Rogers LS5/9 help

HiFi
1

Hey up,

A friend has a pair of Rogers LS5/9 and they have developed an issue with one of the woofers.

Apparently, he left a record playing and the stylus was on the play out groove. His infant son whacked the volume up full bung whilst he was upstairs and simultaneously his missus dropped the vacuum cleaner on the floor. Boom! Damaged woof’. Sounds like better isolation may be an idea in future…

There apparently is no visible split but the bass has lost definition and there is a rattly quality to it. I asked him to gently push both cones in to see if there is any rubbing and he reckons there is definitely resistance/rubbing on the bad sounding driver.

So, has anyone got an idea on how to fix it, or who might be able to repair it if not?

2

Quite an interesting page.

http://www.markhennessy.co.uk/rogers/ls59.htm

But I guess he’ll need to get the driver re-built by DC Boultons or Wembley Loudspeakers as finding another may be tricky.

http://www.audioloudspeakers.co.uk/boultons.shtml

http://www.wembleyloudspeaker.com/page-products-repair.shtml

3

Is this what he has?

4

Hi Greg, not quite. They are the ones pictured in the top article that Guy posted.

I have just realised I named them slightly wrong (oops!) so have removed the 3 from the title.

5

Thanks Guy, that top article is an interesting read…

I shall instruct him to give Wembley etc a ring. Interestingly, I have another friend who also had these and he found replacement drivers at The Emporium a while ago but seems they have gone now. Not sure if Nick bought them from a radio station or something but he had a few I think. A few pairs of the speakers too. I hadn’t realised until I read that article that the speaker isn’t all that old!

6

I had to help repair an old pair of Harbeths for someone recently & it became apparent that the likes of Harbeth & Rogers were using variations of that driver on similar cast alloy chassis in various different models but they aren’t all quite the same.

I guess in your friend’s case there’ll have been a moment when the driver was displaced a lot, the power couldn’t be dissipated & the voice coil got warm possibly causing bubbling or some kind of distortion of the former resulting in it rubbing. I don’t think any of those BBC monitors really major on power handling or loudness capability,

I’d expect Wembley or Boultons to be able to see how many turns & what gauge of wire were used & to rebuild the driver using the original diaphragm, chassis, magnet etc.

1 Like
7

Thanks Guy, I said to him that I thought it was a good thing that the cone wasn’t split. I would think finding another would be pretty much impossible.

Although I knew that ‘rubbing’ is a thing to look for in a driver after an accident, I didn’t know what causes it, I had assumed that after a dramatic event like that, the cone might be off centre and therefore rub in the gap. Have learnt something there!