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
While delaying the completion of the Beomaster 6000 project (I have been recapping some other amplifiers before diving into the volume motor repair), I came across these Beovox MS150 speakers that are in need of restoration. The MS150 speakers have been on my radar for a while now but this was my first chance to get a pair and they were within driving distance (for me) to pick up...so no shipping.
As you can see, the 8 inch and 10 inch drivers need new foam surrounds. That is to be expected. I haven't opened them up to check the crossovers yet but I am figuring I will be replacing those capacitors as well. The real issue I will have is the top grill covers. Both speakers are missing those. Even without them I had to buy these speakers. If anyone has any spare top grill covers please let me know.
I am also trying to decide the best place to order surrounds. I have bought surrounds off Ebay for several of my CX100, CX50, S55, S120.2 and RL140 speakers. All of those refoam projects came out great. I imagine the same surrounds for the S120.2 8 inch driver should also work for the MS150. I will see if that company also supplies the 10 inch surrounds.
In any case, parts will have to be ordered so it will be a couple weeks before I can really get started.
...with the grill covers (no top cover)
Wonderful speakers, the top covers are not too difficult to make, the challenge is to find the aluminum profile, I would try with a 3 Mm. black plexi (perspex) route to fit the alu profile, glue front to top angle, glue fabric and attach aluminum profile.
BTW where do you buy the surrounds ?
Collecting Vintage B&O is not a hobby, its a lifestyle.
I bought my surrounds for my other Beovox speakers off from Good HiFi. So far their surrounds have worked good for me.
sonavor: I bought my surrounds for my other Beovox speakers off from Good HiFi. So far their surrounds have worked good for me.
I tried with Good HiFi for 6.5" to RL 140, but he offered me totally wrong dimensions, lately I was mailing with Audiofriends, and he really knows what he is talking about, don't know if he is on US bay
When I had a pair of these, I had them reconed with a rubber surround. The sound was excellent - Recone Lab were so impressed they put them through their sound chamber - ruler flat response! They are the pair pictured here.
Peter
Nice find! Can't believe they use the same Phase links as are on my S-120's - they look tiny on these! Never heard a pair, but the wife would not allow them anywhere near the house due to size alone!
BTW have you got the stands?
Olly
Hi Soren is it not the other way round? I am sure Goodhifi is the better supplier - I got my RL140 surrounds off them including dustcaps and while I have not yet fitted they seem absolutely fine when offered up!
I have returned a couple of (quite different !) MS150 surrounds sold as a guaranteed fit to Good-Hifi as can beread somewhere in the archives.A third pair came in with a pair of speakers for repairs and being more than 1cm too big inner diameter (and stillguaranteed to fit!) they were thrown out.Only use Good-Hifi if you have better luck than I.
Martin
I am surprised tbh. I am sure my s120 foams came from them, which were a good fit, and like said I have RL140 and forgot to mention penta foams that I have yet to do, but checked all carefully and they look pretty faithful to the originals!
The one thing that puts me off audiofriends is the lack of on line shop where you can see that they have a specific foam for a specific driver, not too keen on sending them dimensions and not knowing exactly what I am going to get back! Also they don't appear to sell dustcaps which obviously given some drivers is essential!
I must check out the archived forums and see what other peoples experiences are over the long term!
Step1: Hi Soren is it not the other way round? I am sure Goodhifi is the better supplier - I got my RL140 surrounds off them including dustcaps and while I have not yet fitted they seem absolutely fine when offered up!
I have only had mailing contact with Good HiFi, I asked for 6.5" for 140s, he gave me an offer for a surround type about 15 Mm smaller OD than the original, I responded to him that they would be too small and never heard from him again, with Fred from AF I've had long discussions about speaker repair and constructions, Fred knows what he is doing, and wont sell you anything before he has the exact dimensions from you.
Step1:The one thing that puts me off audiofriends is the lack of on line shop where you can see that they have a specific foam for a specific driver
AFs webshop is a mess, but if you go by dimensions you will find it there, Fred is aware of this and working on it. Just mail him speaker type, which driver, ID, OD and cone D, he will then find the right one.
