Tweeter / Mid Upgrade for Vandersteen 2CE

[bluepearl]

I have already upgraded the 10" "coupler" drivers on my Vandersteen 2CE's and I'm looking for suggestions for a soft dome tweeter and 4" mid range that would be a good match to the Vandersteen crossover. I'm not familiar with matching drivers to crossovers or if that's even a concern. My priority is the tweeter, years ago I built a pair of speakers using a wonderful doft dome that was made in denmark, I believe it was a scan speak. It portrayed the most realistic cymbal with wonderful decay. This is what I'm looking for, any recommendations?

Thanks.

[sreten]

Hi, not a good idea, you will be guessing, that is never good, rgds, sreten.

[bluepearl]

Can you elaborate as to what I would be guessing? What are the critical parameters in a tweeter, sensitivity? resonant frequency? Obviously I don't need to worry about cabinet volume and so on. I am not very experienced with crossovers so I would appreciate some feedback as to why it would or would not work. Here is the Vandersteen description of the stock tweeter;

TWEETER:
1" critically damped metal alloy dome
Dual-chamber design
Ferrofluid voice coil cooling
Range of operation: 5kHz - 30kHz

Here are a few I am considering
Morel CAT-308
Morel MDT-30S
Usher 9950-20

[DrDyna]

You're guessing because crossovers are designed around drivers, not vice versa. There could potentially be a lot about that crossover that's in place to correct and mold that particular tweeter, so changing it is a compound issue.

If you can find one with exactly the same Fs, same impedance curve and same FR, you might be able to get a good match, but it's hard to know.

I would probably take the 2CE crossover and reconstruct it in Speaker Workshop, that way you can see what your potential drivers are going to do with it.

[_henry_]

go active, solves ur problem

cheers
henry

[David Gatti]

If you could find out what actual drivers the Vandersteen uses (from memory it's Vifa) then you could look up their specs and then find a driver that is a close match.
You will need to match sensitivity, impedance, resonant frequency and frequency response.

Otherwise you are just guessing and would likely degrade the performance.

[sreten]

Originally Posted by bluepearl

Can you elaborate as to what I would be guessing? What are the critical parameters in a tweeter, sensitivity? resonant frequency? Obviously I don't need to worry about cabinet volume and so on. I am not very experienced with crossovers so I would appreciate some feedback as to why it would or would not work. Here is the Vandersteen description of the stock tweeter;

TWEETER:
1" critically damped metal alloy dome
Dual-chamber design
Ferrofluid voice coil cooling
Range of operation: 5kHz - 30kHz

Here are a few I am considering
Morel CAT-308
Morel MDT-30S
Usher 9950-20

Hi,

You are wasting your time. I'm still befuddled as to how you "upgraded" the
rear 10" "couplers", as the originals have a huge lump of MDF glued to them.
(And I know why, anyway see the various stereophile.com 2C reviews.)
I doubt you've actually made them any better, almost certainly worse.

You don't know what your doing, so leaving them well alone is sensible.
I do, and I'd never consider "upgrading" the drivers in such a design.

rgds, sreten.

[bluepearl]

Originally Posted by sreten

Hi,

You are wasting your time. I'm still befuddled as to how you "upgraded" the
rear 10" "couplers", as the originals have a huge lump of MDF glued to them.
(And I know why, anyway see the various stereophile.com 2C reviews.)
I doubt you've actually made them any better, almost certainly worse.

You don't know what your doing, so leaving them well alone is sensible.
I do, and I'd never consider "upgrading" the drivers in such a design.

rgds, sreten.

There was no huge lump of MDF glued to the factory 10" coupler (?). Actually what happen was, the spiders in the original couplers failed so I took them off to a very reputable speaker builder / repair co. and he was quite familiar with the driver, he gave me two loaners to use while he performed the repair, he commented that the loaners were a much better driver for the application and he was right, the bass was much improved so I decided to purchase them as the replacement for the originals...

Certainly not a waste of time.