Pete B Posted April 14, 2006 Report Share Posted April 14, 2006 The first step in identifying or having manufactured a replacement tweeter or any driver for that matter, is to determine a suitable specification with tolerances. I have experience with this from designing, managing, reviewing, and negotiating government military defence work.Once you have a spec, you can contract any competent manufacturer to produce the drivers that you want, and you can reject them if they do not meet the spec.I happened to come across a new speaker company with a new line at a show in NYC. I recognized the specific tweeter, mid-woofer etc. and said are those Vifa, and Peerless etc? They said no, we have them made in China. I said did you prototype with Vifa, Peerless etc. they said yes, and these are not exactly the same they're a bit better since we adjusted the parameters to better match our design. Now, being the nice person that I am, I asked if this outfit in China would do small runs of a driver, and I was thinking of AR and Spica driver replacements for example. I don't personally need to have any small runs of drivers made. They thought a run of 200 units or so would not be unreasonable, and also said they had a contact for a gentleman who would fabricate custom drivers to specification for prototypes. I've held off mentioning this because there is so much hostility here and ill will. I was speaking to the president, VP, chief engineer, a sales gentleman, most of the higher ups in the company were there. They offered to help out or at least make the introduction, but to be honest I have little motivation given the attitude here.Anyway guys, you need a spec and you need to check twice, hopefully cut once. You need a spec for each variation on the driver and then either custom drivers for each variant or a way to handle the differences with a matching circuit.Step #1 write a spec, hopefully from the original design parameters for the drivers. It would be unfortunate and risky if some sample of now aged drivers would have to be measured to produce a specification but sometimes it is the only way. You may find, once the spec is written that there is an off the shelf driver that can be modified to meet the spec.Or perhaps Ken will come up with a Vifa solution.Pete B. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stan461 Posted April 14, 2006 Report Share Posted April 14, 2006 Pete,The tough part is going to get people to put their money down.Have you any idea what these would go for per pair?As I mentioned in another ongoing thread, the replacements tweeters I used are better than the originals. With all due respect to the originals, they just might have succomb to aging. Everything does.There is thread started by Lorin Hollander where he is asking for recommendations for replacement drivers for his Cello Double Amati speakers. He mentions a shrillness in the highs. Exactly what I would ssay about my AR3a oringinal tweeters. At higher volumes. But not ridiculously high volumes. Your approach to this replacemnt driver situation is sound indeed. Good luck. And yes, I'd like to try a pair. Please keep us posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted April 15, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2006 Hi Stan,Yes I understand about the money, thought I'd let someone else handle that part.Price, yes, someone would have to speak to the manufacturing company since anything else is speculation.They did point out that smaller runs would probably be done for higher priced drivers, I seem to recall a figure of $30-$50 each. That batch would be paying for tooling, and the fact that it is a small run.It would take some work to reverse engineer the specs. The obvious simple solution is for the AR engineers to provide technical details and specifications. Have any of the historians gone over who the top management was at AR over the years, and who the design teams were for each of the vintage designs?I have no plans to proceed with this. I was more raising the point that a generally available spec would have many advantages.I'll also point out that in my opinion a purist approach is not called for in most situations where the speakers are in everyday use and not being preserved for historical reasons. There are many solutions one this requirement is relaxed.Pete B.>Pete,>>The tough part is going to get people to put their money>down.>>Have you any idea what these would go for per pair?>>As I mentioned in another ongoing thread, the replacements>tweeters I used are better than the originals. With all due>respect to the originals, they just might have succomb to>aging. Everything does.>>There is thread started by Lorin Hollander where he is asking>for recommendations for replacement drivers for his Cello>Double Amati speakers. He mentions a shrillness in the highs.>Exactly what I would ssay about my AR3a oringinal tweeters. At>higher volumes. But not ridiculously high volumes. >>Your approach to this replacemnt driver situation is sound>indeed. Good luck. And yes, I'd like to try a pair. >>Please keep us posted.> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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