I’ve got two sets of speakers here in my lair: JBL LSR4326P powered monitors with a subwoofer, which are set up as the monitors for my Pro Tools system, and a set of Klipsch GMX-A speakers which plays audio output from my Mac desktop (iTunes, YouTube, and so on).

Recently I was relocating some wiring while cleaning the studio, something I do once every five years or so whether it needs it or not, haa. After I had reconnected the computer speakers I was excitedly trying to watch the Ant-Man trailer when I noticed that there was now no sound coming from the right speaker.

This is why I hate cleaning.

I discovered that the RCA jack at the ass-end of the silent speaker had broken loose and was just rattling around unconnected to any circuitry. I wound up having to do some electronics surgery involving a Dremel, my soldering iron and some heavy duty curse words. Just look at the way these speakers are made and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The front face of the speaker comes off by removing three visible screws and a fourth which is sneakily hidden behind the little Klipsch badge pasted onto the front. I had to wriggle the front off because there is also a screw inside the top of the tweeter enclosure that also holds the enclosure face on – from the inside. Then I had to hold the speaker and wiring out of the way as much as I could while I dipped a long screwdriver into the weird well-shaped enclosure so I could remove the two Phillips screws holding the small PCB down there.

After much gnashing of teeth I had the little board out, and I used the Dremel to grind down the sides of the RCA connector terminals so I would have enough length for the terminals to protrude through the circuit board (the original ends had just snapped off when the jack came loose).

I soldered the jack back in and made sure it was secure, then went through the gyrations of trying to get the circuit board back into place down in that enclosure, followed by trying to get the screws in while keeping everything in place. Honestly I think I went into a fugue while I was trying to get it all to come together, and I’m not sure how I actually made it happen.

In the end I managed to get everything back in one piece (no leftover parts or anything!) and I was back in the land of stereo fidelity, awww yisss.

This did lead me to figure out how to set up a hotkey that would allow me to switch the audio output of my Mac desktop from the Klipsch speakers to the JBL monitors, though.  So I got that going for me, which is great.