I have refoamed my MS150 speakers using Goodhifis foam rings. Seems I was lucky as they were a great fit. But the job was a pain in the anyway. These speakers are incredibly heavy and the front covers are tacky and difficult to lift off after all that years. also there is a some kind of coating on the plastic front frame that detoriates and gets sticky as well, at least on mine. did some of you experience the same?
also, I think goodhifis rings differ in quality all the time, the foam rings for the CX range never look the same when I order, sometimes they are light grey, next time dark grey, and the size differs as well, sometimes smaller, then bigger. but their rubber rings for the Lab 6000 range are always the same excellent quality.
Welcome to the world of MS150's.
They are total beasts & a real physical effort to work on. I completely refurbished a pair a few years ago & are the only speakers I have worked on where I only had the space & energy to do one at a time!
I needed a wide flat crowbar to seperate the fronts from the cabinets, they were stuck that tightly.
They turned out beautiful though (my words - not the wifes) and are now with a really nice chap in Ireland who has fallen out with his neighbours
Chris.
Congratulations with your purchase, always happy to see another MS150 owner (though I wouldn't like to be your neighbour)
Vinyl records, cassettes, open reel, valve amplifiers and film photography.
I don't have stands that say MS150 on them but last year (in the anticipation of finding some of the larger Beovox speakers) I picked up a pair of M100 stands. They look like they will fit and be sturdy enough. What do you think?
sonavor: I don't have stands that say MS150 on them but last year (in the anticipation of finding some of the larger Beovox speakers) I picked up a pair of M100 stands. They look like they will fit and be sturdy enough. What do you think?
They'll do, and you have height adjust, just check the hole distance, I made some for my S45s and as far as I remember the hole distance is the same in all these types of speakers. Good looking stands. will have to paint mine in the same color, will look better with the rosewood, mine are light gray.
I removed the fronts to look inside today. Here is a picture of the first one. It wasn't hard to remove the front. Someone had done that before in the past. The screws holding the front on were not original. They looked like sheetrock screws. I was worried what I would find inside but the inside looked okay (the first and second speaker looked the same). There were some paper towels wadded up inside and it looks like someone must have added some glue under the front supports where the cover screws in to. Maybe there was a vibration they were trying to fix?
Here is the underside of the front cover
Here is the crossover. There is some white silicone glue around a couple of the inductors that looks added. The original glue is darker as you can see. That might be the reason the cover was opened too. The case itself doesn't look repaired. Just some inside work was done.
The bottom of both speakers have duct tape that was holding a screen in place over the sub woofer port....maybe to keep varmits out? There are marks on the backs of each speaker that I can tell are from the B&O stands so these speakers started out life on stands. Maybe when they were removed from the stands someone wanted to protect the ports from mice...not a modification I want to keep.
Gotta wonder what happened here. The circular housing for the tweeter and mid drivers has a really nasty scratch. It indents into the plastic. Lucky whatever did that missed the drivers! I wonder if I should attempt to fix the scratches. Without a top grill the scratches will be visible. Not critical for the sound of the speakers of course but I want the end result to look as good as possible. Sanding the damage could make the problem look worse though.
This is a picture of the crossover from the other MS150. That speaker appears to have the original screws and the inside looks untouched. Note that the inductors on this crossover don't have any of the white silicone glue...just the original brownish glue.
Finally, for this round of pictures, here is the second speaker's sub woofer. The other pictures of the second speaker were pretty much the same as the first one. So I think something was loose on the first speaker and someone tried to fix it. I am still checking on which foam surrounds to go with. It seems like the two usual suppliers have good and less than good reviews.
sonavor: Finally, for this round of pictures, here is the second speaker's sub woofer. The other pictures of the second speaker were pretty much the same as the first one. So I think something was loose on the first speaker and someone tried to fix it. I am still checking on which foam surrounds to go with. It seems like the two usual suppliers have good and less than good reviews.
John, Is that a cone rest we see in the pic ??
The big tube in the last picture? It is over the 8 inch (mid woofer) driver. It is filled with white sound dampening material. So the design was to kill the backside sound of the smaller woofer and port the 10 inch sub out the bottom of the speaker (through another tube.
I decided to order the 8 inch and 10 inch surrounds from Good HiFi. The surrounds I have received from them in my last few speaker repairs have worked out well so I figure I should stick with what has worked for me. I'll post pictures when I get the surrounds. Now I need to start cleaning up the MS150s and checking the crossover components.
