Extracting mid-bass drivers in my wd25T

[VantheMan]

My woofers won’t budge. Stuck is stuck. Any ideas ?

[bob orbell]

Try offering them some tasty food, that should get them moving, how many do you have ? and what breed are they? Bob

[VantheMan]

Hi Bob, Only the pair of Seas AR26 in my WD25TEx. But they are both very obstinate. I reckon it´s that black Arboseal gunge that Peter talked us into using around the magnet and I went overboard. My plan is to modify the vertical brace that a little bird has told me might be more skeletal/ holey to stop rear pressure from bouncing straight back to the cone instead of going to the rear inside wall and being spirited away by the stuffing. There´s something to think about over Christmas.

[bob orbell]

Sorry for the fun comment, my only suggestion would be gentle leverage, you could try some plastic cycle tyre levers with a support on the cabinet face, I am sure once the driver begins to move it will become less painful. Bob

[VantheMan]

Having removed the screws, I have now got 6 extractor bolts fitted and evry now and again I give them a half turn as in cylinder heads so as not to warp things.. maybe by Epiphany (jan. 6th) something might pop.

[VantheMan]

Well, I managed to extract my woofers only to discover my special aperiodic foam to,cover the entrance to the lower compartment has just crumbled away. Doubtless due to the all round ambient temp here(20 degrees C all year round).So I need to find a natural substitute - any brainwaves ?

[VantheMan]

I’ll carry onrambling about my wd25T experiences, if anyone is interested: After a forum member (Stefi) mentioned on here his idea that the main brace in these speakers might be a bit too close to the woofer and thereby unwanted rebound waves be affecting its linearity, I got in touch with him. His being much more experienced in building speakers and tuning crossovers than I am (not difficult) I have left the moretheoretical crossover work to him and after discovering that my aperiodic vent foam was non existent having crumbled away (as has Stefi’s) I set about the more menial task of drilling out 2 more 63mm diameter holes in my main brace on either side of the central hole prescribed in the original plans. Yes I didhold onto the discs I had cut out just in case they needed to be hastily glued back in place but it sounded quite promising and I decided togo ahead and so I set out sorting out the stuffing of my vent and boxes. My original stuffing was not as Peter had prescribed as I was late getting started and I never in fact bought a complete “kit”, having been given the Millennium tweeters and buying the woofers from Falcon. I used extra amounts of the Arboseal “gunge” to line the inner walls of my boxes and then acoustic felt on topand then some polyester stuff from Monacor here and there without any sort of direction. Bass had always seemed less than perfect regarding consistency so in for a penny…….. I had little to lose ……… to be continued

[VantheMan]

So, spurred on by extra detail and coherence caused by the mere drilling of 2 holes to make the main brace more skeletal, I took out the polyester wool and relined the front face of the brace, cutting out the new holes, and the rear wall of the boxes with some motorbike exhaust wadding (recommendedelsewhere as being better than rockwool or polyester on another forum) and left no loose stuffing and all began to sound considerably better, smoother and in a weird way it was as if power output had improved both in the highs and the bass, there being more presence at the extremes. Maybe I had been overzealous withthe polyester.
I also went to the bother of drilling a 10cms hole in the base of my speakers so as to be able to reach inside the lower compartment and pull out the polyester, substituting it with a smaallish , loose roll of the wadding held in place by, but not blocking, the hole in the lower brace nd then resealing the lower chamber with the wooden disc surrounded by glue and Arboseal to ensure no leaks.
My enjoyment of music with WD25Tex boxes has increased no end, greater clarity, smoothness but startling piano and violin tone and more info in general and I haven’t yet touched the crossovers. Stefi ( the originator of the idea of “skeletising the brace more ) has tried loads of mods there but returns basically to Peter’s original crossover so far although he does favour increasing the value of the 2.2 ohm . resistor as Peter suggested . We shall see but for now this one-eared “luddite” is fair chuffed with his more “holey” brace.
I can understand people not wishing to commit this heresy of messing about with Peter’s design so fair enough but I would urge those that question their bass response to check the foam that covers their aperiodic vents just to see if theirs has also crumbled away as had mine and Stefi’s - no idea why. At present Ihave substituted mine with a half thickness piece of exhaust wadding and it seems to work fine I know that the original plans specified an 80 ppsi foam for this but given the difficulty in obtaining it and its crumbly nature, I think a substitute needs investigating, after all the original A25s used an old sock or whatever.