Rodgers 660 speaker problem?

[BROrgan]

Hello all. I am new to this forum and hope that I can make my postings clear and concise. Our church currently has a Rodgers 660, installed in 1971. It has had its fair share of problems, but we make do as best we can.

I have a problem, I think, with one of the speaker banks. First let me tell you what speakers the organ has:

Great/Choir Main = one M-13 6x9 array for the Unit Diapasons; one W30-100 for Unit Flutes
Swell Main = one M-13 6x9 array for Unit Swell; one M-13 6x9 array for Trumpet and Unit Celestes
Pedal Main = one P2-100 or B2-100 (I'm not sure which. It's huge and I can almost stand up in it!)

Antiphonal Great/Choir combined = one M-13 6x9 array
Antiphonal Swell combined = one M-13 6x9 array
Antiphonal Pedal = one p2-100 or B2-100 (same cabinet as the Pedal Main)

Here's the problem: The Great/Choir MAIN Unit flutes do not have the same volume as the Great/Choir ANTIPHONAL flutes. Now, this has nothing to do with the volume level of the Antiphonal speakers. Rather is has to do with, I think, the speakers themselves. When voicing, the Unit Diapasons are generally slightly louder than the Great/Choir Unit Flutes. If I voice in this way for the Main speakers, then the volume level of the Antiphonal Unit Flutes becomes way too loud, completely overpowering the Antiphonal Great/Choir Unit Diapasons. To test the Great/Choir Main Unit Flute output, I unplugged the W30-100 speaker cabinet and plugged the Great/Choir Main Flutes into one of the Main M-13 6x9 speaker arrays. Lo and behold, the volume doubled and exactly matched the volume level of the Great/Choir Antiphonal Flutes. Does this mean that there is a problem with the W3-100 speaker cabinet?

The W3-100 cabinet has two 15" cones and one tweeter. I see NO amplifier, in that the speaker wire enters into the cabinet through a hole in the front, the cabinet being completely sealed. Therefore, I can't tell if there is a problem with an amplifier or not.

The organ is designed to have the Great/Choir Unit Diapasons and Flutes speaking from different speaker cabinets (of course if they are purchased in the installation). OR the Diapasons and Flutes can be channeled into only one speaker. In order to solve the problem for the time being, I have now combined the Main Unit Diapasons and Unit Flutes into the one M 13-100 6x9 speaker cabinet. This changes the sound somewhat, but at least now I can correctly set the volume level between the Diapasons and Flutes and both levels now match those coming out of the Antiphonal speaker.

Does anyone have an idea as to what is going on with the W3-100 speaker cabinet? Can another speaker be purchased that would replace this one and still do the job, the Rodgers SW6 Front Firing Dual Port Compact Subwoofer for example?

Also, the sound outputs of the Rodgers 660 require a 5-pronged plug. Other new speakers only take two wires. How could another type (different brand?) speaker be made to work with this 5-pronged plug?

Ok. I hope I've made my post clear enough. Thanks in advance for your responses...

[Jan Girardot]

BRorgan;

Have you gone through the checkout or voicing procedure spelled out in the service manual?

. . . Jan
the OrganGrinder

[BROrgan]

Yes, I have. It's just baffling to me. Our nearest tech lives a state over, so I just can't call him in. When he last worked on the organ, none of the Great/Choir flutes were working at all. He went into the transistors, etc. and found a problem. All of a sudden, we had flutes again, BUT the volume still is unbalanced. I just knew it was the Flute output circuitry, but by simply plugging another speaker cabinet into it, the volume was restored to its correct level. I don't want to buy another speaker if I don't have to, but I don't want to live with the flute volume being so out of wack. It's really frustrating!

[jbird604]

If the volume is normal when you plug a different tone cabinet into the flute output socket, then your problem is obviously with the tone cabinet. Now a "tone cabinet" in a Rodgers analog setup includes both the speaker cabinet and an associated amplifier driving the speakers. The amplifier that drives a given speaker is sometimes located right in the speaker cabinet, but I don't think they would have put one inside a sealed box. For one thing there would have to be an AC power cord going to the amp. (The 5-pin connector and its cabling does NOT carry 110 volts to the amp. It carries a line-level audio signal along with audio ground and it carries 15 volts on two of the wires which serve to activate a relay under the amp chassis to turn on the AC power remotely. The remaining pin of the 5-pin plug is unused.)

So, you will find a Rodgers amplifier (probably of the S-100 type) somewhere near the speaker if you follow the wires that connect to the speaker cabinet. You might start by checking the plug and socket where the cable from the organ goes into the amplifier. Sometimes these connectors become corroded and do not make good contact. This could drastically reduce the volume level in some cases. Cleaning the pins and sockets will fix that, and then coating it with a thin film of Vaseline to prevent future corrosion. It's more likely, though, that there is something wrong with that amplifier or perhaps something wrong with the speaker cabinet itself.

