A23 for A19

[TimmyTonga]

Hi All,

I want to try dropping an A23 tweeter in for a poorly-performing A19 in an AR-3a. Assuming they are both 4ohms, is there any reason why this should not work conceptually, and if not, could someone talk me through how to make the transition from front-wired to rear-wired with as little alteration/damage to the cab as possible? 

Many thanks

 

[owlsplace]

I'm not familiar with these designations but a few photos and I'm sure someone here can walk you though any problems you may have.

Roger

[dxho]

Those numbers are from the AR3a restoration guide.

I've thought about it for a day, and I still don't know for sure if they'd
swap. It seems to me they would, with a little wiring mod.

[ra.ra]

I'm pretty sure this driver would be a fine substitute. Regarding wiring, all I think you need to do is snip the positive and common tweeter wires from the backside of the shared front terminal and then connect these wires directly to the rear terminals of the A23 tweeter. Before doing this, I'd suggest you carefully remove the black electrical tape on the front side of the shared terminal and unsolder the tinsel leads from the A19 tweeter so that you at least salvage the deficient tweeter. Assuming that the midrange is also front-wired, you just leave it in place, check its solder connections, and cover its exposed tinsel leads with fresh electrical tape.

[TimmyTonga]

You are both right, in that it is a perfect replacement in every sense. ra.ra., your way of rejigging the wiring would have been my preferred method, but mindful of other warnings on the board, and my own examination of the terminal, led me to believe that trying to defeat the staples and glue could lead to something of a mess, so as a way of seeing whether the idea would actually fly, I drilled two 2mm holes on the terminal and fed the wires through there to attach at the front.

 

i will make this neater when I do it for real (including using black wire!), unless someone comes up with a foolproof method of removing the terminal board. It would be easy to cover the 2mm holes with black tape in that event.

I did indeed unsolder the tinsel leads to preserve the old tweeter.

However I end up doing it, the result sonically is way better than I dared hope for. The pair of tweeters I had were so mis-matched in terms of output that I had to turn down the good one substantially to get any kind of parity. Having to make your good tweeter as bad as your bad one obviously sticks in the craw, but a ride cymbal that should have been centre was pretty much three-quarters left, which is an untenable situation. Now it is dead centre, and with both pots maxed out I don't feel like I am short of top end AT ALL, which is a bit of a result as I bought the A23 unit for £15 as a stand-alone item off eBay.

As there seem to be quite a few A23s on 3a Improved over here, it does provide another source of half-decent tweeters, especially as some will be post-1975

It will end up looking OK, I think.....

 

[ra.ra]

Glad to hear that you've found a solution and that the A23 makes a significant improvement, but I'm surprised to hear you refer to this tweeter as only "half decent"?

Perhaps I was unclear with my comments, but I was not suggesting trying to remove that shared terminal - - - indeed, that could become a mess if not handled delicately. My thoughts were intended to have all new wiring inside the cabinet and to not have to drill the baffleboard or use the external terminal for the tweeter. Different speaker model, but I was suggesting a similar installation to what I did with this AR-6 when I replaced faulty front-wired tweeters with rear-wired versions, and abandoned the original front terminal altogether. 

[TimmyTonga]

Sorry, I misunderstood! Yes, you're right that would be more elegant; I will do it that way. 

And I meant half-decent in the sense that as it is a later model it will have deteriorated to a lesser degree, but deteriorated none the less.      

I can't hear anything to suggest it is inferior to the A19.

[ra.ra]

Yeah, either way will work functionally for routing the wiring. I've never particularly liked these delicate exposed tinsel wires on the front baffles of several AR speaker models, and in my restoration project, I had an opportunity to eliminate them and stuff all the wiring inside the cab. At the same time, I like to try to make them look a little better when they have their clothes (grilles) off with some simple prep, paint, and trim attention.

Whether it's an A19 or an A23 iteration of this tweeter, they are often 40 to 50 years old and we should simply feel fortunate to have a matching pair with similar and significant output. I would assume their original performance specifications were essentially identical. Sounds to me like you're making good progress bringing those 3a's back to their glorious potential.