Last month, I had found a somewhat rough looking, but otherwise fine sounding pair of Acoustat 1+1s. Yesterday, I begin the renovation project by removing the grill socks. Imagine an eight foot long tube sock that is open at both ends. They need a thorough vacuuming and hair dryer based heat treatment. Here they are naked:



I was a bit concerned about the condition of the four identical panels because the owner had cats and it was evident from the condition of the grill cloth they had done their own imitation of King Kong climbing the Chrysler Building. Fortunately, there were no tears in the diaphragms. Here's a section of the cloth showing the extreme pilling.



The next step is to do what I had done years ago with a similar pair of Acoustat 2+2s: make news ones from tightly stretched spandex as is used by the Sound Lab factory. They are far more transparent both to the eye and ear. You can clearly make out the four panel per speaker construction. Up close, you can easily see the stator wires and panel. That translates to a more open and less treble restricted sound.





After that, I'll update the capacitors used in the power supply and bypass the audio fuse and replace the variable HF control with a fixed resistor. I might add a small value cap at the power supply input for RF suppression.