Scanspeak 10" driver replacement - blown woofer

Call Bill Legall at Millersound, (215) 412-7700. Vandersteens are a specialty of his. He can replace the voice coils, no problem. And, at low cost. Also, if the spiders and surrounds need to be done at the same time, and only if it's required, he'll do them. Bill's incredible work costs no more than buying a cheap set of replacement woofers. You've got a good pair of loudspeakers there, do what is required to make things stay that way.

Replacing drivers is A LOT more complicated than one might think. Factoring in parameters that combine to be expressed in specifcations like Qts, excursion, etc. make it a more difficult proposition for most novices than they can get their head around.

For example, replacing a driver that is designed for a ported alignment with one designed to be used in an Acoustic Suspension topology, or vice versa (and, do you know what parameters make a driver oriented towards one or the other), is a recipe for failure. Sure, it will make sound, but you'll never have anything close to what you started with.

I can personally assure you that Bill Legall isn't going to miss ANYTHING in terms of the drivers, and can make whatever repair they require. His driver rebuilds provide a product that is normally superior to what was originally produced by the factory.

Before Bud Fried passed away, he gave me his longtime personal loudspeakers, which featured a lot of wrinkles, reflecting a man as intelligent, creative, and unique as Bud. All of the drivers were one offs, specials he had the OEMs do just for him. There was an issue with one of the 6.5" drivers, and Bill figured out it needed a new voice coil. The only rub was that it featured a 1", 4 layer, copper DVC on a kapton former. Bill said in 55 years and all the thousands of drivers he seen in doing this, he'd only encountered that once before. No matter, he could have them made for me without issue. But, surprisingly enough, after looking around for about 10 minutes, he had them in stock. Not only that, but his work resulted in increasing the sensitivity, excursion, and whatever else of the drivers which manifested itself in the speakers becoming more easy to drive, impactful, and with better tone. Incredible!

Take a look at the feature on him at 6moons.com http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/forbidden/forbidden_9.html The most interesting thing about the feature is that Bill did not allow his contact information to be listed. He was even reluctant to be featured by 6moons.com in the first place. It speaks volumes when a business does not need to advertise, as he receives so much work from loudspeaker manufacturers and commercial entities that until a couple of years ago, he tried to stay away from the individual type of customer.

At $65 per driver, this is a total no-brainer.

Rodman99999, my question to you is, have you seen and/or heard any of his work?

Yes, Bill changes the T/S parameters of the driver. Completely? Every situation is different, and warrants a different solution. Negating the designer's alignment and response goals is an assertion that seems to cross the line of what can be inferred in the effort to dismiss his work out of hand. It also ignores the fact that most OEM drivers are not nearly as close to meeting their specification sheets as we hope. Beyond that, there are parameters Bill optimizes the vast majority of people have never encountered, are not captured in a specification, and that OEM driver and loudspeaker manufacturers do not take into account.

Bill Legall, doesn't advertise it, but more than a few high-end audio loudspeaker manufacturers turn to him when they have a driver issue themselves.

As I said earlier, Vandersteen loudspeakers are a specialty of his. To hear the improvements he has made for many people over the years in the Model 2 and 3, which actually transcend the drivers themselves, shines a lot more light on the subject that my words can. Suffice it to say that a lot of people have changed their minds about purchasing a new pair of loudspeakers after their Vandersteens were modified by Bill.

Rodman99999, "Most of the higher end speaker builders(especially those that have their drivers custom made), hold the manufacturers to more stringent tolerances than you obviously think. Otherwise there could be no unit to unit consistancy in reproduction."

Sorry, but you could not be more wrong.

A lot of high-end audio manufacturers wrestle with this all the time. One of the (household name) loudspeaker driver manufacturers supplying Bud Fried with product in the mid 1990s, and part of the business arrangement was that they used to send a group of measurements/plots of the units shipped to Fried. Bud began to suspect something was askew, though the company insisted that they stood by their figures. And, I guess in most situations, nothing more would come of it. Except that Bud wasn't the type to just let it go. So, being that he visited Europe 3 - 4 times per year, he dropped in on them, and demanded they measure the drivers of the model they were shipping to him in his presence so that he could confirm everything was as they said. Well, they soon found themselves in the position where they had to admit the numbers were fudged.

I'm glad you have patronized Bill in the past. On his knowledge, customer service, and workmanship we can agree.

Two pairs of high-end audio loudspeakers I own (one fairly ubiquitous and highly respected, the other less well-knowned, but growing) were blessed with tolerances that not at all tight. I can easily identify the differences in the one pair, which I still have, simply through playing them.

By the way, I applaud you for maintaining this standard, but a lot of our hobby is more of a cottage industry with the good and bad that goes along with that.

But, yes, KUDOS to Fried!! They'll never be another like Bud.

Thank you for following up on the repair. Obviously, for good reason, I'm a huge fan of Bill's.