Pioneer CS-77A Speakers: How To Fix Foam, Change Capacitors and Listen to Hobbits.

[@Brownguy342]

We had a set of these when I was a kid. They sounded great and are still the best looking set of speakers I’ve ever seen. You said they were meant for soldiers deployed overseas. My parents bought them while living in Puerto Rico during his time in the Navy.

[@steveolsen2164]

Great rebuild tutorial. I am 75 years old, grew up with these speakers and many others like them. I was also a speaker reconer for many years but covid killed my business. But it was a great run and I learned a lot through the years. Keep learning. Keep getting your hands in "it". Learn from your mistakes and don't be afraid to make them!!!!

[@AudioThrift]

Thank you. I'm sorry about covid. Did you work with a company or were you an independent business? I'd love to hear stories.

[@HornWorm8]

Even if you don't have the mic ect. to get a good recording of what they sound like It's still satisfying for us to hear them after the repair. Even if they don't sound good we want to hear them in action.

[@AudioThrift]

I got lit up and berated horribly the last time I did that so I’ve stopped bothering. lol… But I’ll consider trying again in the future if I can figure out how to do it satisfactorily. But I do have a buddy who’s a recording engineer and I’ll see if he can help… or at least give some pointers.

[@HornWorm8]

@@AudioThrift WOW! Why would someone berate you just for showing they make sound? There's absolutely nothing wrong playing a little music out of them for 4 or 5 seconds at the end of the video. Geez. lots of strange people out there. A few seconds of hearing them at the end of the video would have made the video more complete....no matter how they sound.

[@AudioThrift]

Thank you. I agree. lol

[@dillyflaps]

what a great underrated channel, nice stuff man. you make a very good video.

[@AudioThrift]

I appreciate that! Thank you.

[@gotai8]

I just recapped my Harman/Kardon CD 491 cassette deck. Lovely machine, sounds great again! Greetings from Austria

[@AudioThrift]

That's a cool unit! Right on!

[@TorontoJon]

Another great video, AudioThrift, and those Pioneer CS-77A speakers are beauties for sure. As an aside, I bought a pair of Advent speakers recently (no model number on the back) from my local Value Village for only $14.99 for the pair, but the woofers, though working, have rotted surrounds, so this video will inspire me to repair them myself. All the best as always! :)

[@AudioThrift]

Thank you. I appreciate that. And let me know how that goes. Those deals are what makes this fun! :)

[@stephenmorrissey1254]

Glad to see you are steadily building a following. I think I started watching when you had 80 subs. Now when you hit 5M subs I can tell everyone how much cooler your older stuff was before you sold out to the man, or something like that...

[@AudioThrift]

I'll tell everyone you're right! Thank you. :)

[@steve_rode]

Thank You Very Much for your detailed information, for those of us who have not yet performed this procedure. Extremely Helpful! 👍😊

[@AudioThrift]

Thank you.

[@firesurfer]

These look like a higher end version of Radio Shack Nova 8 speakers from the 70s. Pioneer made them for Radio Shack. I still have them.

[@AudioThrift]

Nice. How do yours sound?

[@Frontslider]

I have old Kenwood walnut speakers that don't have foam on them, so they will never go bad. Super loud and clear. 12 inch woofer.

[@jameslaidler2152]

Nice job mate. Pro tip for your solder sucker. An electronics professor I had taught me this, who learned it from a lady who worked for him. Cut a small notch in your solder sucker nozzle with your wire cutters. Just cut a basic V shape, and stick your hot iron in there to make basically an arched doorway. The idea is to make a more airtight seal when you suck up molton solder while the iron is on it to keep it hot. Works very well.

[@AudioThrift]

Ohh, good idea. I'll try that.

[@jameslaidler2152]

@@AudioThrift There's a lovely channel on here from a fellow in the Devon England area called Haycross Audio. He does speaker restorations, repairs, even builds or restomods his own designs with different or new drivers. Check him out. Also those Pioneer speakers of yours, as well as similar ones with removable backing? There's lots of potential for you to put brading in there, stiffen and tighten up the cabinets etc. Also don't be afraid of trying upgraded drivers in there or that sort of thing. Loudspeakers are the hotrod of the audio world, sky's the limit. Have fun.

[@tiereneymccann2045]

Thx have a pair of these from my girls Dad. Gonna do what u have done just to get them playing again...thxxx

[@cars4color]

I did the same as you did with the caps. but had to replace tweeters on both speakers. mine are ran through a pioneer SX 1000 TD a wiim mini and a SMSL SU-1 Dac .and they sound awesome with ant music.

[@AudioThrift]

Wait, Ant Music as in Adam Ant, like the New Romantic group? That's rad!

[@cars4color]

@@AudioThrift Crap my bad. any music.🤣🤣

[@derrick_builds]

Had a pair in early 90's loved them.

[@edwardkane7708]

Great video. I appreciate the novice approach and learning as you go. Thanks for the info on replacing the caps. I’m looking at doing the same on a pair of Tannoy bookshelf speakers. I’ll now be discovering your previous videos to see what else I can learn about speaker refurbishing. Keep up the good work!

[@AudioThrift]

Thank you. I know very little but I'm glad to answer questions if I possibly can.

