Philips 484 repair

[djrm]

I aquired these Philips 484 speakers with rotten roll surrounds a while back.
Last week I finally got them restored to working condition.
They sound much better than the smaller Kefs I've been using recently.
   
   
I bought the new surrounds and glue as a kit from a specialist shop in Holland, they are stuck to the cones and frame with a kind of special glue, a bit like bicycle inner tube repair solution. I think some people use a kind of PVA as an alternative.
The surrounds were fixed to the cones on one day, and then the surrounds to the frame the next day.
I fed a tone into them before the glue set to check they were properly centered but there was no problem of the cones rubbing the magnets, the coil spiders held them niceley in the middle without problems. I had had the glue for a couple of years, it had dried into a lump of rubber, I had to buy some more to do the job.
I'd put it off for far too long thinking it would be very difficult to get right, in the end it was quite easy. lots of advise on utube. there was no need to remove the speaker center covers. using some sticks to keep the cones away from the frame was a handy tip to help get the final glue in place before joining the two parts together.
Kind regards, David.

[Mark Hennessy]

Nice

Like most things they did, Philips were pretty good at hi-fi, though their speakers didn't really get much recognition in the UK hi-fi press.

Woofers generally have fairly generous gaps, so the risk of rubbing is reasonably low. It's more tricky with a smaller driver, like that midrange unit. I know from experience that removing a dust cover and glueing it back on again can change the way a unit measures and sounds, especially if it's a plastic dust cover intended to extend the top end, so it's actually quite tricky to balance the risks when deciding if it's worth shimming the voice coil.

[valvekits]

That looks very tidy.

Did you have any trouble removing the rotten surrounds, or did the old stuff just peel away easily?

Eddie

[djrm]

Hi Eddie, most of the old surround just crumbled away, I removed the remainder with meths and scraping with a knife. Some was left on the cone as I didnt want to damage it.
The old surround was fixed to the inside of the cone, the instructions supplied said to fix the new surround to the outside, so that is what I did.
To ensure I got the surround concentric with the cone I penciled some lines on the cone to aid alignment.
Kind regards, David.