Replacing dead woofer on ProAc Tablette Sig 50 (NYC area)?


I have a pair of ProAc Tablette Signature 50s; one of the woofers is dead. I brought it to a local guy in NYC, who seems knowledgeable but is apparently not some famous high-end guru; he says that the woofer needs to be replaced, but he doesn't have access to one that will fit.

I've messaged ProAc, who haven't replied in a few days, and I'm just trying to get a sense of what my options are. I've always liked these speakers, and I would like them to work, but if it's going to be a years-long effort of finding the right person somewhere in the world to fix these, I'll just have to toss them and find another pair of something. 

Is finding a replacement woofer easier than this guy thinks? Or is there somewhere I should be taking them to in the NYC area who'd be able to fix this? Obviously, I am myself extremely unsavvy, technically, but I'd hope that these are both repairable and worth repairing.

the_jest

Showing 4 responses by the_jest

There don't seem to be any ProAc dealers anywhere on the East Coast; when I enter "New York" on their "Worldwide Distributors" page, it suggests a place in Toronto.

I did have a good talk with someone at Madisound; he was very helpful, but I'll need to do more complicated measurements for them to be able to help. Meanwhile, he suggested I get in touch with Speaker Repair of Colorado, so I've done that, and am waiting to hear back.

I really don't want to be in the position of literally throwing them out.

OP here, finally following up on this. I've spent a lot of time talking to people, all of whom were very nice and generous with their time, but I seem to be at a dead end.

ProAc confirmed that the original woofer was the SEAS HO803-08, but that they don't have any spare parts for this. I've spoken with new and old SEAS dealers who also don't have a replacement (indeed, though ProAc was very specific about the model number, I can't find any evidence for it anywhere).

I spoke with the Sound Organization, the US distributor, who also don't have any replacements. They said that simply dropping in a similar-size woofer would be a bad idea, due to issues with how specifically the originals were designed. They recommended a few different repair or re-coning shops, none of whom were able to help. Madisound were unable to help, and I spoke with a few dealers (including the NJ and the Toronto ones) who also didn't have any ideas.

I think I've done all I can do, and as this particular line of inquiry is unpleasantly stressful for me, I think it's time to throw in the towel. I'd welcome advice about how to get rid of these—perhaps someone is more patient than I am, or needs just one perfect speaker, or needs parts.... Getting some money would be nice, or I could just give them away.

Thanks for sticking with this!

Well, I hadn't originally contacted Millersound because their website strongly discourages you from getting in touch about brands that are not listed, but, as pointed out above, they do list SEAS. So I emailed, and they in fact think that they would be able to repair these.

I'll have to figure out how to remove the woofers, which scares the hell out of me, but I'd be thrilled if I could in fact get the whole thing working again.

I confess to being exhausted by this project, but....

Will update. Thanks for the suggestions!

I think this will be the final update.

I did get in touch with Millersound, and Bill LeGall was extremely patient with and helpful to me. He doesn't normally do this kind of work, but agreed to take a look, and in a short time he was able to completely rebuild the woofers (both of them, though only one was dead (and it was indeed dead, it wasn't the crossover or anything else)). I was able to remove them and reattach them, which is rather more tech work than I normally do (Bill was kind enough to leave stripped wires and send me wire nuts, obviating the need for me to solder them, which would have taken another year off my life).

I'm still breaking them in, but the two important points are that (1) they work and (2) they sound pretty awesome already.

Thanks again to everyone for their help. This was more work than I'd wanted at the start of this process, but I'm glad to have these speakers working again.