The Doc wasn't sure if I was convinced by the extensive driver and cabinet mods he proposes and I don't think he'd disagree that many manufacturers making large batches of speakers just wouldn't spend the time doing it, hence ever intrusive passive crossovers to attempt to do the same job quickly and labour-cheaply. He lent me his converted 'B&W's,' the only original part left being the original cabinet shells, all else being chucked out.
Initial listening was spoiled by my recurrent issue of my left-ear being gummed up - what now seems to be a life-condition as it never fully goes away for very long. I discovered a tweeter wasn't working, but that was soon fixed with a soldering iron and gluing the tweeter back in, making a good seal all round. Once this was done, I left them on the radio for a few hours to settle in. Speakers aren't supposed to settle in as the suspensions are claimed to permanently deform into operating conditions on the first few cone-excursions, but this doesn't explain why so many speakers I've owned and demonstrated, like some use out of the box... There's no use here mentioning the original speaker here as only the raw carcass remains, but this carcass is quite thick chipboard, which the Doc has sealed off at the back and VERY heavily steel-plated and sealed up further inside, the replacement drive units then thoroughly glued in with Bison. The original grey baffles also have a coat of something on them (plastidip?).
Anyway, what follows is basic first impressions after a few hours of use. First, the tonal balance isn't as 'wild' as I suspected it might be. It's certainly a bit towards a 'monitor' balance, BUT - with absolutely NO screech or hardness added, unlike a couple of AVI passives I had here a few years ago (Pro Nines and N5's which sounded more like Kans than Kans did from memory
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon/eek.gif)
![Very Happy :grin:](./images/smilies/icon/biggrin.gif)
Like I said, initial impressions and I already had some dearly loved old classics up here (early 70's IMF's which come close along this road (well doped paper cone drivers) despite having lagged boxes, a port and a simple crossover (inductor to roll the bass driver out early, caps and resistor on the mid driver loading and a single cap on the tweeter which I upgraded to benefit). The Doc-rodded replacements have dropped right in and opened the window a little more - actually the extent of the opened window is changing as I listen more.
I can add more if anyone's interested later on. The way it's going, the Doc will have to come and forcibly collect these, as I don't think I'm going to want to lose them from here.
To finish for now, may I say that it may not be worth taking say, a pair of shitty Missions and doping the hell out of cheaply sourced crap drive units. Better to ditch all the internals and start from scratch. The Doc Mods drivers seem really good in raw form, let alone after he's been at them and the Visaton tweeter really does sweeten delightfully after a good few hours of use in this application with resistor and cap feeding them.
Thanks to the Doc for the loan. I hope you won't want them back too soon
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon/wink.gif)