more than the original dustcap driver. With those brackets they would make a great pair of workshop speakers as you could mount them out of the way and aim them toward the workspace.

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That's the eventual plan I guess but for now I will toy with them as purely portable, the whole thing only takes up the space of a lunch box in my bag and that amp goes for nearly a full 40hour week on batteries.

Well turns out my phone records video in stereo haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbo2N...ature=youtu.be

Looks like a nice upgrade. And for the price, you are already a head of most setups.

What kind of amp is that running them? (I couldn't find anything relative using FLI)

Outlaw

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheMainMan

Nice work! I like the look of the larger concave cone way more than the original dustcap driver. With those brackets they would make a great pair of workshop speakers as you could mount them out of the way and aim them toward the workspace.

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Haha the amp is some generic one from Jaycar (think smaller Aussie parts express) the Fli audio sticker is from some 4" car speakers that I turned into open baffle speakers for work where this amp primarily resides.

The amp looks exactly like the Sonic Impact T-amp that was a hit in the low cost hi-fi world a few years ago. Looks like they sold off the manufacturing to another company.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheMainMan

Nice work! I like the look of the larger concave cone way more than the original dustcap driver. With those brackets they would make a great pair of workshop speakers as you could mount them out of the way and aim them toward the workspace.

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http://m.jaycar.com.au/m_productView.asp?ID=AA0487

Seems to have the same specs

And Mayfair seems to use a lot of different OEMs they have a $99 pair of headphones that are a rebrand of Brainwavz HM5/Fischer FA-003

Then they have the rebrand of the swan/hivi speakers and it really goes on. Anything that falls under their DigiTech brand haha

So I got around to fixing up the pods yesterday and they are much better. Used them to watch some eps of 2 broke girls and then the walking dead with the girlfriend. Much better quality and soundstage from these little 3" speakers than anything the tv was giving haha

Anyway a little run through what I did.

Naturally I pulled them apart and here is the one that I tested on with an old foam sleeping mat. A much messier and well greener foam waveguide/baffle that I would like.

So once everything was apart it was time to lay the grill down on the new and really quite firm closed cell foam. Get some marks on it so I could first cut around the mounting posts and other crap that made up the shell and then cut out the internal shape and hole for the speaker.

Cut out now and with a bit of persuasion from the back of a thin paintbrush I got the foam sitting in the face of the pod.

It looks a little messy but its not as messy as my hand got as it turns out the texta doesn't dry on the foam. So i got it all over myself while cutting and trimming.

Anyway a before and after of the pod.