Found something really "interesting" 2 days ago while going to the grocery store. Not a best score by a long shot... but a fun one 
. I was actually first going to post that oldschool case that I mentioned in my previous post, but this one is on mind mind at the moment. Oh, I am like a teenage school girl – I can barely contain myself now.
So what I found was… okay, please give me just a few more moments to stop giggling here
.
.
.
The Panasonic THRUSTERS
Now now kids, let’s not make fun of our names or silly jokes here. Everyone deserves respect, right?
Model number on these speakers is SB-250, rated for a whooping 20 Watts _maximum_ input.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1538745339
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1538745339
Oh gosh, why-o-why
do I keep picking up crappy lo-fi speakers? 
Truth be told, I don’t know why. As mentioned, I saw these while on the way to the grocery store in a small street. Given their size, I immediately knew they wouldn’t be anything that good. But curiosity always gets me, every time. In this case, the name… which shall not be mentioned again here if I wish to remain serious enough to finish typing this post 
… sounded familiar from somewhere. I’ve probably seen them online on the likes of Craigslist or similar and probably researched them.
So on the way back from the grocery store, I picked them up. Immediately upon lifting the speakers up, I noticed they were very light, which made me certain they’d be lo-fi stuff. Nevertheless, I got them home and placed them outside in the backyard, as I always do with used / thrown out items. I tried removing the grills just to have a peek at the drivers and whatnot, but I couldn’t remove them. I thought they were just stuck from age or someone glued them, so I left them for the next day.
The following morning, I inspected a bit further. Turns out, the grills weren’t stuck – they were stapled to the case at the factory, by design! Again, I knew these speakers were not going to be great (or good for that matter), but these are, well, really really REALLY bottom-dollar lo-fi stuff. Some AudioKarma posts I found online state they were passable/acceptable for the time, given the all-in-one systems they came with and their very low price… but, gee, I don’t know man. :\
Naturally, I am the type of person that likes to try upcycle, recycle, and/or reuse as much as I can. But immediately upon getting near these speakers, the stench of old moldy basement was almost unbearable. So that pretty much instantly sealed the fate of these speakers – I definitely wasn’t going to keep them around. And it looks like these might have been water-damaged too:
At least those stains on the bottom say so.
That said, I also noticed the built-in wires of each speaker were cut very close to the base. So perhaps whoever threw these away didn’t want them to be reused. Thus, I decided to open the speakers up and see if there is anything salvageable (or not, given the strong moldy smell).
I took my trusty screwdriver and thrusted it (oh no, here we go again ) between the front grille and case on one of the speakers. Removing the factory-stapled grille revealed this:
Just as the label says: 2x 6.5” drivers (one being a passive radiator), and a 2” tweeter. The quality of the 6.5” drivers appeared pretty crappy, of course. The passive radiator was extremely crooked, with one side completely pushed in and the other completely pushed out. And the 6.5” full-range driver – seized & stuck like a rock!
I suppose that explains the cut wires
Now I got really curious to take these apart. However, there didn’t appear to be any screws holding any of the drivers down.
Removing the silver tape rings didn’t reveal anything either.
Were these drivers glued/screwed on from the inside?
But then how did they close the back? More glue?? 2x
As I didn’t really care about these, I turned the same speaker above and started prying the back wall off. Surprisingly, it took very little force to get that popped off. And while doing so, I think I managed to produce more sawdust than a milling factory. The particle board used for these speakers was, well… really made of sawdust particles and not much of glue holding, it seems. But I will let the pictures speak for themselves, starting with inside the “cabinet” / ”box”:
WOW! Everything really was glued down cheaply!
And what about sound-insulating baffle? Nah! We don’t need no stinking baffle anywhere. No wonder these boxes sounded like hollow pumpkins when I knocked on them. (On that note, I did see a video on YouTube before, where someone actually tried making a pumpkin speaker… but I digress ) Oh and remember that seized full-range driver?? Does anyone see the problem now?
No?
Okay, how about now?
No?
Okay, dammit, just look at the magnet/motor assembly of that speaker driver – yes, it really was like that. 
