An update on the stinky speakers, mainly because I'm at a pause in their rebuild.
@StupendousMan gave pretty good advice about trying coffee grounds to change the dead animal smell. I spent 2 weeks dumping my used grounds into the stinking maw, and the smell did indeed change. It still wasn't pleasant enough to be near, because now the cabinets smelled like dead mouse coffee.
OK, on to the next idea. I removed the crossovers from both speakers and put the cabinets on CL for free. Somebody came and got them. No, I didn't mention that you couldn't be in the same room with them. Caveat emptor, I guess.
The L710's originally came without tweeters, one midrange was damaged beyond repair, and two of the four woofers were, inoperable so I went in search of replacement speakers. This amazing guy on Audiokarma offered to send a complete set of speakers from a L810 just for shipping. Cool.
I then went in search of cabinets big enough to hold a 4-speaker system and found a set of Cerwin-Vega R26's, real walnut, not veneer. I cut the speaker patterns out on a piece of 3/4" plywood, fit the board onto the front of the cabinets, and turned my attention to the crossovers.
All the photos and schematics for crossovers for the L710 I found on line didn't look like mine, so I was confused about capacitor replacement. Finally, a guy on Audiokarma from Ghana (yes, that Ghana) sent a schematic of the original crossover from the Braun L710, the original 1970 ones, before ADS started importing Braun parts and building their own cabinets here in the States.
I replaced the caps, bought a bag of insulation on CL, wired the first one up, plugged it in, and it was pretty terrific. Deeper bass and more up-front midrange than the AR2Ax I was playing it with. I was feeling good about the whole ordeal. Then I wired the second one- and no sound from either woofer. I tested the woofers, and they both worked. The problem is in the crossover. (This was the crossover that was in the mouse-infested speaker, so I'm not surprised.)
So here's where we currently are. I can 1.) Buy a used (but newer model) L710 crossover on eBay, although the differences in capacitor variance might cause the two speakers to sound completely different from each other. 2.) Buy a pair of new crossovers from Parts Express. The speakers might not sound as good, but they'll sound the same, or 3.) Try to repair the crossover. It's not the caps, so it has to be soldering or one of the coils.
I wrote this long explanation more as a diary entry for myself, so I can look back and laugh at how little I know. However, if anybody has advice, I'd love to hear it.
Goddamn hobbies taking over my life.....
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