I'm looking at maybe purchasing a set of PSB Image 2Bs for a small system (20 WPC) I have at my cabin. From what I've read, they were decent speakers for the money. I don't intend to use a sub with them.
I'm wondering if anyone here has tweaked/modified a set of these, what they did and what results they got.
One thing that could be done is replacing the tweeters with these: Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08-04 1" Silk Dome Neodymium Tweeter
Another thing might be to re-cap them. Which caps have people tried in a pair of these speakers? Noticeable improvement?
Of course, there's dampening and bracing too.
I'm wondering if anyone here has tweaked/modified a set of these, what they did and what results they got.
One thing that could be done is replacing the tweeters with these: Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08-04 1" Silk Dome Neodymium Tweeter
Another thing might be to re-cap them. Which caps have people tried in a pair of these speakers? Noticeable improvement?
Of course, there's dampening and bracing too.
The tweeters on the PSBs were known to fail and the Peerless by Tymphany (formerly Vifa) replacements are a direct replacement and reported by many reviewers to be superior to the originals at 1/4 or less the price of the replacements available from PSB.
I've purchased the speakers so now I'm going to see about modifying them before putting them into service. The caps on the crossovers are made by Hanlan and are 12 uF, 8uF and .5 uF. I intend to replace them with something newer and hopefully much higher quality. Any brand recommendations? I don't want to spend tons of money on them but I don't mind spending a little extra to get good quality. I'm looking for something then not real expensive but gives a good bang for the buck. Any recommendations?
I've purchased the speakers so now I'm going to see about modifying them before putting them into service. The caps on the crossovers are made by Hanlan and are 12 uF, 8uF and .5 uF. I intend to replace them with something newer and hopefully much higher quality. Any brand recommendations? I don't want to spend tons of money on them but I don't mind spending a little extra to get good quality. I'm looking for something then not real expensive but gives a good bang for the buck. Any recommendations?
From what I have read, the Vifa tweeter mentioned is physically identical but not acoustically identical (louder etc.). So it is not a direct replacement, it needs modifying the crossover. There is no a single measurement on the web to confirm the "direct replacement" assertion. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
It's true that the impedance rating on the Vifa tweeter is 8 ohms vs the 6 ohm rating on the stock tweeter so they are not "direct" replacements per se. I'm a little fuzzy in my understanding of impedance ratings and what they mean exactly but I can see how substituting the Vifa tweeter for the stock one could change the balance between the two drivers. That may be a good thing if the original design was a little weak in the high end but might be a bad thing if the original setup was close to optimal...
Since the system I'll be playing through those speakers is not exactly high end/audiophile quality, I probably won't be able to notice a huge amount of difference between the tweeters if I replace them so maybe I'd be better off leaving the tweeters as they are (given that they're both working okay) and putting some of the money saved towards getting some better capacitors for the XOs than I had planned. That might be where I'll get the biggest bang for the buck. Sound reasonable?
Yes, but bear in mind that although swapping the stock capacitors with more expensive models may change the sound, that may not be necessarily in a better way.
Why are you rushing to change the capacitors before you actually hear this loudspeakers? Maybe you will be absolutely satisfied with the sound of the unmodified PSB Image 2B?
Why are you rushing to change the capacitors before you actually hear this loudspeakers? Maybe you will be absolutely satisfied with the sound of the unmodified PSB Image 2B?
which is the right one? comment section talks psb replacement for both, very different specs but look identical.
the cheaper one specs almost an octave lower , but also 6db lower eff.
both 4ohm.
Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08-04 1" Silk Dome Neodymium Tweeter with Waveguide 4 Ohm
Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC06-04 1" Textile Dome Tweeter
the cheaper one specs almost an octave lower , but also 6db lower eff.
both 4ohm.
Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08-04 1" Silk Dome Neodymium Tweeter with Waveguide 4 Ohm
Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC06-04 1" Textile Dome Tweeter
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Good question. One of the people who made the swap mentioned in his comments adding a 1 or 2 ohm resistor to the tweeter to tone it down a bit and help it match up to the sub-woofer a bit better. I'm thinking I could buy the more expensive one along with a few resistors up to 2 ohms, try them out and go with the resistor that sounds best to my ears. I know that might seem like heresy
to some but they're only a $100 pair of speakers on a cheaper sound system so who cares if they're not "perfectly" balanced so long as they sound good to me playing the music I like to listen to? I'm not perfectly balanced either and at my age I'm damn sure what's left of my hearing is not either.Bumping old thread
@DangerBoy - whatever happened with this project of yours?
I've got a pair of the same speakers that I'm considering a recap fo. It's that or binning them - they're really scratchy & staticky. Did you end up changing yours?
I can't seem to find replacement caps at the right values (0.5uf, 8uf, and 12uf), all radial non polar electrolytics. Any experiences or ideas on where to source replacements from would be much appreciated.
(Fwiw, I'm just guessing that it's the caps, but I figure if I could get those cheap I might be able to rescue them.)
@DangerBoy - whatever happened with this project of yours?
I've got a pair of the same speakers that I'm considering a recap fo. It's that or binning them - they're really scratchy & staticky. Did you end up changing yours?
I can't seem to find replacement caps at the right values (0.5uf, 8uf, and 12uf), all radial non polar electrolytics. Any experiences or ideas on where to source replacements from would be much appreciated.
(Fwiw, I'm just guessing that it's the caps, but I figure if I could get those cheap I might be able to rescue them.)
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Bumping old thread
Well, I decided to give it a go with some "pretty close" capacitor values. The originals are in fact 12uf, 8uf and 1.5uf (not 0.5uf, like I put in the previous post).
I decided to go with cheap electrolytics - it looks like that's what's in there now, and I don't even definitively know that the caps are the problem, so I'm not willing to risk the cost of something fancy on them. They're on the slow boat from China, via eBay, now.
I'm now concerned I might've melted some insulation on one of the inductors when I was softening the copious hot glue that held them in place.... but that will be a problem for another day.
I'll update with what I find when the new caps come in and I've had a chance to see if they improve anything.
Well, I decided to give it a go with some "pretty close" capacitor values. The originals are in fact 12uf, 8uf and 1.5uf (not 0.5uf, like I put in the previous post).
I decided to go with cheap electrolytics - it looks like that's what's in there now, and I don't even definitively know that the caps are the problem, so I'm not willing to risk the cost of something fancy on them. They're on the slow boat from China, via eBay, now.
I'm now concerned I might've melted some insulation on one of the inductors when I was softening the copious hot glue that held them in place.... but that will be a problem for another day.
I'll update with what I find when the new caps come in and I've had a chance to see if they improve anything.
I haven't done it yet, but one area where I feel these can be improved in is damping the front panel. The front panel is injection molded plastic, and is SUPER thin with bracing on the backside. I considered flood-filling the back side of the panels with epoxy resin to stiffen them up. I haven't done it, and don't know if I will, but if you're feeling ambitious, this is where I'd start.
That makes sense. The front panel is pretty chintzy. It sounds like a good idea, but I feel like it might be difficult to manage the removal & reattachment of the front panel, wouldn't it?
Right now I'm just trying to get mine to work at their original performance. They are scratchy and staticky and quiet to the point of being useless as hi-fi speakers... I had a crystal radio kit as a kid that put out better sound.
Fingers crossed that it's just the crossover caps! If it's the woofers, I think they're bound for the bin.
Right now I'm just trying to get mine to work at their original performance. They are scratchy and staticky and quiet to the point of being useless as hi-fi speakers... I had a crystal radio kit as a kid that put out better sound.
Fingers crossed that it's just the crossover caps! If it's the woofers, I think they're bound for the bin.
@wingding611 Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I documented what I did on a thread on AudioKarma. Here's the link if you want to see it.
