The Long Ranger is dead ☠️ Long live the long ranger! As soon as it went away, another brand stepped in to take its place: The Anchor Audio MegaVox. There’s always a love-hate relationship between ensemble directors and these devices. People forget to charge them. Then in an effort to delegate charging responsibility, they get left in cars and then stolen (true story). They get abused! One of the most vulnerable, and critical components is the speaker cone – it’s what makes the MegaVox MEGA.

The cone is molded with three small tabs of plastic. While the cone is recessed behind the front face of the MegaVox, the fabric case is not enough to prevent damage. Anything that sneaks in an hits the code will surely break it off. On any given equipment trailer, there are many opportunities for things to jostle around and break a cone.

I pulled two MegaVoxes with broken cones off the MBI equipment trailer at the end of the season 😞

I thought about 3D printing a replacement, and I still think it’s a worthwhile pursuit, but the whole cone speaker assembly is less than $60 and it’s an easy fix. Let’s get started…

Replacing the cone

Start with this video that shows you how to replace the battery. We won’t actually remove the battery, but they show you how the back plate comes off to access everything inside:

You can skip Step 4 and beyond as we’re not going to remove the battery. Instead get a big Phillips screwdriver to remove the speaker assembly screw through the back. It’s just one screw!

Then pull the speaker out of the front. Depending on how old or well-worn your MegaVox is, it might have a rubber grommet that goes into the front here:

Make sure to take it off the old cone wire and put it on the new one! Use a small flat screwdriver to make sure it’s secure in the housing.

Put it all back together

Then fasten the new speaker with that big screw, and re-assemble the whole thing in reverse order. While putting it back together, double check the antenna connections. Some had come loose in ours, weakening antenna range. Make sure everything is fastened back up before you re-assemble.

Get back to work!

Spending $60 on these is waaay better than dropping $900 to replace it. It’s super easy too. Now we can get back to rehearsal without skipping a beat.