Amplion A114 speaker 1926

Made by Alfred Graham Amplion Ltd, 25-26 Savile Row, Regent St., London, original price in 1926 was £3.3.0d (£178 is today's equivalent price.) Quite small just a little larger than a shoe box but it packs a punch, the power from the Amplion A.U.4 Bakelite driver is directed down a horizontal pipe to a curved forward facing extraction method, quite rare in speaker design, almost like a reverse satellite dish but for sound. It has a nice little right hand side door that reveals the driver and its wiring as well as the magnet/diaphragm adjustment. This is usually seized-up and is easily put right by unscrewing the nut adjuster till the magnet releases the metal disc inside, then it is screwed back up for maximum volume, but if you take it too far it will re jam into the magnet, trick is to just get it right.

View with cabinet removed (8 screws underneath.)

The Bakelite housing is held together by 4 screws and at some point in it's past they had to be sawed-out, either because the screw heads broke off or were rusty? this can be assumed from the saw cuts into the Bakelite either side of the screw heads. So it came apart easy this time, I un-jammed the disc and cleaned away the dust and put back together. The resistance of the winding reading about 1200 ohms. I cleaned the Bakelite with oil, this brings back its original sheen.

The large A.U.4 driver used in many large horn speakers of the mid-20s and in itself quite a valuable item, more so if working. The speaker cloth when I brought it was falling into dust and from the rear I determined it had been a gold or yellow colour to represent the sunset depicted on the speaker grill.

 I sanded the glue residue from the wood and glued some slits that had developed on the rear of the rays using masking tape while drying. I used a gold coloured Spandex, more popular with Asian dress makers than speaker repair men, but it was only £3 for 1/2 a meter. Don't put glue on speaker cloth it just soaks into it and shows on the other side. I found double sided tape was good enough, running a tiny amount all around the outer edge of the grille. If any wrinkles apear then just pull open and re-fix.

Side door revivals LS driver, wiring and name plate.

A final look at the speaker as I found it, I kept a small piece of the cloth glued inside for future reference. The only other example of this unit I found on-line had it's grill missing, perhaps mine will turn into the best reference model thus far. Research source:-  Radio! Radio! by Jonathan Hill, 1988.