Category: Uncategorized

Speaker Driver Coniplasty

On By cjx07sterIn Engineering, Innovation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

WARNING : Don’t read this if you are squeamish about doing operations on large powerful audio speakers.  Don’t think that this A-Z will apply to any or all speakers or any or all circumstances.  The sequence here did apply to one speaker of mine, but I am sure that all speakers are individual, just like people.

The patient in this case is a large sealed 100W speaker cabinet.  Weighing in at around 25 kilograms, it had a brilliant sound, but for now is reduced to just a persistent cough, no matter how much encouragement given.

a. Take the speaker cabinet, it is probably heavy so get a mate to help bring it down to the shed.  Put it on blocks on the table.  Reassure the poor tweeter lying there beside the woofer it will be just ok, no need to worry.

b. Turn the speaker patient over, and gently unscrew all the rusty screws holding the back on.  The screws are long, and the wood is tight, for putting up with 20 years of weather and globe trotting.

c. Carefully prize the back off with a small chisel.  Careful how you do that, since it might chip, and mar the paintwork.  OK did you get it off.  Lets assume you did.  Open up the back, and remove it, keep all the screws, you probably might not be able to buy replacements.  Put the screws and the back over to the side.

d. Look inside to see if the wires are ok, and if the crossover may be burnt out.  No.. everything ok.  Then the problem may be with the speaker cone, or the cone winding.

e. Gently push down on the speaker cone, the large paper thing inside the speaker frame.  Watch out for your watch in case you may have it magnetised on the large magnet on the back of the speaker.

f.  Shut the door, turn down the radio, make it all quiet inside the shed.  OK… now do it again. carefully push down on the cone, and listen.  What do you hear ?  If you hear nothing, then it is probably ok.  If it sound a bit raspy then you will have a problem with the speaker cone.  The voice coil could be out of line.

g. Disconnect the woofer driver, and then unscrew each of the 8 or so screws holding the rim of the driver to the front baffle. Once again keep all those screws, don’t lose them, might be hard to find replacements.

h. Ok check disconnected.  Check screws are somewhere safe – not likely to get lost.

i. Pick up the speaker, take it out of the enclosure, take it over to the bench.  Wind out the vise, and then put it in magnet first.  So that the cone of the driver is facing up toward the roof.  You looking down on it.  You should be able to see the centre of the cone, and all around the edges of the cone, where it is glued down onto the rim under a baffle ring.

j. You will note that since the driver is rubbing, it is rubbing its voice coil on the inside ring slot of the magnet.  This is due to distortion in the cone, and the voice coil part of the lower cone, stuck inside the magnet has become out of line.

k.  Take a stanley knife, or a scalpel, borrow one from your husband or wife if you need a sharp one.  Then carefully cut the cone out by running the scalpel around the widest part of the cone, where the cone sharply angles from around 30 to 40 degrees to the point where it becomes horizontal and all wavy out to the rim.

l.  You should now have the cone cut free of the rim, and looking like an ice-cream cone, or the cone of a funnel, and standing just near where you cut it.  If the speaker is not distorted, like in a new one, the cone will be almost unmoving and sitting just like where you cut it, with almost no gap where you cut it.  However if the cone is distorted, the gap will adjust to allow the cone to relax into the right alignment of the voice coil, since there is nothing holding the cone to the rim. Walk around the cone, shining a torch from underneath, and you will see lots of light coming through where the gap increases, and no light where there is no gap.

m.  When you push the cone back down onto the rim, you will see the cuts separate a little as the cone lies flatter.

n.  You will go to the chemist/drugstore and you will ask the nice shop assistant for help finding special medical paper tape, used to bandage up wounds on real people.  You get some, a small roll of it, you only will need about a foot or so of tape most probably.

o.  You will go to the supermarket and get some shockproof superglue.

p.  You will come home and you will go down to the shed, turn on the light, and then move back over to the poor woofer, lying there in the vise, awaiting your expertise to work on its poor recently distorted cone.  You will then get the paper medical tape, and undo the packaging, and then find the end, and then cut off a bit, and apply it to the underside of the cone, being careful to push the cone back down on the rim, apply the paper to the slit and then once again to all the cuts you have made.

q. You will then get the superglue, careful not to get in fingers, it sticks shocking to skin, particularly when you get it on fingers and then use fingers to think with.  You end up permanently stuck in thought mode with your finger on your temple.

r. You will apply the superglue carefully along the slits and then immediately apply more medical tape over the top of them.  The superglue should basically start seeping through the tape and the tape lie flat on the slits cut radially into the speaker cone, and now the cone should be lying gently against the rim, and everything looking round on good again.

s. Wait a bit….that was tough… now to get breath back and think over the next step while the superglue sets.

t.  When the glue is set, take a breath, you will now have to get the superglue and go carefully right round the outside rim of the cone and glue it back onto the rim you originally cut through.  Put strips of medical tape on top just to help hold the glue together and give it something to bind to as well as the cut edges of the cone and the rim.

