Panasonic RX-5150 finished

[Kit]

Here's my finished 5150 after painting. I first got it from a thrift store, cassette deck not working. After a new motor (purchased with help from a member here), a couple belts, a handful of capacitors, and some paint, it works great. Always looking for better sound, I found a pair of 5W silk dome tweeters to replace the blown piezos. Also I replaced 4 sets of coupling caps with slightly higher values, just to coax a little more bass out of it, which helped a bit. The tweeters have 6.8 uF crossover caps, and the paint over the beige speaker grilles was Rustoleum Metallic Black.

 

[floyd]

Looks awesome like she's ready to rock kick ass man.

 

[floyd]

By the way nice job on the repairs and upgrades you did. Shows a lot of dedicated work you did.

 

[floyd]

I love these panasonic boomboxes
.

 

[Kit]

Thanks Floyd, I love them too, well made, but not too flashy. It looks like the grilles are metal now. The tape deck sounds as good as my Onkyo home unit.

 

[BoxBeats]

Just needs the decal I created for this model in the cassette window. I created the decal for another member, sure would look sharp on the box. The gray area gets cut away around the 5150 numbers because the original decal is transparent in that area. Great job!

 

[Kit]

Hey Boxbeats, that's nice art. But then I might be fooling people that I really have the "L" version since I used the paint...

 

[BoxBeats]

I can always give you a version without the “L” if you want. Let me know.

 

[jdelfresco]

dude, this post came at the absolute perfect time, as I’ve been searching for about a week for a way to replace the tweeters on my (very otherwise mint) 5150. I’ve been searching this forum and google like crazy, even asking around PMing people I thought might know what I can use for replacements.

what Exactly did you use? I’ve found some on eBay I think MIGHT work, but none are exact measurements of the factory tweeters. I found some matsushita tweeters from a JVC that look very similar to the 5150 tweeters, but I’ve not gotten measurements from the seller yet. I can’t find a set of 5250 or 5160 tweeters online anywhere

 

[jdelfresco]

Just needs the decal I created for this model in the cassette window. I created the decal for another member, sure would look sharp on the box. The gray area gets cut away around the 5150 numbers because the original decal is transparent in that area. Great job!

hey don’t I get some credit for this? If it wasn’t for me asking (twice) this wouldn’t even exist

Hey Boxbeats, that's nice art. But then I might be fooling people that I really have the "L" version since I used the paint...

Honestly man, if I were rocking the black grills like yours, I’d sport the 5150L sticker just to stay consistent with the look. If I were to restore a 5150, I’d definitely be painting the grills. I got my 5150 a couple weeks ago when I bought a big collection for super cheap, and it’s the one model Im choosing to keep as my first boombox, and that’s mostly because it came with the original box and is in absolute mint condition. I can’t bring myself to alter (some would say “ruin) something like that.

 

[Kit]

dude, this post came at the absolute perfect time, as I’ve been searching for about a week for a way to replace the tweeters on my (very otherwise mint) 5150. I’ve been searching this forum and google like crazy, even asking around PMing people I thought might know what I can use for replacements.

what Exactly did you use? I’ve found some on eBay I think MIGHT work, but none are exact measurements of the factory tweeters. I found some matsushita tweeters from a JVC that look very similar to the 5150 tweeters, but I’ve not gotten measurements from the seller yet. I can’t find a set of 5250 or 5160 tweeters online anywhere

Hi, I found these on EBay from China, but they don't come up too often. They did not fit exactly, but I was able to use one of the screw mount holes it had, plus a little glue. It was a little larger but they sound great. The deal is to find 5 watt versions, many of them for car installs are higher power. Good luck.

 

[Kit]

hey don’t I get some credit for this? If it wasn’t for me asking (twice) this wouldn’t even exist



Honestly man, if I were rocking the black grills like yours, I’d sport the 5150L sticker just to stay consistent with the look. If I were to restore a 5150, I’d definitely be painting the grills. I got my 5150 a couple weeks ago when I bought a big collection for super cheap, and it’s the one model Im choosing to keep as my first boombox, and that’s mostly because it came with the original box and is in absolute mint condition. I can’t bring myself to alter (some would say “ruin) something like that.

You're probably right, I might like the sticker. Sounds like you got a nice haul! I'm just not crazy about the greenish hue color of the plastic grilles when it aged.

 

[Kit]

they were silk dome

 

[jdelfresco]

they were silk dome

I have a handful of tweeters saved on eBay with somewhat similar measurements. I’m honestly just waiting to pull the trigger until I find some more information.
These are the closest I’ve found so far.
These, however look like they’d just fit perfectly into the factory mounting positions without alterations. But I don’t know exactly what these are, they are made by matsushita from a JVC speaker set, but I can’t find information on them, and I wonder if they’re just another piezo like the original, although I’ve seen them on parts sites listed as “cone speaker”

from your experience, do you think either of those would work?

 

[Kit]

You'd have to look at what they're from. If they are not rated about 5 Watts, they won't be great.

 

[jdelfresco]

I’ve asked around about wattage and haven’t gotten much information on how much wattage matters for the tweeters. Everything I’ve read, as well as those I’ve asked said not to use 4ohm tweeters but rather 6 or 8ohm. What exactly is wrong with using tweeters rated at more than 5W?

 

[Superduper]

Nothing is wrong with the watt rating, it just has to do with how much power they can handle. Tweeters with higher watt ratings may be less efficient, but that isn't necessarily true. The only way to be sure is to have the SPL specs available to compare. Higher wattage ratings means that they can handle more power before blowing, but these boomboxes don't produce a ton of power to begin with so low power ratings are fine. High power ratings are even better, IF they have the same or better efficiency.

 

[jdelfresco]

Oh okay, that’s something I already knew about, the ones I was looking at weren’t more than 20W or so.

 

[Kit]

Good point Superduper about the wattage. The silk domes ones aren't as "bright" a sound as the stock piezos. Higher power rated ones may not be very loud, or they might work fine...

 

[floyd]

I think a 10 dollar pair of car audio add on tweeters mounted in the stock location behind the tweeter grills would solve the problem.