Social Isolation Project: Old Speaker Repair

Thirty-one years ago Linda and I were finally both working in our careers of choice and with that came slightly more prosperous days. Like many young families starting out, we invested in the one thing everyone needed in their home, a set of bitchin stereo speakers!

Back then I researched the different loudspeakers available on the market: Klipsch, Bose, Advent, Dahlquist, SpeakerLab, and Acoustic Research (ARs). I spent hours listening to these models over at Huppin’s in Spokane or anywhere hi-fi sound was produced.

I would sit down and have the salesman play cuts from three albums that I carried with me during my search. Aja by Steely Dan, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd were my go-to vinyl. I know, my selections fell in the middle of the road when it came to audiophile listening. I chose the cuts because I believed they covered the range of listening my vinyl collection demonstrated.

After hours of intense listening and making a true assessment of my financial status, I chose a set of Acoustic Research AR TSW 610 speaker towers built between 1987-89. They had a sound I liked and their price came in on the high end of affordable. I felt they were beautiful towers with a sound that was close to perfect.

Each speaker has a 12″ woofer, 6.5″ midrange and. 75 Titanium dome tweeter. They could take up to 175 watts of power and the sound they produced could make your ears hurt. (I never listened at that volume, LOL.) My love affair for those speakers began.

Fast forward to about three years ago when I was watching TV. We were running our home entertainment system through my Denon amp and using my ARs for the sound. (I know, how fast love fades! My precious speakers have become a TV sound system.)

All of a sudden my amp shut down! I thought my amp was going bad so I traded the Denon amp for a Pioneer amp that I had collected as a media center back up.  Within fifteen minutes the Pioneer shut down and gave me an error message that pointed to a short in my speakers.  I quickly traded out the ARs and hooked up some old shelf speakers I used in my garage. They worked fine and are still working!

This pandemic we are suffering through has given us one interesting by-product. Time at home, separated from other distractions. Linda and I have cleaned our house, cleaned up our yard, and started several projects that have been procrastinated for years. My AR speaker repair was one project that I put off and felt that maybe I would never complete.

I talked to my brother about the short in the speaker towers and I took a closer look at the speakers and found that the foam rubber gaskets on all four of the speakers had deteriorated and ripped/flaked apart.

Doing an internet search I found that replacing the foam was standard practice and I was able to order a kit to make the repairs. I placed the order and then went back to the internet and found YouTube videos showing exactly what the repair process was all about. This all looked like something I could do given my free time in self-quarantine.

I removed all four speakers and started the scraping and cleaning needed to prepare them for the replacement of the new foam. While the speakers were removed, my brother Dale came out and looked over the power boards inside the speaker boxes. He tested everything and drew up a schematic of these boards inside.  At this time we haven’t discovered a short, but we are still working on assessing if we need to update the electronics.

Something Different Coming Up

As we returned home from our little morning adventure, I turned to Linda and said, ”That was interesting!” Linda laughed and replied “ You know, nothing that we set out to do was accomplished! But we had fun!” We both chuckled.

Our morning outing started with a taxi ride over to the barrio area of Barra de Navidad. A ride in which our driver took his own path winding around the dirt streets and into the lives of the local residents. Deeper into the barrio, you seldom run into gringos and the locals always are friendly and very helpful. Our driver, after some Google mapping from Linda, finally dropped us off at our destination. Linda started to pay and the driver stated his price, which was 10 pesos more than the price we were given when we told him our destination. Linda was firm but didn’t want to argue (it was only 10 more pesos, but it was the principle…) so she paid the tab and sent him on his way. He could see she was not happy with the last-minute charge.

The destination was Bungalows Cervantes, the rental property that Rogelio, our contact for our apartment rental, managed. Linda had been in contact with him and we were there to talk about the future and to speak directly to Rogelio concerning our plans a year or more out. Rogelio had asked if we could stop by his place of business and we had sent him several emails confirming this date.

