Philips boombox speakers D8644 how to open?

Dear Philips addicts
I found a pair of Philips speakers that comes from their better boombox model D8644

I’d appreciate any wise know how to open the speakers without destroying them as one of the woofers lost contact inside

 

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the front plastic section is glued to an internal brace at the top and bottom of the speaker box, so you may have to gently prise it open around the edges.

 

Hi and thankyou for your reply
Yes you are probably right about that but I wait some days more to see if anyone have opened a box like this before.

 

Allright I’ll do it

I started by gently prying off the ”feet” wih a carpetknife or so... then a little bending on the bottom side ! (trying elsewhere is not recommended) between the plastic front at the fibreboard after some hammer tapping on my tool to push it down a fair bit...



And as I suspected

it was the wrong side



But nice to see the units even if one of the holes at the front obviously was a fake hole
I have been doing some prying since at the rear side but only managed to snap off the cable this far...
I will get back when it’s done

 

I haven’t gone any further yet as it’s too hot today but hold on..
Just by looking at the face of each units one can tell they probably are responsible for the better sound than the most usual crap units
The papercone tweeter gives low 3rd tone distortion...

It’s also good to see that four screws has been used instead of the common two for the tweeters!
Probably they also have a decent 2-way filter we will see...

 

???
Looks like a common generic tweeter to me, nothing special.
But at least it's better than the piezo tweeters that disgraced most other Philips portables.
And it's good to see they used particle board cases this time, not dry thin plastic like the D8734 and D8718.
Hey can I add your photo to Wikiboombox?​

 

You are right about that this looks like quite a common kind of tweeter but Philips/Magnavox made some of the best measuring and sounding cone tweeters in general, and they also were really pricey and as you say, nothing special
You’re welcome to use my shots

 

Thanks bro!
http://wikiboombox.com/tiki-index.php?page=Philips+D8644

 

Yeah seems like you would need to bash the back panel in with a rubber hammer. Or break it, lol.

 

Thanks for your replies and yep you are probably right, I will make a serious attempt to open the rear side this afternoon no matter how much violence I will have to use

 

I started gently with some prying and tapping but the glue was stronger than the particleboard

and as expected, very soon the hammer took control over my patience


aaaargghh



But just to find this


Simple Taiwan units ! not even Philips’s own
units in their ”state of the art” boombox
and just a tiny electrolytic capacitor 6dB filtering for the tweeter !
You were right and I was painfully wrong in all aspects but nevertheless ...they actually sounded really great

So my conclusion is:
It’s amazing how much a perfectly sealed particleboard box can do for the boombox sound even with cheap speakerunits and almost no filter at all.
The rather long-throw woofers were also glued to the board and siliconed at the screws !

So now I have one complete speaker to stare at and a pile of trash for the recycling

 

My scans from the 1984 Philips Portables catalogue sure do get around the internet
(it's the pic with the blue background at the above web site).
A school friend of mine had this boombox - as the blurb says, more of a 'transportable' really, but very good sound.

 

Thanks, I had a few ideas myself using hot air to melt the glue or make som space for my japanese saw but as I still didn’t own any main unit and the particle board had become ”Weetabix” I could bare the violence.
As extra salt on my porridge the wiring of the woofer seem to have have snapped near the voice coil, under the dustcap, so it wasn’t so much of a lost really.
I hope the pictures will be useful for anyone else with this issue and just for that reason it was worth it.

 

So there's not even any fiber-fill dampening material?

Can you please measure the speaker frame diameters? I'm guessing 14-15 cm woofers?

 

No dampening material at all, not even a tiny little handkerchief of fiber fill

16.5 cm basket edge to edge
14 cm between inner basket edges where the surround begins
+/- 0.2 mm

Funny thing I googled that the brand Lxi (Sears?) used a lot of those Taiwanese units in their various range of ”HiFi” models

 

Thank you!

Wow, no dampening material, how stupid! It's not like it costs anything. Probably not even a penny.

 

From now on I will see my breakfast with different eyes

 

LOL!
Well at least it's better than thin plastic