If you want to go to the trouble, you can swap the S-100 amp driving the flute speaker with one of the other S-100 amps in the system and see if that cures the problem. If the S-100 is indeed bad, you might try to get it fixed, but you can often find them on ebay for not too much money. If swapping amps doesn't cure the problem, you could try using a different speaker on that channel. Any decent pro-sound speaker should work for that channel. A Rodgers brand cabinet if bought new from a dealer would certainly cost many hundreds of dollars. I have successfully used reasonably priced pro sound speakers (normally with a 15" woofer and a good horn-loaded tweeter) on all except the pedal channels of an analog Rodgers.

BTW, you cannot attach any kind of speaker directly to the 5-pin output terminal of the organ because there is no speaker-driving signal at that terminal. Only (as stated above) a line-level audio which must be amplified before going into an ordinary speaker.

[toodles]

In Rodgers parlance, of the era, the "-100" in the W3-100 means a 100 Watt amp installed in the cabinet. I used two W3 cabinets with a Rodgers 32B at one time, and the amps were mounted inside the sealed enclosures. I agree with John this isn't an ideal arrangement, but but there is quite a large volume of air in the W3 cabinet, and I had no problems with my setup. There were both 5-pin cables and AC cords coming out of the cabinet.

I would say there is definitely a problem with the W3-100 cabinet. First make sure the power cable is actually plugged in. In order to access the amp for service, you should remove one of the 15" speakers. One is a passive radiator (has no electrical connections, no magnet), and that is by far the easier one to remove because it doesn't weigh 22 pound--more like 8 pounds. It is easy to damage the real woofer when removing it because of the weight.

Remove that cone, and you can check wiring, and the amplifier fuses (with the amp unplugged from AC, of course).

Toodles

[jbird604]

What he said.

Thanks, Toodles, I had failed to notice the -100 designation.

So modify my advice to say: remove the passive radiator and check the amp inside the box. You might still, if you're inclined, try swapping that S-100 for a different one to see if that fixes your problem. If so, proceed to ebay or elsewhere to buy a replacement amp.

[BROrgan]

Thanks John and Toodles for your suggestions. I will remove the 15" woofer and see what I find inside the tone cabinet. One problem, I'm not sure which one is the "passive" one. I have the technical manual with the drawings but each one is just designated as 15" cone, saying nothing as to which one is the active radiator. From their outward appearance, they look exactly alike. I'll just have to guess and take my chances.

John, about getting a new speaker of a different brand, forgive me, but I'm rather new to all this, and I don't know what you mean by "reasonably priced pro sound speaker". I saw a web site "allprosound.com". Do you mean a speaker from this web site? There are hundreds of speakers to chose from, each with a description more confusing than the last. Also, I still don't understand how I'll be able to hook up the cable if it has 5 prongs on it to a new speaker of a different brand without a 5-prong connection. Also, should a new speaker only be rated to 100 watts as is the Rodgers W3-100?

[Jan Girardot]

BRO, the passive radiator is easy to spot if the bare cones are visible; it's the one without the two small (voice coil) wires near the center.

If you have all the speakers and one or two are defective, it is no big deal to just get the originals reconed.

Eazy-peazy!

. . . Jan
the OrganGrinder

[indianajo]

