During my working days I owned a luxury used car which I purchased with 28k miles on the clock and traded in at 140k miles 10 years later – a decision I regret, since it had character (a big wrestler looking badge for the front grill) and I should have kept and nurtured it. At about 110k the Bose sound system deteriorated and I arranged for an audioshop to replace the tuner/CD player and, since they said the Bose speakers were incompatible with the new system, the speakers as well. But I requested they set aside the 4 Bose speakers for me, and for the past 12 years the speakers have sat on a shelf in the garage awaiting their destiny.
I enjoy most music genres and at my log cabin I incorporated various audio components into an acceptable sound system. Since I did not have speakers, I purchased a pair at the local thrift store – they seemed decent quality.
And for $18.91 what had I to lose.
Actually, $18.91! I have bought solid wood desks ($6) and paintings ($8 – $25) at the thrift store and been very happy, but then I was able to inspect all the components of the purchase. A pair of good looking speakers on a shelf unconnected to a sound system can be a pig in a poke – after all why would anyone donate good quality, working speakers. Desks and paintings you can outgrow but good speakers are always useful. When I connected the speakers up at the house one worked fine and one was buzzy and noisy. I suspect the speakers were hammered at high volumes and the one was damaged.
So I have used just the one speaker until, with the advent of hot weather, I had time during mid-day heat to ponder a solution.
And then the Bose speakers came to mind. Why not replace the damaged speaker with one of the Bose speakers. But there is a problem – for whatever reason the Bose has a receptacle for 4 speaker wires while I have only 2 to provide.
I powered the sound system and tried touching my 2 speaker wires to all combinations of the 4 speaker tabs but no response. Then I inspected the Bose more carefully and saw that when all was said and done, just 2 wires headed for the speaker.
So I touched the speaker wires from the sound system to these 2 wires and the speaker came alive and sounded decent. I could have connected the speaker wires to these 2 wires and job finished but I thought it would be more elegant to connect to the interior tabs and I was curious to see how 4 input wires became 2. So I disconnected the back cover plate.
Since I am a bit of a novice I decided to commit a travesty and sidestep all the embedded electronics and connect directly to the 2 wires going to the speaker. I reasoned that the Mitsubishi speaker box had its own electronics and these would have to suffice. So I made a short extension with connectors for the Bose tabs and a screw on connector for the 2 wires from the speaker box, ensuring I maintained polarity.
But first I had to fit the Bose speaker into the speaker box and since its profile was elliptical/oval it would not fit the rectangular shape of the speaker being replaced. I needed a template to mark out the shape on the speaker box so I could cut with my Skil jigsaw. I measured the length and width of the speaker where it would fit into the box , but how to draw an elliptical circle. Fortunately for my permaculture design course I have been working with Inkscape, freeware software, and so I produced the shape with the software to actual size, printed the circle, then copied it onto cardboard which I trimmed and then used the cardboard to sketch the shape on the speaker box.
With the jigsaw I cut out the pattern, the Bose speaker fitted well into the box, I connected the wires and fitted the lid cover and tried it out on my system and it sounds fine. Job accomplished.