No, I didn’t throw, bump, or manhandle the speakers in any way. The other speaker had its full-range driver seized in the same exact way too, just like this one. Opening that one revealed the magnet was still in place where it was supposed to be. But I gently pried away with my screwdriver, and it came loose and out very easily. Here is one speaker with the magnet removed, but both were like this:
So it looks like whatever glue was holding the magnets down has either degraded by itself or perhaps killed by moisture (after all, these speakers do appear to have some water damage, though I don’t think they were fully water-submerged at all – and probably not even halfway). Some posts online on other places noted that these speakers become “buzzy” over time. Thus, I am thinking it’s probably the glue that degrades or was inappropriate for the application and caused the rust formation on the metal driver parts which allowed them to separate.
As such, I obviously didn’t bother saving the full-range drivers. However, I did save their magnets. They separate and came out very easily, so why not, right?
I also cut and saved the tensil leads from the full-range drivers, along with the bipolar caps and tweeters. Now the main concern is how to clear them of that moldy smell. I left them outside for the time being until I have more time to think of a way to do this. Seriously, what is it about mold that makes it so hard to get rid of? I washed my hands 2 times for over 3 minutes each with heavy-duty dish detergent and I could not get the smell out of my fingers. It wasn’t until I decided to take more drastic measures and used some Bleach spray cleaner on my hands (I know, not good for your skin, but who cares). Washed with soap after that one more time to get rid of any bleach residue. That seemed to do the trick. So I probably will have to do the same to the scavenged parts.
On that note, why does it always seem that the crappiest and most smelly and moldy items I get always come from upper-middle class neighborhoods with large houses. I just don’t get it! These speakers were located in front of a newly-built and fairly large McMansion home. One would think there would be better things in such a house, and definitely not smelling like mold. Not the first time either that I seem to pickup something very crappy from an otherwise good-looking house.
On the other hand, two months ago, I picked up some large JVC floor speakers from a house in DC. The neighborhood there had mostly college students, and frankly most of the houses looked like major shit holes. But believe it or not, those speakers were clean and didn’t come with any unwanted smell or bugs. Owner even assured me of that too.
So I suppose, one should never assume anything about where the item came from. On that note, also don’t pickup items at night or in low-light conditions, as they will always seem better than they probably are. In the case with the Panasonic speakers above, they looked okay on the street light. I didn’t see the water damage until I brought them home. Needless to say, I thrusted these speakers towards the curb now (it’s trash day today).
Anyways, I’m off now to get a glass of water. My childish mind still can’t get over that name.
. I was actually first going to post that oldschool case that I mentioned in my previous post, but this one is on mind mind at the moment. Oh, I am like a teenage school girl – I can barely contain myself now. So what I found was… okay, please give me just a few more moments to stop giggling here
.
.
.
The Panasonic THRUSTERS
Now now kids, let’s not make fun of our names or silly jokes here. Everyone deserves respect, right?
Model number on these speakers is SB-250, rated for a whooping 20 Watts _maximum_ input.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1538745339
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1538745339
Oh gosh, why-o-why
do I keep picking up crappy lo-fi speakers? Truth be told, I don’t know why.
As mentioned, I saw these while on the way to the grocery store in a small street. Given their size, I immediately knew they wouldn’t be anything that good. But curiosity always gets me, every time. In this case, the name… which shall not be mentioned again here if I wish to remain serious enough to finish typing this post … sounded familiar from somewhere. I’ve probably seen them online on the likes of Craigslist or similar and probably researched them.So on the way back from the grocery store, I picked them up. Immediately upon lifting the speakers up, I noticed they were very light, which made me certain they’d be lo-fi stuff. Nevertheless, I got them home and placed them outside in the backyard, as I always do with used / thrown out items. I tried removing the grills just to have a peek at the drivers and whatnot, but I couldn’t remove them. I thought they were just stuck from age or someone glued them, so I left them for the next day.
The following morning, I inspected a bit further. Turns out, the grills weren’t stuck – they were stapled to the case at the factory, by design! Again, I knew these speakers were not going to be great (or good for that matter), but these are, well, really really REALLY bottom-dollar lo-fi stuff. Some AudioKarma posts I found online state they were passable/acceptable for the time, given the all-in-one systems they came with and their very low price… but, gee, I don’t know man. :\
Naturally, I am the type of person that likes to try upcycle, recycle, and/or reuse as much as I can. But immediately upon getting near these speakers, the stench of old moldy basement was almost unbearable. So that pretty much instantly sealed the fate of these speakers – I definitely wasn’t going to keep them around. And it looks like these might have been water-damaged too:
At least those stains on the bottom say so.
