ALiii updated with Infinity Kappa Perfect 10.1s

Like many of you, I updated the woofers in my ALiiis just a couple of weeks ago using the Infinity Kappa Perfect 10.1s. In my opinion, they are a significant upgrade from my originals (and if you are not going to use a subwoofer). Last evening, I went back in and added gaskets (mine were gone altogether) and upgraded the original wood screws with appropriate mounting hardware (hex head 1.5" bolts, lock washers, and flat version of T nuts).

I used some foam shelf liner from Lowes to make the gaskets outlining the woofer with a yellow colored pencil and marking the inner circumference 3/4" inward and tracing it by hand. Cut out with scissors, lay on the woofer and poke 8 holes with an awl and ready to go.

I drilled out my factory mounting holes to 1/4" and was surprised to find that I only had 4 factory holes for each woofer. I now have 8:) You'll need to pull the cross overs to hold the the flat T nuts as you tighten the bolts. Once you get enough tension, they won't spin and these are much better than conventional T nuts that may not be able to "bite" into the dense cabinet material. Place the gasket on the woofer and put all 8 bolts in place then put the woofer in the speaker hole. Get all 8 bolts in the holes and add the nuts by hand. Torque them down evenly like tightening lug nuts on a car wheel. I used my small torque wrench from my road bike tool kit here, don't recall how many newtons of torque I applied (probably the Smithwick's too)

Attach the wires (I plan to upgrade to 12G next time) and close up the crossover again. There were no gaskets here either so a little Permatex silicone was used with a small bead. Install the bases and put on your favorite tunes.

The bass sounds tighter now then without the gaskets and I wonder if I was getting some cabinet vibration with only 4 little wood screws holding each of the woofers? They are very heavy. Victor Wooten has never sounded so good! Looking forward to powering these with my new 4.0t and then the Sunfire 300~2/Tube preamp combo later on this week.

This site and the members are fantastic! Thanks for all the info and advice that made this upgrade easy and most enjoyable.

That's the exact same gasket material I used~

Good job! Looks great.

The first time I heard an unusual noise from my AL-IIIs was when I had some bass-heavy notes hitting hard...it was "farting" around the woofer edge. The gasket tightened things up considerably all around.

Glad your enjoying the tunes. Thats the most important part

Excellent! Some day I'll get around to changing mine out.

That's the exact same gasket material I used~

Good job! Looks great.

The first time I heard an unusual noise from my AL-IIIs was when I had some bass-heavy notes hitting hard...it was "farting" around the woofer edge. The gasket tightened things up considerably all around.

Thanks Gary for your suggestion on this material, worked perfectly and cleared up the farting! And for your suggestion on using the flat T nuts, didn't need to use set screws, thankfully, made it go a LOT quicker, just 3 beers from start to finish:)

Nice work! I had a stock pair of AL-III plus for awhile and was not impressed with the low end at all, bet the upgrade helps quite a bit!

I had a stock pair of AL-III plus for awhile and was not impressed with the low end at all

this ugrade is a 100% improvement, (somebody really cheaped out)
most of the time I just run these as subs along with my plats.

So how are they now you've had some time to evaluate? Impressions? Pros/cons?

so the svc speaker sold for $111 plus 25 to ship. i stopped at 75.99, and it flew right by me.