REVITALIZE YOUR OLD AUDIO SYSTEM

Many longtime “audio lovers” have kept some of their old equipment for decades.... I am no exception. I had been hauling equipment, CDs, vinyl and tapes from one place to another during several moves. My longtime friend and I had recorded our “band” on a 4 track reel to reel and we still had several tapes. However, neither of us had a reel to reel player anymore so last year I bought a TASCAM 44 OB 4 track reel to reel machine. I really enjoy listening to those old tapes that sound like they were recorded yesterday. But now the “retro bug” bit me hard. Although I have a modern home theater system, I wanted to go back and use some equipment that I bought over 30 years ago for simple stereo listening.

Re-foaming the Woofers Was Pretty Straight Forward.

I actually had to use the 10" Infinity surround kit from Parts Express because it fit these cones better than the general-purpose kit. The 31-year-old Maestro cabinets were in bad shape. The pecan wood panels were worn and scratched, the old veneer was pretty scuffed up and the grills were faded and stained. I removed the pecan panels for refinishing, sanded them down and applied three coats of Minwax Sedona Red 222 and three coats of clear gloss poly for finish.

I Decided to Leave the Original Veneer in Place and Apply the New Veneer to the Top of It. This Gave a Nice Clean Surface to Adhere to and the Result Is a Nice, Deep New Finish. I Trimmed the Edges With a Flush Trim Bit and a Router.

I scraped off the remaining rotted foam from the front baffle and wiped off as much of the adhesive as I could using an adhesive remover. I chose to replace this using our 3/8" thick grill foam which was applied with High Strength 90 spray adhesive. I taped off the edges and grill guides before applying the glue, then stuck the whole sheet of foam to the baffle and trimmed it to size using a straight edge and razor blade. I replaced the grill cloth with our premium black cloth and used hot glue to apply it to the grill frames. This new black cloth gave a modern appearance to the vintage cabinets.

The Crossovers Are the Original Design But Use Upgraded Components.

I could have reused the original terminal cups, but decided to replace them with newer binding posts mounted to a small piece of wood from inside the cabinet.

Downloads

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Needless to Say We Were Both Extremely Happy With the Beautiful Results!

The frequency response was as good as the original. This is a case where they look like they sound great…and they really DO sound great! To complete my retro - modern system, I bought a TEAC cherry turntable at Parts Express (248-516) to play all of my vinyl. I expect to get another 30 years of listening pleasure from my revamped stereo system.