ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
A good friend gave me his pair of Beovox MS150 as he was moving out to a smaller flat. I’ve used them for several years without any attempt to restoration, as they were in overall good condition, besides one of the woofers teared and caps needed to be replaced… Now I would like to try bringing them to their best possible condition.
I opened the speakers and I noticed that all the woofers are replaced by some newer ones of an unknown French brand (Sphynx Audio System) which looks good and sounds nice but I don’t think that they do justice to the speakers. I don’t want to spend time and resources to fix and refoam them.
1. I guess it will be pretty difficult to find an original pair of 8” midrange (part 8480149) and a pair of 10” woofers (part 8480150) with a reasonable price. In the absence of the original ones, which brand and model available on market today would be the closest alternative to the original? I’ve found some speakers matching in size but as I don’t know any technical details of the original speakers so that is too much of guesswork to sound match.
2. I find some S45/S45.2 speakers on sale. They have an 8” woofer matching in size although it’s not exactly the same model. Can someone compare these two woofers? If I install an S45 woofer on MS150, how would be the result? Would it be closer to the original, so better than a brand-new one?
3. I know that M150 and MS150 has the same 8” woofer. Which other models of beovox can I look for on sale for pieces?
I’ve already read all the MS150 / M150 repair threads on the forum, especially the sonavor’s MS150 Project. It was all really informative. Thank you all for your participation.
Here’s an update:
I was lucky to find a pair of original MC120.2 mid-range woofers which are identical to MS150 and refoamed them. I recapped the crossovers with a kit from Beoparts-shop.
I re-veneered the cabinets with oak wood, because the original rosewood veneer was pretty beaten up. I finished them with dark oil to color-match the hardwood floor. I also wall-mounted them with big adjustable wall-mounts.
As for the 10” woofers: I think it will be much more difficult to find the original ones with a reasonable price. The only models which featured these drivers were MS150 and MS150.2. So, after some guesswork, I bought a pair of Peerless Tymphany SLS-P830668 drivers.
http://www.loudspeakerdatabase.com/Peerless/SLS-P830668
Here’s my feedback on these drivers:
- The diameter of the woofer is a perfect match to use with the original beige gaskets.
- The depth of the woofer is about 1cm too deep. So, it touches and put some pressure on the cardboard tube behind. I had to slightly bend the tube backwards.
- According to B&O, these speakers should have a frequency range from as low as 30 Hz and the crossover is at 150hz. This replacement driver is surely capable of delivering that.
- After some subjective listening tests, I found that even the sound is wide, clean and detailed, the speakers lack some bass response. Surely, the primary reason for this is that I prefer listening at low volume in a room with less-than-ideal acoustics. But even taking in consideration that and adjusting the amplifier output, I’m not perfectly happy with the bass balance. So, after some more research, I found that B&O rated their speaker sensibility at 2.5W, which should correspond to 92 dB according to a thread on this forum. These replacement speakers are rated 87.5dB, so if the original woofers were at the same sensibility between them, these replacements are fairly less sensitive. That may explain the lacking bass response.
Does anyone have a similar experience with replacement woofers? Anyone with some more information on the original specs of the 10” woofers so that I can get better replacements?