[@xvdifug]

To remove the old caps easier....snip the leads first ,then rock the caps to break glue bond, then desolder the remaining leads.

[@AudioThrift]

Good idea.

[@markanderson350]

I guess one could argue that cheaper caps would work just as well. I think you did a fine job. Interesting how you feel speakers sound best with music from that period. Soeakers today go deeper into bass and are more efficient and smaller.

[@robertdavis5714]

Enjoyed the Fork screw driver, very thorough Production Sir. Goodness gracious parts are getting pricey, especially those tiny foam rings.

[@AudioThrift]

Yeah, I'm kinda shocked how expensive it is. I ordered a chip for a turn table recently and it was almost 20 dollars... used... 🙄

[@TacoXXL-bz3qi]

Also a great brand for starters is magnat but only the old ones before 2000.They sound realy amazing especialy the bigger ones are super bassheavy and can take a lot of beating e.g. i got a pair of mig-ribbon 3 on willhaben for 24 euros they werent in a super bad condition but looked kinda ruffed up. I cleaned everthing and replaced the surrounds and got an original magnat replacement woofer from ebay. Boy theese sound amazing and also I have from at the time (1982-1986) their high end model the transpuls mp-x-088 with a plasma tweeter. I would recommend the all and mig-ribbon series.

[@ingenfestbrems]

You can also check for right polarity with a Aa,aaa battery. If the cone travels out when connecting battery, the wire touching positive, + on battery is also positive + in your speakers Great if you have long wires and speakers mounted on wall or something..

[@AudioThrift]

Oh, yeah. That's a good point.

[@SkiBumMSP]

I have a pair of CS-99A in my basement. They were given to me by a former co-worker that was just going to throw them away. There is a minor damage to one of the grills and my basement suffered minor flooding, thus a little water damage occurred on the bottoms. Really sucked as when I received them, they were in immaculate condition. I have not hooked them up recently to see if they actually still good, though.

[@AudioThrift]

That's a bummer. :( Sometimes the wood can be sanded and refinished though. If nothing else, it might be a fun project.

[@Retrogamingmaverick]

If you get a chance, get the cs-88a! They can sound absolutely beautiful if you use a pioneer receiver from the same time period

[@AudioThrift]

I will keep a lookout! :)

[@Retrogamingmaverick]

I mentioned them because i use them with my computer and my grandfather gave the whole system to me 3 years ago

[@AudioThrift]

That sounds really cool.

[@edjackson4389]

These look very similiar to my old CS-A700s except mine have adjustable L-pads on the front baffle. I recapped mine also. They sound very smooth and natural, but the bass is not very strong or tight with them. They're great for easy listening though

[@AudioThrift]

Oh nice. Yeah, that's a pretty accurate description of the sound of these as well. Did you ever have any trouble with the L-pads?

[@Jon-wj3tj]

Im not seeing the list of capacitors that were used?

[@AudioThrift]

Oops… I may have forgotten to add the list in the description. It’s 50uf, 30uf, 5uf, 3uf, and 0.5uf.

[@graemelategan]

Hi is there a possibility to find the woofer speaker for this set

[@AudioThrift]

Honestly I would just scour eBay. It'll eventually show up.

[@tarstarkusz]

Check mouser for new caps. 66 bucks for 10 caps sounds steep.

[@AudioThrift]

It was a bit high... and those weren't the expensive ones. There were ones that cost fifty something dollars a piece. I'll check mouser next time.

[@tarstarkusz]

If you don't have so much as a cheap multimeter, you should just skip the opening step and go right to throwing them in the trash or giving them to someone else.

[@AudioThrift]

I will accept that as an answer only if "someone" means me.

[@TorontoJon]

Wow, I bet @tarstarkusz is really "fun" at parties. He sucks the oxygen out of every room, it seems. ;)

[@TorontoJon]

@tarstarkusz, I de-A-holed your sentence for you since you weren't raised properly to communicate with people in a civil and informative manner: "I highly recommend buying a multimeter which is actually quite cheap and it will definitely help one with the initial speaker testing to decide if they are worth the effort to bring them back to life." Why be positive, right, @tarstarkusz, when you can just keep alienating yourself from decent people and society at large, but hey, enjoy your gear all by lonely self. Hahaha!

[@tarstarkusz]

@@TorontoJon I've had multiple conversations with the gentleman in the video. He knows I was not disrespecting him. If you cannot be bothered to buy a $7 multi-meter, you shouldn't be taking things apart. Not only will you have an extremely hard time fixing things, you can easily hurt yourself. For YEARS I used a 3.99 kmart purchased multi-meter back in the day. It is EXTREMELY difficult to diagnose and therefore to repair electronics without basic troubleshooting tools. Today I have tools most people don't have because they have no ordinary use for them and they ain't 7 bucks. For this, you can sometimes just work around those limitations. I have all the sympathy in the world for those people and often take time to offer advice or if they are physically near me, offer assistance.

[@TorontoJon]

@@tarstarkusz, see? This detailed comment you provided was a thousand times more respectful and far more useful than your first comment and that was precisely my point. You clearly have the technical knowledge, so share it without the acidity. That's all and that would be awesome.