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Replacement woofer for AR-4x


Brian

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Looking for a good replacement woofer for an abused AR-4x. I found a replacement on Ebay from Vintage-AR but it appears different from the original in several ways. For starters, the cone on the original is ribbed while the Vintage-AR replacement is smooth. The replacement also seems to have a ceramic magnet while I'm pretty sure the originals were Alnico. The surrounds also appear to be foam rather than cloth. And all that is fine with me as long as the replacement can match the sound of the original. In the the guitar amp world, I know that differences like these can greatly affect the tone of the speaker. But I'm kind of new to the hi-fi world. Does anyone have experience with this particular replacement speaker? Has anyone done an A/B comparison? Or can you recommend something better? (ie - more accurate?)

Many Thanks!!

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Hi and welcome to CSP

Larry (Vintage AR) is an honest guy and if you ask him your questions he'll give a straight answer. AR used a couple of different woofers for the 4x, but I'm sure they all had cloth surrounds. Here are some photos of original AR4x woofers--all different.You should probably replace them as a pair. You could post your need in the Wanted/For Sale section here and see if any member has a woofer to match yours.

Kent

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Thanks Kent! and nice avatar, btw ; )

Thanks for the photos. That's quite a variance and I had not accounted for the possibility that multiple woofers would have been used in a given model. (Fender did the same thing in their guitar amps!) The woofer on the right (first pic) looks like it can handle quite a bit more load than the one on the left, judging by the size of the magnet. Unfortunately mine looks like the one on the left and I guess I played "Who's Next" through it one too many times. I'd rather replace these woofers with new ones since I can't see putting 40 year old speakers in these things and expect too much more life out of them. Guess I'll get in touch with Larry and see what he says. Thanks so much for the reference and the info!

Cheers.

BW

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Thanks Kent! and nice avatar, btw ; )

Thanks Brian. I'm a Wallace & Gromit fan :D

According to Roy, the woofer on the right is the earlier style, used in the 4 and early 4x. I don't "think" there's a difference in power handling.

Kent

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if you're not overly concerned with originality (doesn't sound like it, necessarily), might want to check out some of the stuff on audiokarma about the econowave, I know Zilch has done a number using AR4x cabinets, I can't remember if he used the AR woofer, or if he updated it with a newer one...odd you blew a woof, as it seems like it's the tweets in these models that are fragile.

I'd harbor a guess that just about any 8" AR factory woofer would sound pretty good in that cabinet, even up through like the TSW line.

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if you're not overly concerned with originality (doesn't sound like it, necessarily), might want to check out some of the stuff on audiokarma about the econowave, I know Zilch has done a number using AR4x cabinets, I can't remember if he used the AR woofer, or if he updated it with a newer one...odd you blew a woof, as it seems like it's the tweets in these models that are fragile.

I'd harbor a guess that just about any 8" AR factory woofer would sound pretty good in that cabinet, even up through like the TSW line.

Thanks. I will check that out for sure. FWIW, I thought it was odd to blow the woofer as well. But I think it was due to my own stupidity. I had stored these speakers in an attic for close to 10 years and I think the dry rot just got to them. The victim cone split like an old pair of Levis. It wasn't pretty!

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