Restoration Project

I have been repairing ESL's for about 5 years. Over this time I have collected a small quantitiy of spare parts that have been sitting in my roof doing nothing. So one day I decide that I might as well make some use of them and build a complete pair of speakers.

The first thing to do was look at what parts I had and what I would need. I very quickly realised that I had almost all the internal parts but the external parts were severely lacking. So I took a deep breath and ordered new grilles, new wooden side rails, new wooden feet and some new high voltage cable for inside the speaker. These parts alone ran to over Ł400.

The finished speakers would therefore have the following parts :

brand new front grilles (gold colour)
brand new wooden feet
brand new wooden side rails
brand new internal high voltage cable
brand new treble panel protection circuits
brand new high voltage power supplies
fully repaired and refurbished treble panels to Quads original specification
fully refurbished bass panels
fully refurbished audio crossover - upgraded to latest spec.
fully inspected and re-painted speaker frame
2 month burn in period (cause I want to enjoy them before I sell them)

So over Christmas 2001 I start working on refurbishing the parts for the inside of the first speaker. I start with the bass panels mostly because these require the least amount of work. The bass panels for the first speaker were in generally good condition but both of them had tears in the dust covers. The dust covers were removed. While inside the panel I was able to replace the internal high voltage cable and check the internal insulation. The dust covers had new film stuck on them and they were re-attached to the bass panels. Finally the panels were tested to make sure everything was in order.

Testing the bass panels (with a customers treble panel)

Coming next will be the first refurbished treble panel. I hope to start working on this during February 2002.

What I will end up with is a pair of speakers which will have all refurbished internal parts and brand new external parts. They promise to look and sound like new.

I will be making these speakers available for sale. At the moment I have a figure of Ł1500 in mind. This may seem a lot but in view of the high cost of the new parts and the amount of work I will be doing it is about right. Anyone who wants to make an offer and buy these speakers may do so.

PROGRESS UPDATES

14 Jan 2002 - bass panel testing for first speaker complete

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