Scanspeak 10" driver replacement - blown woofer

Shadorne,
Have you ever dealt with Madisound? Of course they have clerks who take orders, but they also have an excellent technical staff, some who have been in the industry for a long time.

No I have not. I get stuff from Solen. You are probably correct and that they have great staff - sorry if what I said sounded negative - all I really meant was that it is NOT unreasonable for one to expect a boutique like Vandersteen to charge a lot more for a replacment part than a large outfit like Madisound.

Mike- Are you certain the voice coils are burned? Is there any sound from them with signal applied? If so- It's possible, with a sudden high input transient(ie: If a tonearm were dropped), for the voice coil to exceed it's linear range, bottom on the magnet plate and/or strike the magnet's top plate and pole piece. Either will bend/deform the voice coil's former and cause a nasty scratching/rattling sound during play. I've repaired a number of drivers that had that misfortune over the years(NOT my own), without having to replace the voice coil(aluminum is easy, Nomex/polymide/Kapton are much trickier, but doable). That insured no change was made in the unit's T/S parameters, or it's sound. I've no doubt Bill at Millersound could do that repair as well, if he's willing to take the time.

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.

In other words, he changed the Thiele/Small parameters of the driver completely, which thereby negated the designer's alignment and response goals. Exactly what I said would happen if OEM(ie: Vandersteen) parts were not used in the repair. That does not make everyone happy, especially if the owner enjoyed the way the speaker was designed to perform initially.

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.