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Sansui SP-30 Speakers
These followed me home from an estate sale today:
I bought them because the cabinets are in really good shape and was thinking I could reuse them.
I listened to them for a while tonight. When they were out in the room they sounded very thin and bright, they sounded much better after I placed them up against the wall. Overall they don't sound too bad, a little light in the bass and maybe still a little bright, but not terrible.
I am still leaning towards repurposing the cabinets, what do you all think?
Comments
You can rebuild them and make them better.
Just do it.
Sure Looks ripe for a classic 3 way.
But before you repurpose them, are you able to measure them?
I read that interview that someone kindly linked re: Bob Gault/Eminence. My takeaway was that it’s remarkable what that those achievements were made prior to the days of computer software modelling. The most he ever used was a calculator! Thiele/Small Parameters hadn’t even been discovered yet, and musicians and engineers and physics majors were going by ear (or trial and error) alone!
This is probably the same vintage (1960s design). A classic whose info could be added to:
https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sansui/sp-30.shtml
I'd give them some more listening time, the drivers may be a little stiff from minimal use over the years.
This is how my pair measure:
I have decided that I am going to repurpose the cabinets, just need to come up with a plan.
Are these ^ graphs of two different speakers with two different scales applied?
They do lack bottom-end for sure so re-purposing them looks like a good idea.
Two different speakers, same scale, but centered in the window differently.
They certainly lack bottom end.
You could always use them as MT's with a sub and EQ them flatter . . .
Those cabs are nice - definitely worth some new drivers and XO's.
These will probably end up in our spare bedroom listening space. It is not set up for a sub in there, with no current plans to do so.
The cabs are very nice, that's why I couldn't pass them up.
I came up with my plan for these.
Since they are a 6-1/2" paper cone woofer with a waveguide tweeter, I am going to stick to that formula.
Woofer is going to be the Dayton DC160-8. I have a pair of these on hand and they are a bolt-in. The mounting holes actually line up and I can even use the existing mounting hardware. Gross volume on the cabinets is around 15l/.5 cu ft, so F3 will be somewhere in the low 40s.
Going use the Dayton ND25FW waveguide tweeter.
The cabinet walls are 1/2" plywood, so I am going to add some internal braces and may or may not glue in some 1/4 mdf to increase the thickness of some of the panels. Probably just going to do braces though.
I'd just add some extra bracing. Adding 1/4" MDF isn't worth the effort IMO.
+1 for ^
Some teardown pictures.
Tweeter and crossover (the woofer was run full range):
It looks like they found a use for the woofer cutout scraps:
back panel:
Did you see the thread I made regarding the pair of Sansui's my neighbor gifted me?
...and you gifted me.😉
Just searched for it, definitely a family resemblance
After removing the drivers, I noticed that the baffle is made from 9mm plywood. Then I took another look at the back panel and it is made from 9mm too.
I built new cabinets for my wife's cousins Sansui SP-1200. Pain in the ass. Water damage. One had a bad woofer, and the replacement he bought was bad so he had to buy another one. SQ wise they were garbage, I convinced him to let me build him a pair of the Le Singe Sarcophage and he was absolutely floored.
This is a cool re-purpose project and should be light years improved over the original complement.
I have always had a pair of monkey coffins in the back of my mind. I have no space for them, don't know what I would do with them, but I want to build a pair.
Thinking 12" GRS Poly woofer (or the subwoofer if it works OK in a little bit smaller box), 6 1/2 GRS poly for the mid and not sure about the tweeter.
I could build a pair of the Le Singe Sarcophage, but I kinda want to roll my own.
But that's a project for another day.
I like the Dayton Designer Series tweeter for an inexpensive option. The GRS 1" dome is also solid for the money. I used it in the Cabrini Redux project. The GRS 6.5" poly woofer is outstanding IMHO. I think you could make a killer coffin using the 12" poly woofer, the 6.5, and the Dayton tweeter.
Tweeters got delivered today, so I have made some progress.
The original speaker had the tweeter centered on an "X" on the speaker grill like this:
I did some measuring with another speaker I have, that has a small waveguide tweeter, while I was waiting for the tweeters to show up. It looked like the tweeter response was better with the tweeter centered on an opening in the grill rather than the "X".
So I wanted to test this out with the tweeters that I am going to use.
I cut a scrap of 3/4" shelf board to fit in the recessed portion of the baffle and routed out the tweeter recess. This will also serve as my template for routing the tweeter hole in the baffle:
I then took measurements with the grill in both positions to see which looked better:
The response looks a little better with the tweeter centered on an opening, so I am going to move the tweeter 3/4" closer to the woofer, centering the tweeter in an opening in the grill. That will leave about 1/2" between the tweeter flange and woofer cutout.
Next steps:
Routing tweeter hole in baffle
Plug port hole in baffle
Bracing
Install port in rear panel
Then I will do my measurements.
I love to see the guts of old audio stuff. So is that a coil thats wrapped around the backside of the tweeter?
It's not really wrapped around the tweeter, but it is sized to fit in a recess on the back side and glued in. If that makes sense.
Comparison of the tweeter with and without the grill in place:
Yeah, the grills really ass things up, but they look so cool! ...and who cares when you're just hanging out with some Grand Funk jamming!
I don't think that it is that bad, not great, but not completely horrible.....
Grand Funk, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, bring it on....
Made a little progress on these.
Plugged the port on the baffle and routed out for the tweeter
Pretty much done with the bracing
Ports installed on the rear panels
Just need to install the drivers and will be ready for measurements.
Never said it was "horribly unlistenable" but in the grand scheme of all things hifi, it asses things up. It doesn't matter when the MC5 are kicking out the jams.
My whole upbringing was rock/jazz music played through SP1000's Nothing wrong at all with those grills under the right circumstances.
Drivers are installed.
Took some measurements (with the grill on):
Stumbled around in PCD and came up with this:
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Looks light on the BSC