[aceinc]

Over the weekend, my wife convinced me to go get gas for my car with her at Costco. My car get's 50 miles on an electric charge and I've been running with the gas empty light on for a month and a half. Didn't see any need, but I went anyway (happy wife & all that). No this isn't a quandary about regular or premium.

About a mile from the house I spotted what looked like speakers in a pile of rubbish. I nearly locked up my seat belt as I stopped, turned around and went back to check it out (obviously I'm not too proud to get my audio stuff from a trash pile). I got out pulled some debris off one of the speakers and made out a BG logo. I was stoked. My wife is great, she happily helped me load the speakers into the car.

I ended up with;

2-Z7s
2-Z1s
A center channel and 8" sub by BG.

The bases on the Z7s have water damage, but not the cabinets. The center has water damage on the cabinet, and the sub is good. There is one missing grill for a Z7 and there are a few cosmetic nicks in the cabinets. I have them in my garage, and I hooked them up to a Yamaha receiver and the Z7s, Z1 and Sub seem to sound good, all drivers work, etc. They seem a little shouty, but it is a garage. The Z7s seem to have decent bass extension. Haven't tried the center channel yet.

The quandary is that each of these speakers has a BG Neo3 PDR with a wave guide. So, should I;

• Clean them up build new bases for the Z7s, build a new grill for the Z7, build a new cabinet for the center and try to resell them as a 5.1 system, using the profit for another fun project?
• Cannibalize the Neo 3 PDRs and wave guides for a project?
• Something else?

If I go with 2 above, what kind of project should I do?

[Danny Richie]

Yeah, the Neo 3's alone are well worth the salvage.

We have a lot of kits that use the Neo 3 pdr with deep back cup. Check to see if that model has the deep back cups on them.

[aldcoll]

Audio upcycling.  Think I might go for a country drive.

Great score.

Alan

[SoCalWJS]

Option #2

Should be a bunch of options. What kind of project is completely up to you. What strikes your Fancy?

[ebag4]

Cool find!  I might consider sending the speaker to Danny to let him take a shot at the crossover.  Just a thought.

Best,
Ed

[aceinc]

I pulled the base off one of the Z7s. It was MDF all swollen from being wet, the screw heads were rusted to the point I had to use a pair of vice grips to remove them. The bottom of the cabinet on the other hand looks pristine. It's as though the water didn't get through the finish.

My current thoughts on projects lean towards a line array. Mainly because I have never built or listened to a pair. The decision hinges on finding a set of drivers I can afford which will sound good. My wife is tolerant of my hobby, but money is money. The "At least I'm not down drinkin' at the bar" line only goes so far.

I have a high efficiency project lurking in the background as well. A friend found a pair of Altec Lansing Flamenco's in the trash. I traded some Klipsch's that fit his room better for them. The cabinets are rough but the drivers are great. The drivers sound & look good. I'm thinking along the lines of something in the "Steam Punk" motif with the horns bare sitting on top, air brushed to have rivets, extraneous ornamentation, but the ported cabinet built solid. Perhaps the ports external and painted to look like metal with rust. My son in law does phenomenal hydro-dipping and air brush work. I figure if the speakers are going to be big, why not make a statement?

One problem I have is what to do with the stuff when I'm done. I only have a couple of rooms for systems... Don't want the kids come over to find me dead under a pile of speakers...

[aceinc]

I think I will get entire system in the best shape I can and either sell them or replace one of my systems with them. So I built new bases for the Z7s.

I finally turned my attention to the center channel. It appears that it was resting on end in a puddle of water. The cabinet is swollen and not repairable, I hooked it up to my test amp and one of the midbass drivers works and the tweeter works but the other midbass, the one on the side damaged by water seems frozen. It will not move in or out. My guess is the water caused the voice coil or the gap to corrode and swell.

I would like to salvage as much as I can from the speaker. I am going to need to build a new cabinet, the simplest thing would be to find an identical driver, and build a cabinet with the identical dimensions and migrate the working drivers, crossover, and hardware to the new cabinet.

I haven't had any luck finding a driver that looks like the damaged one. The only marking on it is "5AL7" and a date code "20050429A." The cone is aluminum (silver), what looks like phase plug is black and moves in and out with the cone (except on the one that doesn't work). The surround appears to be rubber not foam, and it has a cover over the magnet assembly, similar to what was used to cover bucking magnets for shielded speakers. It is a unique cast aluminum frame, in that the "spokes" are curved, not straight.

The overall frame diameter is ~5-7/8" (~147mm). The cone diameter is ~5" (125mm). If anyone has any ideas of what type driver it is, and/or where to look for the driver that would be great. I have checked PE, Madisound, Meniscus, GR-Research, CSS, all the usual spots.





If I can't find a suitable driver, then at least a portion of the crossover will need to be redone.

[HAL]

PE can also do speaker repair if you cannot find a replacement.  They can do a voice coil replacement. 

There are other companies that also do driver repairs.

Just a thought.