Looking at a 3a mess......question...

[lakecat]

My buddy from Indy stopped by last week and left me some projects plus a Yamaha M-80 to try out. He originally bought some 20K serial number 3a's with alnico woofers but one was bad. He foolishly bought some AR woofers to stick in it but were from a 58. They have square magnets and serial number is 200003-1. He also sold the one alnico woofer he had. He supposedly paid a guy to recap it but when I removed the woofer, I still see the wax block cap and old tweeter cap still attached. There is some missing insulation fill. The grill material is shot and one bottom has water damage. Badges are nice and yet to remove pots to see if they are any good.

He wanted to trade that M-80 in exchange for fixing these 3a's but I didn't care for the M-80 at all.......so I am left with this problem. He just wants to be rid of them and doesn't want to put any more money into them. I think he hoping that I offer some money for them but not sure I want this project or even what to offer since he has over $800 tied up in them. My question is how bad would those 58 woofers sound in this 3a if I recap it? I may just do that for him if it would sound okay. I feel bad for him and thinking of ways to fix this.

[RoyC]

17 hours ago, lakecat said:

 My question is how bad would those 58 woofers sound in this 3a if I recap it? I may just do that for him if it would sound okay. I feel bad for him and thinking of ways to fix this.

The AR-58 woofer is just another iteration of the AR 12 inch ferrite magnet/foam surround woofer. Unfortunately, the earlier crossover will not work very well with this type of woofer. If you add a 1mh inductor in series with the large inductor in the crossover it will sound about as good as any other 2nd generation 3a woofer. It is inexpensive and easy to do if you are in there replacing the caps anyway.  Alternatively, you could replace the large inductor (1.88mh) with another one of the appropriate value (2.85mh).

Roy

[lakecat]

6 hours ago, RoyC said:

The AR-58 woofer is just another iteration of the AR 12 inch ferrite magnet/foam surround woofer. Unfortunately, the earlier crossover will not work very well with this woofer. If you add a 1mh inductor in series with the large inductor in the crossover it will sound about as good as any other 2nd generation 3a woofer. It is inexpensive and easy to do if you are in there replacing the caps anyway.  Alternatively, you could replace the large inductor (1.88mh) with another one of the appropriate value (2.85mh).

Roy

Thanks Roy for the advice. I may just do that and see how it sounds. I feel bad for him in getting screwed on recap. I told him to take the cab to this tech and show him....and get his damn money back...but I know he won't. Pots will be next thing to look at to see if he cleaned those...sigh...