Where to buy drivers in the UK?

[Mr Evil]

I don't know how I haven't found this site before! There seems to be a great concentration of experience here.

Anyway, it's been several years since I needed to build any speakers and since then it seems to have become much harder to find retailers of speaker drivers. In the past I often purchased them fromMaplin, but they are no longer selling any great variety of, well, anything really. My usual source of most other electronic stuff, RS, don't really cater for hi-fi type speakers. Farnell have a decent range, but are severely lacking in tweeters.

I have found one or two other places that specialize in speakers, but they all seem to cater to people far richer than I. Since I need I am building a 5.1 system I can't afford to spend much on individual drivers, and it is rare to find sets of 5 second-hand drivers.

So is there anywhere else in the UK where I can purchase drivers? Preferably somewhere that allows online ordering.

[D1GGY]

Mr Evil....Welcome,


You might like to try:-



wilmslow audio

falcon acoustics

CPC

i am sure that others know of more but these should help with the morning coffee

[SuppersReady]

Good morning Mr Evil,

Can't help with the speaker selction, but I can say welcome to diyAudio. You should find no shortage of help here.

BTW, interesting site you have. I'm a UT player of many, many years and I will certainly be looking to download some of your maps if they are still available.

Paul

[Ian J]

I suspect Wilmslow and Falcon may be too expensive... I think CPC is the nearest we have to a Parts Express type company, but their site is awkward! Another place for multiple driver sets is ebay - someone is always selling batches of Warfedale drivers which look OK by the pics.
Ian

[Ouroboros]

Since Maplin no longer stock the Audax drivers, they aren't much use for hi-fi stuff anymore. Wilmslow Audio (near Leicester) have a varied range, but they charge a lot. CPC have a very interesting range, but on many of the units they don't tell you the full manufacturers reference, and the catalogue doesn't give many parameters.

[Mr Evil]

Originally posted by D1GGY
Mr Evil....Welcome,


You might like to try...

Thanks. CPC looks like my best bet. However they do seem to have some sort of aversion to giving any information about their products. They don't even show a manufacturer for most of the speakers there. That could make it difficult.

Originally posted by SuppersReady
Good morning Mr Evil,

Can't help with the speaker selction, but I can say welcome to diyAudio. You should find no shortage of help here.

BTW, interesting site you have. I'm a UT player of many, many years and I will certainly be looking to download some of your maps if they are still available.

Paul

I don't maintain any UT stuff anymore (UT2004 now!), but you can still find some of them here

[VvvvvV]

R There any American companies that are easy to order from in the UK? The important thing is that they take care of the VAT for you, just like digikey. I did a group order of goods from digikey, and everything was delivered in the next week. It was several hundred small parts divided between lots of people, and I didn't make a profit. I realise that if I invested and sold these (and they sell well,) I could have recovered my costs and gained extra. So if there is a good web site, and there is a product that you can get by discount and sell again, you can have all the choice and savings. Anyone know any good Yankee shops with good rates to the UK ?

[5th element]

Wilmslow are not actually that expensive really they just sell drivers of better quality then the other companies in the UK, they are cheaper then falcon. It just that everything in the UK is more expensive then in the united states. They do sell some drivers cheaper then madisound tho!

[Mr Evil]

Looks like I can just about get what I want from CPC. They sell a rather nice 6.5" aluminium cone woofer, apparently an MCM 55-1860. My calculations suggest it would yield acceptable performance in a nice, compact 10l enclosure, it's really cheap, plus it's shielded, which is going to be very helpful for at least the centre speaker.

Unfortunately they don't do any cheap shielded tweeters that would do. The only other alternative would seem to be a piezo tweeter. They sell one that appears to be made by CTS (some specs here).

I do have one concern though: I've not used aluminium cone speakers before, but I do know they can suffer from severe breakup at higher frequencies. Would a second order (active) crossover at 3kHz be low enough to avoid too much of a problem there? Could I go higher (higher would be ideal of the crossover may roll-off the tweeter too steep in combination with its natural roll-off)?

[Ouroboros]

Did CPC give you the manufacturer's details when you contacted them? I am baffled by CPC, they have some quite nice drive units at good prices (like your woofer), but then give next-to-no details of them in the catalogue or on the web site. I'm sure they would sell more if they gave more data, or at least a manufacturer's part number.