This is drifting off. Your W3-100 is a powered speaker- a combination of a speaker, a passive radiator, and an amplifier. You have to remove the passive radiator to access the amplifier, but it is not likely at fault. It is also not likely your speaker (driver) is at fault, and reconeing won't help unless it is. Woofers with faults typically have torn rubber suspensions (visible) and drag the voice coil on the magnet (feel scraping when you push the center in gently). Defective speaker (drivers, cones) also will likely not read an even 4 or 8 ohms on ohms scale of a DVM after they have a problem. If you don't have a DVM, I reccommend the non-autoranging sears one for about $30 as a good investment in practical troubleshooting.
It is likely, by the law of rubber components, that your amplifier is at fault. There are time sensitive rubber sealed components in these that go bad based on the calender- about 20 years is it. You specify Rogers service is not an option. If you have the ability to unplug your powered speaker and convey it to a pro sound shop, you might be able to get reasonable service. Pro sound shops can be found in the yellow pages phone book as Peavey, Bose, York, JBL or Yamaha PA equipment dealers. You can also look up musical instrument techs in your area under Mitatechs.org. When you ask for a quote ask them for repair plus replacement of all "electrolytic capacitors" in the amp and speaker crossover network as part of the work. These are the components doomed to fail, IMHO, even though Robers and Allen owners seem to feel they have some sort of component fairy that keeps their equipment from being subject to age like televisions, sound equipment, radios, and all other organs. There are one year life replacement electrolytic capacitors available (500 hours service life), and for about 50% more, 10000 hour life electrolytic capacitors available. Ask your repairman to install the electrolytic capacitors with life specified at greater than 3000 hours. I buy mine at newark.com. If the tech thinks this is too hard, find another tech that understands the concept of doing quality work once (and forgetting it for 10 years). Many repair shops seem to think they want you to bring the same gear back in two years, and install the short life parts, which is a complete rip off.
Compare the estimate you get of repair of the amp, versus the price of Rogers 100 watt amps on e-bay, and in fact the ones for sale right now on the "what is it worth" forum of organ forum. Any used amp will also have twenty year old components in it IMHO and will be doomed to fail sometime, but not this year perhaps. You would have to unscrew or unsolder the amp and replace it.
Changing plug ends is something electronics people do all the time but may be a bit beyond you. As they have said, your 5 pin speaker plug has 2 speaker sound wires (low power) and 2 "turn on the amplifier" wires that have a 12 VDC signal or similar. Your powered speaker will also have a 120 VAC cord for the AC power to the amp. If you wish something new and want a price to compare Rogers stuff to, consider the Peavey PVXp-15, a powered speaker with a 15" woofer, a horn as Jbird specified, listing for $549 but probably available for less. I own a pair of Peavey SP2-XP speakers made in 1998, consisting of a 15" woofer and a horn, that I paid about $600 for used in 2010. They are the best sounding speakers (on piano source material, very difficult to get right) that I have ever owned.
If you bought a powered PA speaker, you would still have to salvage the mate 5 pin socket and turn on relay from the old W3-100 and hook this up to turn the new powered speaker on. This may be a bit beyond you but any guitar amp tech should be able to handle it. For sure, if changing the relay, find the source of the 120 vAC and turn it off or unplug it before touching any metal. Another reason to have the dVM, to ensure the power is dead when you work on anything. Who is a good tech in your area is like anything else, ask around. As your are too far out to deal with organ techs, the bar band industry has the similar amplifiers and speakers even though their culture does not intersect with church people much. But the bar band PA repair people operate everywhere, even in third world countries.
Good luck. I hope the options available don't confuse you too much. However, Rogers has abandoned field service in our 1.6 million population metropolis, also.

[toodles]

There's not any way to tell which is which from the outside. Start with the one closest to the ground, since that way if it is the speaker it doesn't have far to go when you remove it. The amp is probably mounted on the bottom of the cabinet.

Rodgers used various JBL Pro speakers in this cabinet, but a new JBL will cost lots (think $500+). Reconing is the way to go, if the speaker cone or surround is damaged (unlikely). If you can read the model number from the back of the speaker and post it here, I can attempt to find a reasonably priced substitute ($100 to $200). Hold off replacing the speaker until you are sure that is the problem and know what model it is.

The amplifier inside the cabinet will use 2 wires to connect to the speaker. You don't need to worry about the 5-pin connector, that is from the organ console to the amplifier, inside the speaker cabinet (presumably).

It seems very unlikely to me that the woofer has died--JBL pro speakers are built like a tank. More likely something is wrong with the amplifier.

Toodles.

[BROrgan]

Amazing what you guys / gals know! I will tackle the "tone cabinet" this weekend (hopefully I'll have enough time to get to it) and see what I find. I have a feeling that y'all's advise will be saving me a lot money.

[BROrgan]

Thanks to everyone for helping with this problem. I will tackle the "tone cabinet" this weekend (hopefully I'll have enough time to get to it) and will let you know what I find.

[BROrgan]

Well, I wasn't able to tackle the problem this weekend. I plan on giving it a shot this week. Sometimes there are just too many irons in the fire!

[tkosiorek]

My experience with most of the Rodgers organs I've worked on is that the foam rubber surrounds on the speaker cones have deteriorated and cause the speakers to not have the necessary back pressure to produce the correct volume and tonal quality,I see this problem on almost all brands of organs produced with foam surround speakers,in the last 2 years I've had to replace 60 speakers.

[BROrgan]

Well, folks, I was finally able to get to the tone cabinet this past weekend to see what was going on. I determined which was the "slave speaker" easy enough and removed it, no problem. There sitting at the bottom of the cabinet was the amplifier in what looks like pristine condition. I mean, it's been in this enclosed box for 40 years, no dust, still shinning. There were also no unconnected wires. The active speaker looks perfect, except for one spot on the surrond that is broken, i.e. there is a crack in the contiunous surround. There is not a piece missing, and also the surround seems to be in great condition, not flakey or deteriorating or anything. There were two controls on the amplifier itself marked with words, something about "hum adjustment". Would these possibly be some sort of volume control? Also, is it possible that the fuses need changing. Mind you, both of them look good, but maybe after 40 years.... Are these fuses proprietary to Rodgers? One looks like just a plain fuse, but the other one has all kinds of wires and strange parts in it.

Anyway, due to it's being so close to the holidays, Christmas services, etc. I've decided to just by-pass this tone cabinet by outputing the Main Great/Choir Diapasons and Flutes through the same M-13 (6x9 array) tone cabinet. The sound quality suffers somewhat, but for now, it will do fine. Mark my words though, I will get to the bottom of what's wrong with the W30-100. There is a shop in town that can do this type of speaker repair. I'll probably take it to them for a diagnosis.