u. Wait a bit longer….. come back after lunch.

v. Check your success by carefully pushing down on the centre of the speaker cone.  You should now hear nothing since the cone will now be lined up with the voice coil magnet and also the rim.

w. It will look pretty ugly, so get some paint and go paint the whole speaker cone carefully, it will add a bit to the weight of the cone, but it will seal it against the weather and will seal over the medical tape patches and it will look ok to people who really like to see their speaker cones made up and looking good.

x. Wait till it dries, then put it carefully back into the enclosure, screw it down, reconnect the wires.. making sure they are all around the right way.  Put the back of the speaker cabinet back on, screwing it in place carefully.

y. Turn the patient over on its back, now reassure the tweeter that things are ok, then get the speaker wires from the amp and connect it up, switch on power.  Get a decent CD with a lot of good dynamic music on it.  Attach and gradually turn up the volume.

z. If you are feeling good again and the sound is clear across the range, and loud and no coughing sneezing or other ridiculous non-speaker sounds are being made, then you are done.  Back in business.

VOX on VOX off VOX on VOX off VOX on ! Ecoute !

On By cjx07sterIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
talking speaking voicing

VOX on : I tried talking, it seemed to work, all through my teenage years, and into adult hood, I spoke often, but I didn’t speak.  It was not megaphonic, it was headphonic.  Like the tinny sound in the little ear buds on wires long and white and now elegantly defined as style in an iPod.  Even my meagre words “I do” when I married, were not said loud and clear like I loved, which I did, but it didn’t sound anything but like an itune in an earbud. I continually tried to talk, but didn’t like the sound. It didn’t sound like the me I didn’t know yet.

VOX off: I tried silence, it seemed to work, knowing that the world would continue to spin ok, while I silently watched it, and listened intently for a place in which I could work silently carefully, waiting for a chance moment of fun to come.  Fun if it came would be fortunate and lucky.  The chance of  meeting people I could always chance on meeting people and I played a silent game of chance – drifting in the wind of voices not my own – hoping not to land on a rocky sharp oyster, or get mauled by a shark, or get attacked by crazy people.

VOX on : I tried speaking, it seemed to work, I had something to speak, easy like a dream, no power, no force, no action resultant, an obvious conclusion, even I didn’t believe presenting two sides of both arguments simultaneously, as though I on the one hand and the other had not decided you which side to take.  Like lukewarm washing up water, ok water, but not clear or of any importance.

VOX off: I tried emails, it seemed to work, I could type faster than anyone, and being translocated in Oz, out of time and space with the recipients it was convenient, and I could always sit back on the nice little magnetic electronic records of my meagre thoughts derived in response to the winds again.  Again the winds of other voices, cast ridiculously in email form for to claim a right to do bugger all.

VOX on: I tried conference calls, it seemed to work, I could call up many people who would dial in and I could speak apparently and tell people what I thought, since my thinking and figuring was better than any others could possibly have ever been of course.  Why would I ever have to listen. but people argued and lost their temper on calls, the disconnection of emotion and the lack of body language and other useful visual cues, and the imbalance of a lone voice talking to a group scattered round a table, laughing at the speaker phone uselessly transmitting a tiny earbud voice of insignificance, still proved how dumb it all was for those with no sight, no mind to share no heart to listen.

VOX off: I tried webex, it seemed to work, I could wrap up my thoughts in points of power, and then transmit down wires of speed to screens of light scattered around the world at night.  And talk to the points, one by one, while their attention was garnered between glasses of water on tables so far away.  In the morning after the night before would be emails again, showing almost no comprehension of anything that passed the night earlier.

VOX on: I learnt about voice, I had a great teacher, Shannon Dolan, she taught me about voice, I never heard of it before, till she told me what I was using was just a shadow of a voice, not a voice but an earbud of a thing, so now I learnt more about a voice.  A voice is what people want to hear.  Something higher and more powerful than talking or speaking, something strong and understanding of its own position, something inclusive of ideas, which defines a framework for inclusion by the listener, which give space by its loudness, which does not interrupt but listens., but when activated causes action by all.  Like the great actors, who have voice, the great orators, whose voice echoes still, if you have a voice, it is a gift you can use to bind people to action they believe in, it is a great gift and we all have one somewhere. We must practice its use, whether in whispering like a hummingbird, or laughing like a kookaburra, and make it nice for people to listen too, full of warmth and friendship, with strength of purpose. One purpose not two, one committed side of the argument, not both, and ditch emails, conference calls, and other kinds of pretend we use.

Cockatoo Conference Call

On By cjx07sterIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Cockies Concall

Its a whole perfect universe for the cockatoo.  I call the bird a kind of spirit bird, I never see baby cockatoos, I never see old ones.  They seem to live forever.  I know people who owned cockatoos through five human  generations or so. They all look the same, they make a stack of noise when they all fly in low together or sporadically to join each other, often in the same tree.

But why do they just all turn up one by one and sit in the tree for a bit, squawk to each other loudly, and then just take off… one by one again.. squawking as they go ? mate .. why ?

