So it started with getting a Beomaster 1900. Never owned B&O product before, just liked the look of it :) Anyhow, then quite randomly came across a good looking pair of s45-2, picked them up the next day. No scratch on it, beautiful. Sounded kinda ok, tiny bit muffled I'd say.
Wires
Original wires it came with one of them was cut/fixed. That one sounded notably quieter. So I changed it to a new wire (2mm²). Now that one sounded better and louder, notable difference again. Made new wires, with aftermarket connectors that felt flimsy to say the best.
Recapping
Opened it up everything looked in order. Changed electrolytic caps to new Jantzen Cross Caps. Opened up the sound quite a bit. Cross Caps are a fair bit larger but wasn't too hard to fit them in there.
Changing the terminals
As I wasn't happy with the connectors and using thicker wires I ended up changing to SpeakOn terminals. Old terminals come off just by pushing them inwards. Added a little epoxy to the inside groove as the MDF around there was little crumbly. Added epoxy to the back of the SpeakOn terminals as two pole sockets have two empty blade holes. Made it nicely air tight. SpeakOn fits in there just perfectly with no cab modifications needed. Some hot glue on the inside and done.
Project 2
Now somehow I ended up picking up another amp, 1900-2. Faulty, with hum, missing one channel etc. But sounds good after full recap. So I needed one more set of speakers. Ended up winning an auction in Ebay for a good price. Another pristine looking pair, perfect, not a scratch on it. But the day comes it arrives to my door, oh my!
Fellow had packed two speakers loosely into a thin cardboard box with no padding at all. Aluminium corners had rubbed the cloth all broken on both, back corners dented of banging around. Coils broken loose inside. That wasn't a good day. Fairly enough seller refunded it fully and let me keep the speakers.
So I thought why not mess around with them a bit more, try few things.
Rebuilding the inside
As some of the wires and resistors inside looked burned and melted I thought I change it all.
- Clued back the loose coils
- Put in the same Cross Caps as for the first pair
- Changed all the wires to Silver Plated OFC Copper PTFE Sheath 1.5mm²
- Changed all the resistors to Mundorf MR10 non-inductive metal film 10W