You're right about not being able to get 8.0 uF caps but the original caps are ± 10% so I went with Dayton 5% Poly caps, 1.5 uF, 8.2 uF and 12.0 uF. 8.2 uF ± 5% is well within the 8.0 uF ± 10% range so the 0.2 uF difference shouldn't make any real difference.
I have to say the result was quite good and well worth the money spent on the capacitors and the time spent making the mods. I've tried attaching a couple pics of the modified crossovers. See if it works.
Someone is probably going to point out that hot gluing a cap to a resistor is potentially risky if the resistor gets hot enough to melt the glue. It doesn't. At least not with the little 20W stereo unit I'm using these speakers on. It only has enough power to get decent volume out of those speakers but not enough to really push them so the resistor never gets that warm.
At any rate, the Image 2Bs sound a LOT better than they did with the original caps and the modified 2Bs sound waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the original speakers that little stereo system came with so the project was well worth it. The system is just for my cabin so all I wanted was something inexpensive that sounds decent and that's what I got. I recommend that anyone who's got an old pair of 2Bs kicking around and wants to use them make this upgrade. The differences are quite noticeable, pleasing and well worth the effort and expense.
You're right about not being able to get 8.0 uF caps but the original caps are ± 10% so I went with Dayton 5% Poly caps, 1.5 uF, 8.2 uF and 12.0 uF. 8.2 uF ± 5% is well within the 8.0 uF ± 10% range so the 0.2 uF difference shouldn't make any real difference.
I have to say the result was quite good and well worth the money spent on the capacitors and the time spent making the mods. I've tried attaching a couple pics of the modified crossovers. See if it works.
Someone is probably going to point out that hot gluing a cap to a resistor is potentially risky if the resistor gets hot enough to melt the glue. It doesn't. At least not with the little 20W stereo unit I'm using these speakers on. It only has enough power to get decent volume out of those speakers but not enough to really push them so the resistor never gets that warm.
At any rate, the Image 2Bs sound a LOT better than they did with the original caps and the modified 2Bs sound waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the original speakers that little stereo system came with so the project was well worth it. The system is just for my cabin so all I wanted was something inexpensive that sounds decent and that's what I got. I recommend that anyone who's got an old pair of 2Bs kicking around and wants to use them make this upgrade. The differences are quite noticeable, pleasing and well worth the effort and expense.
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@Wingdings611 You might want to check to see if the butyl surrounds on the woofers have come unglued in places from the cage or whatever you call it. That's what happened with both of my 2Bs. It made them sound really scratchy and staticky as you describe. I think it probably happens to a lot of those speakers.
To fix mine I used 3M 1300 Neoprene High Performance Rubber and Gasket Adhesive which you can get on Amazon here. It works great on butyl and seems to be holding quite well.
To fix mine I used 3M 1300 Neoprene High Performance Rubber and Gasket Adhesive which you can get on Amazon here. It works great on butyl and seems to be holding quite well.
@DangerBoy
Wow, this is really interesting! I ended up determining that the issue for mine was the spiders having come unglued from the speaker frame. So I fixed those up with some epoxy, and have been enjoying the results.
Before I realized that was the issue, I picked up a 2nd hand i2b crossover, and the caps to recap it (cheapos from eBay, but I'm cheap so...), so I might go through with that and see if there's any improvement.
Wow, this is really interesting! I ended up determining that the issue for mine was the spiders having come unglued from the speaker frame. So I fixed those up with some epoxy, and have been enjoying the results.
Before I realized that was the issue, I picked up a 2nd hand i2b crossover, and the caps to recap it (cheapos from eBay, but I'm cheap so...), so I might go through with that and see if there's any improvement.
another possibility is that perhaps the surrounds stiffened up from age. I doubt that these PSBs are old enough for that to happen, but I have a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7SEs that got so stiff that they completely lost any output below about 200hz. I replaced the surrounds with new ones and now they sound as they should.
@wingding611 The Dayton Audio grade capacitors that I bought were not that expensive.
Right now the Dayton 1.5 uF 5% caps are $1.55 USD each, the 8.2 5% uF are $$3.59 USD each and the 12.0 uF 5% are $4.89 USD each plus shipping on Parts-Express.com.