Well I guess they already know what they want to say, they just turn up and say it loud as they can.  I don’t know how any of them here anything the other is saying.

Do they look at each other ?

Nah.. they just sit there making a heap of noise, looking all the same in their white cockatoo suits, saying the same kind of things, and then leaving without as much as a see you later..

Right mate, guess you’re right there.

So what happens next day ?

Next day, same thing, same time, same tree, all of these cockatoos turn up dressed for a meeting or a conference of sorts, once again, some early some late, have a bit of a chat, a discussion, an argument then all leave again.  Nothing seems to get decided sometimes, and other times its as if it’s all a foregone conclusion mate…

Mate it is a conference call, same thing, you know, you get on the call, without so much as a by your leave, someone is talking, someing is joining, someone is leaving, and someone is saying something

Yep, and some of their lines only seem to work one way, like a vox mechanism. When someone is talking and just struggling to make a point, you know, keeps saying and this, and that, and, but anyway, you cannot interrupt. We all like to interrupt and make out points which just go into thin air, everyone else can hear us, except the person talking.

So yeah, cockatoos meeting is like the modern day conference call.  We all look the same, since we can’t see each other, we all turn up in our suits and leave at will, and what we say, kind of just repeats.  We turn up again the next day and say the same things again.

Oh Sure, we are definitely making progress.  But I think the conference calls just make it so we all feel ok about what we are doing, and we are all just on the same team, and we got a chance to say we still exist, got a chance to raise our voices a bit, and maybe somehow it all sinks in.  Of course the calls for us humans are more complex, spanning multiple time zones, cultures, sleep patterns, and emotions.

But it’s a whole perfect universe for the cockatoo, lives for almost ever, moves from tree to tree, calling as it goes, forming and disforming meetings, deciding on the future, then abandoning it for a nice crab apple, making a mess of it, and then moving on.
Photo: Kates Photo Diary with permission

Michaelangelo’s Teleporter – Leaf 3 Rome and Kaohsiung

On By cjx07sterIn Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Leaf 3…

“Ferodo, look out !” said Alynn, as Ferodo, distracted, lurched across the road.  The car braked, Ferodo saw the car, and the driver in a black leather jacket – finger up – and with his head out of the window yelling in italian as he screamed away.  Ferodo saw the street and the car with extreme clarity and just got himself together when his cellphone rang.  He fumbled all through his coat, and got the phone. Green button ok, “Yes” said Ferodo. “Nin Hao Mr Ferodo” said the voice on the phone. “Someone from Taiwan” said Ferodo, “Taiwan !” said Alynn, “Get off the road” she screamed again.  “OK OK” said Ferodo jumping back on the curb. “Keep it cool”.

As Ferodo got back on the curb, the Taiwanese concierge at the grand hotel Kaosiung was on the phone, to let him know that his limo he had ordered earlier that day had arrived and he should come down to the lobby now.

Suddenly Ferodo found himself not on the curb but in the Hotel in Kaosiung. In his room, no Alynn, no Rome, and on his cell phone to the concierge.  The red light flashing on his room phone.

The fire alarm suddenly went off in the room.  He shut the cellphone, dived for the door, mainly to escape the incessant alarm.  He couldn’t smell any smoke decided on eight flights of stairs rather than the elevator. Started down and ended up in the lobby.

There in the lobby was a mild form of panic, people in pyjamas, t-shirts, suits, and other forms of dress.  All were heading for the lobby doors, themselves opening and closing at random.

Sir, Sir, don’t worry.  False alarm. You wait here a minute.” said a uniformed person with a hat.

It looked dark outside.  Ferodo looked at his watch, he really had no memory now of his short time in Rome.  It was as if he had dreamt it.  Where was Alynn ? . he thought briefly.

He walked out of the lobby, down the stairs onto the main drag of Kaohsiung.  “Forget the limo” he told the concierge as he walked out. “Cancel please”.

It was cold, but he needed to clear his head.  Fading memories of this afternoon and Rome and now a pretend fire in the hotel.  A bit much really.

Not over yet. He walked down the street, and as he wandered down he turned into a deserted street down by the water.  There was no one to be seen, the street was deserted.  It got gradually lighter.  He called into a nearby cafe and ordered a drink.  “Lotus Root” he said. “San Yuan” said the vendor – an attractive girl who smiled at him.  It got dark again.  He walked out into the street.  It got lighter and noisier and he ended up inside a restroom in a restaurant in Rome.  He did have a drink in his hand, but it was not Lotus Root, or flower tea for that matter.  It was a chinotto, in a small bottle.  He was totally alone in the restroom, but then a loud banging on the door, took his attention.. “Ferodo ?” “You in there ?”.. – sounded like Alynn he thought.

This story to be continued, based on the conjunction of the uncertainty principle, so elegantly captured in Ashley’s photograph above, and the contraction of time within the skylight of the church of Angels and Martyrs in Rome.

To be continued from these notes.. CJS