The Stoodio Sub Lives Again!

I’m sure I’m no different to a lot of artists when it comes to my work environment. A nice hot cup of something in ones favourite mug, a comfy supportive chair, work stuff at hand when it’s needed and one of the driving forces to getting in “The Zone” is of course music!

One staple bit of kit that I’ve had for well over 20 years is an Altec Lansing PC speaker system which came with a Gateway Penitum 120 PC I bought back during my Sensible Software days. Come to think of it the PC was actually bought when I was about to start working on the never to ever see the light of day game Have a Nice Day. Though the PC has long gone the speakers have stayed with me all this time – because they sound so good!

Earlier this year I noticed the Bass was starting to sound a bit dull so I whipped the cover of the front of the Sub-woofer and it was clear from the off the problem was the foam ring that sits between the rim of the speaker and the wooden enclosure. It had literally disintegrated and touching what remained crumbled at my fingertips. It went from sound muffled to rattling like a loose screw in tumble dryer. Dubstep was off the playlist!

Fast forward to August 2019, enough was enough I thought this has to be fixable and withing minutes I had a list of URLs to visit with potential solutions. New rubber rings were needed so I ordered some replacements off eBay which thankfully took less than a week to arrive.

Rings of Aural Delight

Now i’d read all sorts of stuff about using special glue and making sure the adhesive was the right type… then I read that some bloke had used UHU glue and had good results. I had some of that in my shed so problem solved.

I’d already cleaned the old foam and glue off the speaker and carefully applied the UHU to the new rubber and carefully ran some along the edge of the cut out. I also opted to dab a line around the speaker cone to insure a good solid seal was had.