Decca Sound System Speakers

[ropie]

I found these in a local second hand shop for a tenner. I tested them in the shop and they sounded a bit 'buzzy' but actually quite nice. They are fairly well made and quite heavy for the size, and they look OK in a 70s way (if you like brown veneer)..





As suspected, the foam driver surrounds have completely perished so I've ordered a new set.





To be continued...

[g8ina]

L12 IIRC. I used to repair these when I worked at Decca at Bridgnorth. Stanmore Camp, just up the hill from the main factory is where the UK main repair centre was.

TBH the speakers were complete rubbish. I often had to discard several replacement drivers before finding a good one

[ropie]

Interesting

Well, they're for my mum. I played her old vinyl copy of Dire Straits Love Over Gold through them and was pretty amazed how good they sounded even with the buzzing. She actually came in to tell me to turn it down! I think they wil be more than good enough for her

[analogadikt]

Full range drivers ( wide band for some) with AlNiCo magnets. Holy grail for some audiophiles. Who actually made the drivers?

If you notice the famous "shout issue" that affects many FR drivers , there are work arounds for that . Please share how this goes.

Regards,

Anwesh

[g8ina]

Actually made by Decca at Bridgnorth. I made some degaussing coils for the department back in the early 70s when I was an apprentice working in TI (test instruments) department.

Joe Ackroyd worked there for a while IIRC, later to be Royd ....

[ropie]

Finally got around to re-foaming these drivers, using a nice little kit from North Speaker Parts. Took me about an hour to clean off the old rubber and glue, and apply the new glue and stick the foams in place.

One of the drivers before cleaning and re-foaming:


Cleaned up as best as I could:


Both drivers now re-foamed and drying:

Who actually made the drivers?

Mine are date stamped Jul 1970 and Oct 1971 - could be a pair of yours, David?

[g8ina]

wow great job !! Mot mine, I would have been a bit later at Stanmore, about 1974/5

[gninnam]

Looking good - refoamed many drivers over the years and always satisfying when they actually work after all that graft

[GP49]

Looking good - refoamed many drivers over the years and always satisfying when they actually work after all that graft

I refoamed hundreds when I was in the repair trade part-time.  Unless the voice coil was already damaged by rubbing while off-centered, I never had a failure...not one.  Most of the time I did not even remove the dustcap and shim the assembly.

A couple of months ago I got a pair of Boston Acoustics A40s, free, with rotted surrounds.  I still had some leftover surrounds and did them after not having touched one in many years.  They came out beautifully and are a reminder of how well-voiced those little boxes were, back when they were designed more than 40 years ago.

Boston Acoustics shipped later production of an A40 successor with butyl surrounds, which are more durable.  But even before that I had noted that my business in replacing foam woofer surrounds was declining.  The reason: the discontinuance of carpet manufacturers' use of formaldehyde, which deteriorated the foam.  The formaldehyde also evaporated from old carpeting over a period of several years.