Two different Foam AR-2AX Woofer sizes??

[Tom H.]

Hi again,

I have one more question about the AR-2AX's. I bought an extra pair of 10 inch woofers of fleabay as possible backups to the AR-2AX speakers I recently bought. However the, outside of the frame on these backup woofers are smaller. They measure 10 inches diameter outside of the basket. The woofers in my speakers measure 11 inches accross. The size of the cones are very nearly the same. They are definatly AR 10 inch woofers. The guy I bought them from said they were from 2AX's. The smaller diameter woofer has four mounting holes rather than 6 in the larger version.

Apparently there are two version of foam-sorround 10 inch woofers out there from what I can tell. My speakers are from around 1970.

Pictures to come shortly from my other laptop!

[Tom H.]

Picture of woofers

[RoyC]

Picture of woofers

Tom,

The only difference between them is the size of the mounting flange. They both use the same surround...the best being the Boston "filled fillet" sold by MSound:

http://cgi.ebay.com/AR-2ax-AR-5-reFoam-Kit-10-Woofers-Speaker-Foam-/330517992218?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers&hash=item4cf468531a

The earliest AR-2ax used the larger frame cloth surround woofer. For a short while, after it replaced the cloth surround woofer, the foam surround version (like those original to your cabinets) also had the larger frame. The later, smaller frame, standard size woofer (your Ebay woofers) can be used in the earlier cabinet with an adapter ring. The larger, early woofers cannot easily be used in later cabinets, which are set up for the smaller woofer frame.

All of the AR 10 inch foam surround woofers of that era are functionally very similar, regardless of frame size or number of screw holes. Even the later smaller frame 10 inchers have both 4 and 6 hole flanges. Eventually they all had 4 holes.

Roy