My 2 pair of S305s from Cambridge Soundworks came in today. I always love when Ground shipping from Boston ends up being overnight.My plan is to paint these black to blend into the room, oddly enough looking at where the enclosure changes from black around the speakers to white on the outside it’s clear that it’s manufactured naturally black and CS painted it white after the fact.
My biggest concern is the grill material, I’m wondering if I can dye it, the next most perplexing part is the 3 way switch, particularly because the label is painted onto the enclosure as well.
One interesting thing about di-pole speakers is that they’re directional, notice this speaker is meant for the right hand side, the other included speaker is designed for the left.
I just painted mine black. 3 coats of Rust-Oleum semi-gloss black — $5. The knob pries off and you can push it right back on after painting. Used RIT black dye boiled with 1 cup of water and some salt and detergent on stove. Applied both paint and dye with $0.89 sponge brush. I put a little stick-on label beneath the knob to remind myself which is the dipole setting.
Looks fine. Sounds good.
Awesome, thanks for the info… I was actually considering covering them with a matte-black self-adhesive vinyl wrap, the kind they make to cover car bodies with graphics.
What did you do with the grills? or did you just leave them off?
Vinyl wrap would be terrible — it would muffle the sound. I removed the grills (they pry off), dyed them with RIT as I described, and pushed them back on (after painting the speakers). By the way, I did not try to paint the well that the terminals are in.
oh no no no… I mean vinyl wrap on the cabinet instead of paint… I’m half debating just leaving the grills off, I thought you had used the dye on the knob I didn’t realize you used it on the grills…
did the grills take the dye well? you have any pictures?
The grills look fine to me. I don’t know whether the black would hold up under washing, but I don’t intend to wash them. I don’t have pictures.
awesome, thanks for the info I’ll definitely be giving this a shot
The dyed grills started to get gray and splotchy after a few months, so I dyed them again. This time I used RIT liquid black dye, and I simmered them for 15 minutes in the dye mixture in a big pot on the stove. This cause the grills to increase in curvature, and one of the grills broke in getting it back on. That was 2-3 weeks ago, and again the grill cloth has turned slightly gray. They look okay now, but it didn’t all go perfectly smoothly.
–Greg
thanks for the update… I still haven’t got around to doing mine… I’ll probably just leave the grills off and not even worry about them.