So for enough caps to do both speakers you're talking only $20 USD plus shipping. And for just a few bucks more you could get the ± 1% versions of the 1.5 and 8.2 uF Dayton caps but I don't know how much better they might sound than the ± 5% versions.
If the caps you bought on eBay are electrolytic and not audio grade caps, they probably won't make much noticeable difference to the sound quality vs the original electrolytic caps that PSB used in those crossovers. As such, it probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort to swap them in. I guarantee you that you'll hear a VERY noticeable and pleasing difference swapping in these Dayton caps. You might even get better results swapping in even better quality caps but if you're on a budget, you'll get a good bang for your buck with the 5% Dayton Caps. For only $20 and the amount of difference they make, I think they're an absolute no-brainer.
When gluing those butyl surrounds to the metal speaker frames/spiders whatever you call them, the first adhesive I tried failed after a while. I then had to spend a fair bit of time scraping the glue residue off the butyl surrounds and the metal frames so I could re-glue them. The 3M glue I mentioned in my previous post is formulated specifically for butyl and neoprene, etc. and so far seems to be holding things together much more permanently. If you find your epoxy glue fails over time, I recommend you try that 3M glue. I wish I used it the first time but I was out at the cabin and wanted the stereo to work so had to make do with whatever adhesives I had on hand at the time.
@Jim85IROC The butyl surrounds haven't stiffened at all. They were quite pliable and fresh looking when they started separating from the speaker frames. I think the glue the manufacturer of those drivers used was of poor quality and just breaks down over time. What parts of the surround that were still bonded to the frame when the bond started to fail, came completely off the frame with very little force applied. Obviously. the bond was very weak so they either didn't use enough glue or the glue bond just didn't stand up over time. The speakers sound great and the buzzing/blown speaker sound goes right away once you get the surrounds glued back down on the frames.
Right now the Dayton 1.5 uF 5% caps are $1.55 USD each, the 8.2 5% uF are $$3.59 USD each and the 12.0 uF 5% are $4.89 USD each plus shipping on Parts-Express.com.
So for enough caps to do both speakers you're talking only $20 USD plus shipping. And for just a few bucks more you could get the ± 1% versions of the 1.5 and 8.2 uF Dayton caps but I don't know how much better they might sound than the ± 5% versions.
If the caps you bought on eBay are electrolytic and not audio grade caps, they probably won't make much noticeable difference to the sound quality vs the original electrolytic caps that PSB used in those crossovers. As such, it probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort to swap them in. I guarantee you that you'll hear a VERY noticeable and pleasing difference swapping in these Dayton caps. You might even get better results swapping in even better quality caps but if you're on a budget, you'll get a good bang for your buck with the 5% Dayton Caps. For only $20 and the amount of difference they make, I think they're an absolute no-brainer.
When gluing those butyl surrounds to the metal speaker frames/spiders whatever you call them, the first adhesive I tried failed after a while. I then had to spend a fair bit of time scraping the glue residue off the butyl surrounds and the metal frames so I could re-glue them. The 3M glue I mentioned in my previous post is formulated specifically for butyl and neoprene, etc. and so far seems to be holding things together much more permanently. If you find your epoxy glue fails over time, I recommend you try that 3M glue. I wish I used it the first time but I was out at the cabin and wanted the stereo to work so had to make do with whatever adhesives I had on hand at the time.
@Jim85IROC The butyl surrounds haven't stiffened at all. They were quite pliable and fresh looking when they started separating from the speaker frames. I think the glue the manufacturer of those drivers used was of poor quality and just breaks down over time. What parts of the surround that were still bonded to the frame when the bond started to fail, came completely off the frame with very little force applied. Obviously. the bond was very weak so they either didn't use enough glue or the glue bond just didn't stand up over time. The speakers sound great and the buzzing/blown speaker sound goes right away once you get the surrounds glued back down on the frames.
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