First time I've seen that type of damping material in a Beovox speaker (white). Even my CX50's had that low density gray stuff that I hate so much (found also in my M70's, S45-2's, and S40's).
The rubber stops on the M100 are mounted on the speakers rather than the stands. You will need to take this into account.
sonavor: Gotta wonder what happened here. The circular housing for the tweeter and mid drivers has a really nasty scratch. It indents into the plastic. Lucky whatever did that missed the drivers! I wonder if I should attempt to fix the scratches. Without a top grill the scratches will be visible. Not critical for the sound of the speakers of course but I want the end result to look as good as possible. Sanding the damage could make the problem look worse though.
I would be tempted to do something about the mark - ideally fill it cleanup then overspray but not sure if you would get the original finish... It does look like the same molding as the S-120 etc. so I don't think you will struggle too much for a spare...?
Oh regards the lack of front panels - I know it is nice to have a complete set but IMO these speakers look so much better without anyway - and they are a pain to store without getting damaged too!
Going over the scratched area with my hand, it isn't as deep as I originally thought. It is more of a scrape. I think the first thing is to try and carefully clean it up - just hitting the scraped area. Matching the black paint it would help conceal it somewhat. I haven't seen any S120 or M150 series speakers parted out so I don't like my odds for that option. If you come across one however, that would be a good option.
I see what you mean about the stands and the rubber stops. The M100 stands don't have a hole for the rubber stops like some of the other B&O stands. I'll have to mount a rubber block on the stand where the speaker will rest.
Thanks for noting that.
Wow, the Good HiFi surrounds and the crossover parts from Dillen both arrived today. That was faster than I expected as I haven't started to prepare the drivers. Here is a picture of the new parts.
Looks Good :)
Thanks.
Starting with the 8 inch woofer on one of the MS150's. Here is a picture of the woofer removed. I should have included the mounting hardward in the picture but I'll show it later on the re-install. This picture shows the driver, the rubber gasket (re-usable) and the outer frame ring. The parts separated by carefully applying pressure...pulling on the driver chassis while pushing the outer frame ring. The rubber gasket held it snug but released fairly easy.
This picture shows preparing the 8 inch woofer for refoaming. You can see a lot of debris from the old foam surround and glue. It is important to get it all really clean prior to opening the dust cover (if you are going to shim). Otherwise, small pieces of debris can fall into the voice coil. I am planning on using shims for this project. It will be my first time using the shim method. So far I have been lucky in that my previous refoam projects (3 pairs of CX-100, 1 pair of CX-50, 1 pair of S55, 1 pair of S120.2 and 1 pair of RL140) all turned out great without using shims. The RL140 woofers were the most difficult. The tolerance is really tight. I used a very low voltage on my frequency generator to sweep a 20Hz to 100Hz signal as I attached the surround to make sure there was no rubbing. The S120.2 woofer (same 8 inch driver it appears as the MS150) was the easiest to refoam. However, after reading several posts on Beoworld on the speaker refoam subject and seeing some of the good pictures posted of performing the shim method, I think it is time to try that method. I can see that, at the very least, it takes the guess work out of the process. I just didn't want to risk anything falling into the voicecoil while I was working. But it is time to try it and I will be careful.
I am going to clean up all four MS150 woofers before refoaming any of them. I like getting all of the dirty work out of the way so I can get one step completely out of the way before going on to the next.
sonavor:I am going to clean up all four MS150 woofers before refoaming any of them. I like getting all of the dirty work out of the way so I can get one step completely out of the way before going on to the next.
I like that, nice and clean, now glue the foam to the cone, before you cut the dust cap, and start shimming.
I am working on cleaning up the other three bass drivers right now. Tomorrow I will pick up some different thicknesses of plastic (acetate I believe it is called) for the shim process. I will have to be extra careful on cutting the dust cap on the 8 inch drivers because there are two leads going underneath.
It looks like I will only get one set of 8 inch and 10 inch drivers cleaned up today. The 10 inch driver was more work to clean and prepare than the 8 inch driver. Here is a picture of the 10 inch driver after removing it from the enclosure. The 8 inch driver is actually heavier than than this 10 inch driver.