When we arrived we were greeted by a very nice lady who said Rogelio was not available and through Linda and her Spanish, we were able to get her to call him so we could talk. It turned out he had decided to take a last-minute trip to Guadalajara. Ouch. Ok, new plan. We set up a day when he could meet with us at our convenience at our apartment. Our plans have changed, but I will get into more detail later.

With that all behind us, we stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out where we were, how we had gotten there, and how we would get out of there. The very nice lady who we’d spoken to earlier, could see our confusion and approached us telling Linda that if we walk just outside the complex entrance a bus would come by and take us out to Barra Centro.

Just as the lady mentioned, a bus arrived and we climbed on. It wound through the barrio, stopping and loading and unloading people. After several minutes and many cramped turns, we emerged onto a street that we recognized. We were now traveling in the direction of Melaque and would come to an intersection with the main road into Barra. At this location, we could be either turning left or right. Right would take us to Melaque, left to Barra. We decided that no matter which way the bus turned, that would establish what we would do for the next part of our day.

Left and we would go shopping in Barra, right we would go home and proceed with our day.

The bus went left and we stayed put.

We got off the bus in the heart of the tourist business district. Linda had several gifts that she wanted to find. I was just along for the walk. We always stop at Reynaldo’s Rug shop and say hello to Teresa when we are in Barra. I had just spent an hour with Reynaldo yesterday and so we wanted to see his special wife today and tell her we had about seven days left for our visit this year. We walked up to their shop and there was Reynaldo. Teresa was in town shopping.  We laughed and joked about the odds of this happening.

Shopping on, we walked the streets and looked into almost every shop. Linda couldn’t find what she was looking for so we made our way to the bus stop and caught the next bus back to Melaque. We laughed about our poor luck and agreed that maybe we weren’t supposed to accomplish anything on this morning. That was OK, we still have a few days left to work with.

Earlier in my musings, I mentioned that we have had a change of plans for next year and now that we have spoken to Rogelio and some of our friends that might be affected, we can let the cat out of the bag.

Each year about this time Linda and I start the process of making plans for December through March in Mexico. We have long conversations about all the options and everything that our living down here affects. We discuss Linda’s parents, their health and what the future might bring in the event of a major health issue with one of them. We work through our feelings dealing with the length of our stay. Linda likes it as long as possible. I, on the other hand, prefer to be home in early March. The possibilities of places at which we might be able to rent are considered. We also have our yearly chat about the possibility of not returning to Melaque, going somewhere else in Mexico, or even staying in the states and traveling across the areas of warmer weather. Everything is considered and each year details are worked out prior to our departure.

The option of staying in the USA has always been an interesting possibility. We would be closer to Linda’s parents. Communication between friends and families would definitely be easier. Traveling home in the event of an emergency would be less expensive and so on and so on.

The big question has always been where would we go in the states and would it cost much more than we are spending down here? Mexico is easy and has become a comfortable place for us!

Enter our wonderful friends and neighbors, Steve and Jodi. Steve has been retired for a year or so, and this is Jodie’s first year of retirement. They launched into their new winter life by traveling south and wintering in Arizona in their nice 5th wheel. They have loved it!

We have been in close communication with the new snowbirds and have absorbed their fun winter stories. You see where this is heading, don’t you?

After much deliberation, Linda and I have decided to take at least one year off from visiting Melaque and stay somewhere in Arizona for the next winter season. This was a tough decision. We really like our apartment. Downtown living has been great. All the things we worried about when we rented: noise, crowds, etc. have not been a problem. We have the apartment for next season if we want it, but we are letting it go.

It is time to do something different.

This is our different…  Early plans (very early I might add) are that we travel down through California and visit one of Linda’s deeply imbedded family memories, Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Her family did many trips there when she was growing up.

Next, we would find a spot in the Yuma Arizona region to stay for a while. After that, we plan to drive across the good old USA to see the sights and visit places we have always heard about. What do you think of those plans?

We have always talked of this adventure and this looks like the perfect time to attempt it. The decision has been made. Now we have a whole set of other challenges to solve. First, what are we going to do with all the junk we have collected and stored over the years?