restore speaker cabinets

[cleary207]

Hello,
I just joined and I am certainly not an electronic genius. I am looking for advice on the best speaker to use to restore the premium sound to the speaker cabinets my father built around 1960. I have researched this but the information is a little to technical for me to understand.
The cabinets are rock solid but the Bozak B300 speakers he installed in them have long since dry rotted. The interior dimensions of the speaker box are 32” wide x 44” high x 14” deep.
Can some one recommend the best speaker to use for the best sound for this size cabinet? Since the original speaker was 12 inches that would be the minimum size speaker I could install.

[planet10]

Not many 12" full ranges. Personally i'd be looking for vintage Goodmans Axiom 201s, or 301s, or Electro Voice or Philips (9710?). You might be able to accomodate the new (and i understand quite good) Altec co-axes ... and opening things up to co-ax there are quite a few of those including Tannoys which would be high on my list, PHY-HP makes a co-ax that i've heard somd both promising & terrible (in the latter case the room & associated kit i suspect weren't doing the job),

There will be as many opinions as there are members...

Speaking of kit, this will play an important roll in what works best

What kind of budget, that will narrow things down

dave

[AEIOU]

Originally Posted by planet10

Not many 12" full ranges. Personally i'd be looking for vintage Goodmans Axiom 201s, or 301s, or Electro Voice or Philips (9710?). You might be able to accomodate the new (and i understand quite good) Altec co-axes ... and opening things up to co-ax there are quite a few of those including Tannoys which would be high on my list, PHY-HP makes a co-ax that i've heard somd both promising & terrible (in the latter case the room & associated kit i suspect weren't doing the job),

There will be as many opinions as there are members...

Speaking of kit, this will play an important ROLE in what works best

What kind of budget, that will narrow things down

dave

Audio Nirvana sells some 12 inch full rangers.
http://www.commonsenseaudio.com/

[AEIOU]

Those are huge enclosures, would you happen to have any pictures of them?
Thanks

Originally Posted by cleary207

Hello,
I just joined and I am certainly not an electronic genius. I am looking for advice on the best speaker to use to restore the premium sound to the speaker cabinets my father built around 1960. I have researched this but the information is a little to technical for me to understand.
The cabinets are rock solid but the Bozak B300 speakers he installed in them have long since dry rotted. The interior dimensions of the speaker box are 32” wide x 44” high x 14” deep.
Can some one recommend the best speaker to use for the best sound for this size cabinet? Since the original speaker was 12 inches that would be the minimum size speaker I could install.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

Audio Nirvana sells some 12 inch full rangers.

Yea i know... but every set i've had my hands on has been quite dissapointing. I would thou still like to get my hands on some of the cast 8s.

dave

[AEIOU]

Originally Posted by planet10

Yea i know... but every set i've had my hands on has been quite disappointing.

dave

Really? Why?

[VictoriaGuy]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

Those are huge enclosures............

11 cu ft- ish. Yes!

Actually one of the 'problems' often cited with the AudioNirvanas is that they need large enclosures, so that might be a direction to consider.

Dave (Planet 10) helped me to 'tune up' the enclosures for my AN10s, BTW.- after measuring the speaker specs with his computer setup. He also measured the specs on the AN12s I have (still in the boxes- perhaps someday I will build cabs for them...)
I think the AN10s sound pretty good, and a few visitors have been impressed as well (or polite? who knows..). The ANs are high on the 'bang for the buck' scale in my book.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

Really? Why?

Here is the measured data from the last "pair" i had/still have here. John's sets were a lot closer, one set was pretty much matched. I don't like seeing the ripple train in the impedance curve (somewhat hidden by the 2 traces @ 2 points, and the high resonance impedance of the red driver. I haven't seen any FRs without a bump related to the size, or even a couple harmonic images, but all the ANs (and the Silver Iris 15" suffer from these resonance trains.



dave

[Racket Scientist]

When you say the Bozaks "dry rotted", do you mean the foam surrounding the paper cone? If the speakers themselves are otherwise intact, you can send them to be refoamed quite inexpensively and then use the original speakers. Then you'll be as close as possible to the sound of those speakers as originally designed.

[Tom V]

I'm a newbie, so take this with a grain of salt.....

I would go looking at the open baffle systems for inspiration. Specifically I would drop in a 12" subwoofer along with a plate amp with variable crossover. Then I would cut a hole in an upper corner of the baffle and drop in a 3" or 4" full range driver of your choice (Fostex Fe103? Alpair 6.2 or 7?).

No fancy calculating required: the full range is what it is, and the subwoofer level and crossover can be set by ear.

-Tom-