Re: Re-foaming speakers
They are late 80's Studio Monitor 80s. 8 inch woof, Polycell tweet. I have had a thing for Infinitys since the late 80s when I was stationed in Germany. You could get high end audio equipement pretty cheap through the PX, so I went through a lot of components, and a lot of money. I was always into listening to music, and prior to joining the military I had a fairly crappy system that was okay, so when I saw all the shiny stuff I could not resist.
At first, being a private that barely earned $800 a month, my system was very modest, just used crap bought from other soldiers. I always lusted after the systems the higher ranking guys had, so I started saving cash, and my first set of new speaks were Infinity SM120s. Since everyone in the barracks had all sorts of different setups, I could listen to them and decide what I liked, and I really liked how the Infinitys sounded. Of course, you get new speaks, you have to get a new amp. The crappy Kenwood reciever went away and was replaced with a Carver M1.0 amplifier and a Soundcraftsman pre-amp. My Sony Cd player was replaced with an SAE cd player that was built like a tank. The Infinitys could not handle the power from the Carver, so I made the mistake of selling them and buying a set of Bose 901s. Now I needed more power because the 901s ate up all the power from the Carver. I bought a second Carver M1.0, bridged them for mono, and ran each one to a Bose 901. Now I was running 1000 watts per channel, but the 901s just did not have the bass or clarity I was after. by this time I had a Denon turntable with a $300 Pickering cartridge, the SAE Cd player, and two SAE cassette decks, and a couple of equalizers. The system was obnoxious, loud, took up a lot of room, and did not sound like I wanted it to, despite the thousands spent. I sold it all, except the turntable, and started from scratch. Mixed in there is a slew of countless other components i bought and sold, including another set of Infinity speaks, Polk speaks, you name it. I was a stereo shop for awhile there..
I bought an Adcom tuner/pre-amp and Adcom GP 555 amplifier. It was a heavy beast, I think 400 watts per channel. I bought Klipsh Forte's for speaks, a Yamaha Cd player and Yamaha cassette deck. I spent something like $5000 if I remember rightly for this latest setup, but I had finally arrived and the sound I wanted, with no equalizers, and the tone controls set at nuetral positions (although I still missed the Infinitys).
The upcomming marriage, then divorce took care of that system. One thing I miss is the smell. That Adcom, when running wide open, had that nice warm expensive stereo smell. Cheap stuff just does not smell like that...
Which leads to my little Infinitys I have now. I was pennyless, had nothing but a crappy couch, my truck, and a 13 inch TV. My good buddy was going to throw those Infinitys away because there were no tweeters and he just didn't want them any more, so I took them. This was back in 95. I bought a crappy pawn shop reciever, found some crappy tweets from a ruined set of (gag) Kenwoods and defiled the Infinitys with those wretched sounding things. Another friend gave me a crappy Pioneer CD player that would sometimes require a good whack to get it to work.
I got out of the Army in 98 but still had my crappy system which was then augmented with a 27 inch RCA tv and a stereo VCR. I was starting to get into Home Theater then. I later bought a DVD player, which was a big deal in 99, they hadn't been out for very long, a few years, and they were still expensive.
I starter playing around with this thing called Ebay, and came across a set of proper Infinity Polycell tweets for my little old speaks, bought them, and I was back to that familiar sound I missed. So now I have my little 36 inch tv, Onkyo surround reciever, my Toshiba dvd player, Advent surrounds, and JBL 12 powered sub, which relieved my little ancient Infinitys of anything below 80 hz.
I guess my little Infinitys will stay around as long as possible, the only things I have had longer then those little speaks are a couple of cassettes I recorded back in the early 80s...Its a nostalgia thing I suppose.
Next step, flat panel and HD-dvd or Blu-ray....