That said, I also noticed the built-in wires of each speaker were cut very close to the base. So perhaps whoever threw these away didn’t want them to be reused. Thus, I decided to open the speakers up and see if there is anything salvageable (or not, given the strong moldy smell).
I took my trusty screwdriver and thrusted it (oh no, here we go again
) between the front grille and case on one of the speakers. Removing the factory-stapled grille revealed this:Just as the label says: 2x 6.5” drivers (one being a passive radiator), and a 2” tweeter. The quality of the 6.5” drivers appeared pretty crappy, of course. The passive radiator was extremely crooked, with one side completely pushed in and the other completely pushed out. And the 6.5” full-range driver – seized & stuck like a rock!
I suppose that explains the cut wires Now I got really curious to take these apart. However, there didn’t appear to be any screws holding any of the drivers down.
Removing the silver tape rings didn’t reveal anything either.Were these drivers glued/screwed on from the inside?
But then how did they close the back? More glue?? 2x As I didn’t really care about these, I turned the same speaker above and started prying the back wall off. Surprisingly, it took very little force to get that popped off. And while doing so, I think I managed to produce more sawdust than a milling factory.
The particle board used for these speakers was, well… really made of sawdust particles and not much of glue holding, it seems. But I will let the pictures speak for themselves, starting with inside the “cabinet” / ”box”:WOW! Everything really was glued down cheaply!
And what about sound-insulating baffle? Nah! We don’t need no stinking baffle anywhere.
No wonder these boxes sounded like hollow pumpkins when I knocked on them. (On that note, I did see a video on YouTube before, where someone actually tried making a pumpkin speaker… but I digress ) Oh and remember that seized full-range driver?? Does anyone see the problem now?No?
Okay, how about now?
No?
Okay, dammit, just look at the magnet/motor assembly of that speaker driver
– yes, it really was like that. No, I didn’t throw, bump, or manhandle the speakers in any way. The other speaker had its full-range driver seized in the same exact way too, just like this one. Opening that one revealed the magnet was still in place where it was supposed to be. But I gently pried away with my screwdriver, and it came loose and out very easily. Here is one speaker with the magnet removed, but both were like this:So it looks like whatever glue was holding the magnets down has either degraded by itself or perhaps killed by moisture (after all, these speakers do appear to have some water damage, though I don’t think they were fully water-submerged at all – and probably not even halfway). Some posts online on other places noted that these speakers become “buzzy” over time. Thus, I am thinking it’s probably the glue that degrades or was inappropriate for the application and caused the rust formation on the metal driver parts which allowed them to separate.
As such, I obviously didn’t bother saving the full-range drivers. However, I did save their magnets. They separate and came out very easily, so why not, right?
I also cut and saved the tensil leads from the full-range drivers, along with the bipolar caps and tweeters. Now the main concern is how to clear them of that moldy smell. I left them outside for the time being until I have more time to think of a way to do this. Seriously, what is it about mold that makes it so hard to get rid of? I washed my hands 2 times for over 3 minutes each with heavy-duty dish detergent and I could not get the smell out of my fingers. It wasn’t until I decided to take more drastic measures and used some Bleach spray cleaner on my hands (I know, not good for your skin, but who cares). Washed with soap after that one more time to get rid of any bleach residue. That seemed to do the trick. So I probably will have to do the same to the scavenged parts.On that note, why does it always seem that the crappiest and most smelly and moldy items I get always come from upper-middle class neighborhoods with large houses. I just don’t get it!
These speakers were located in front of a newly-built and fairly large McMansion home. One would think there would be better things in such a house, and definitely not smelling like mold. Not the first time either that I seem to pickup something very crappy from an otherwise good-looking house.On the other hand, two months ago, I picked up some large JVC floor speakers from a house in DC. The neighborhood there had mostly college students, and frankly most of the houses looked like major shit holes. But believe it or not, those speakers were clean and didn’t come with any unwanted smell or bugs. Owner even assured me of that too.
So I suppose, one should never assume anything about where the item came from. On that note, also don’t pickup items at night or in low-light conditions, as they will always seem better than they probably are. In the case with the Panasonic speakers above, they looked okay on the street light. I didn’t see the water damage until I brought them home. Needless to say, I thrusted these speakers towards the curb now (it’s trash day today).
Anyways, I’m off now to get a glass of water. My childish mind still can’t get over that name.
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