Dbl refurbishing LF cabinet acoustic foam

Ok both bass cabins with impeccable new foams :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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REALLY looking forward to your thoughts once everything has been refettled!

all very interesting, you must have the most mint dbl’s on the planet, look like brand new. Did you cut the foam to size yourself or did you order it to the correct size?
best regards Mario.

Mario
I would strongly advise against cutting the foam yourself. I ordered them made to measure. Not entirely cheap but impeccable. It’s challenging enough to get them back in neatly, specially inside the pillars of the L cabinet.

Thank you Charlie, extremely helpful you are. mind you, my pair have been down for several months getting a screen together and a bit of TLC so I’m not doing the bass cabinet thing yet. I, like Tony will remain blissfully unaware of the foam rot until my ears tell me otherwise. Thanks to you, all the required info is there when that time comes. You have done a great thing for conserving one of the best speakers ever made. Mario.

Charlie,

Hopefully you can give a “push by shove” account of the install and lessons learned for those of us who might be tempted down this route.

Regards,

Willy.


Willy
Here some teaser for u
First foampad for the midrange :wink:

Charlie,

I just compared the size of my hand to the midrange unit and what I estimate to be the size of the hole behind it. That could be very interesting!

Regards,

Willy.

Yep, but actually not that hard. Just roll it up any slide it in. There are two of these Foam pad above one another in each midrange cabinet to make it a little more challenging. I took the wool out too left and right to clean the inside from all the crumbs from the old foam. Here is the wool from just one side … so two of these down the little hole each cabinet. What works is if you slide the wool in compressed in a plastic bag, move it along the foam to the resess left and right and then pull the plastic bag off … surprisingly it works. I decided to get first the foam in without the wool inside because it may get in your way when tve wool is inside already. Oh and make sure you don’t stress the cable while moving your hands …:grin:

Have you heard of many SL2 users replacing their tweeters?

Either with a pair from Naim or a new pair of Scanspeak tweeters?

@bongoman
@Willy

When you did this, did you scrape out the remains of the old disintegrating foam before fitting the new foam?

Because the foam in mine had crumbled a bit in transit as I drove mine across the UK to get them home.

But most of it is still in there.

Just wondering whether to leave it or get it out and replace it?

Also @bongoman

Yes, I did clean out all remaining foam, but most of it had already turned to dust, the result of 14 years worth of tropical humidity. If you choose to do anything, you might as well do the complete job, which is very simple and not that expensive. The new foam is firmer than the remaining bits, and presumably more effective. Really made a difference to my SL2s, but of course YMMV.

By the way, my tweeters were fine, no need to replace.

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JimDog,

I replaced tweeters in my SL2s some years ago. I procured a matched pair from Naim and had the dealer (Cymbiosis) make up the flying leads for them. Installing was then purely mechanical.

Have procured a pair of tweeters from willys-hifi (no relation) to install in my DBLs as I suspect the existing ones are past their best. Interestingly they came as a matched pair, not something advertised on the site. Not sure if they’re matched to the same level as Naim would have done but with my ears approaching 60 not sure I’d notice.

Had enquired as to the correct torque to bolt them to the spring plate and answer back from Naim is 0.8Nm. Unfortunately that’s less than the smallest of my (3) torque wrench/drivers. Something suitable in the post from CPC and hopefully I’ll get stuck in next week.

Regards,

Willy.

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I had my SL2 tweeters replaced last Friday. The originals were 20 years old and the foam was degrading quite badly.

I purchased a matched pair from Naim (not many left in stock now) and Jason (being local and having set up my SL2s three years ago) very kindly did the installation for me.

These are the original tweeters following removal:

and these are are the replacements in situ:

I heard an immediate improvement in SQ. Interestingly the leading edge of the bass was so much better defined and that has really stood out in the first week. They will only get better from here as they run in.

It is very well worth doing for those who want to hang on to their SL2s for years to come.

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Why did you replace your tweeters in your SL2s?

How old were the original tweeters?

And how old were the repelacments?

Did they sound better afterwards?

Mine are 17 years old iirc.

They sound excellent, but I’ve never heard another pair so have nothing to compare them to.

Interesting.

Do you know how old the replacement tweeters were?

I’ve recently bought some of the replacement foam for the tweeters from Willy’s. It looks like it’s self adhesive, so should be easy to install. What I’m not sure of is how easy it’s going to be to pull the old foam off.

I replaced the foam in the top cabs my SL2s too.

Before:


After:


I traced round what was left of the old foam to create paper templates for the new foam:

The tweeters didn’t need replacing. Unfortunately as much as I liked them the SL2s just didn’t work in my room. I’ve since sold them on to a happy new owner.

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Sorry to hear the SL2s didn’t work out for you @bongoman.

Where did you source the replacement foam from? Is it to Naim spec?

I’ve not looked at mine in a while but suspect it might need replacing.

I sourced them from fleabay - these are ‘Naim SBL Naim Allae interior foam dampening pads’ from puresoundsales.

Although they’re not designed for SL2s they are Naim spec as suitable for SBLs & Allaes.

I cut my templates from these larger foam pieces. I’ve since been in touch with the seller and sent him my SL2 templates :+1:t2:

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