Worth it to mod some vintage Traynor columns?

[theAnonymous1]

A buddy of mine has a pair of old ~70's Traynor YSC-2 4x12 column PA speakers. He's only used them once because he said they sound muddy; which I guess should be expected from four 12" drivers.

Traynor Amps: Vintage Traynor

I was thinking about wiring up two bullet tweeters (no piezo) per side kind of like the Traynor YSC-7A....

Traynor Amps: Vintage Traynor

I already have a pair of crossovers and L-pads from an old set of Yamaha SM15H-II PA monitors. I'm not sure of the crossover frequency.

These are the tweeters I'm considering....

Heavy Duty Titanium Super Tweeter TW44 270-125

So would it be worth the $50 in tweeters to do this, or should these columns just stay is the dark dusty corner of his garage, never to be heard from again?

[kevinr]

Use a horn the same width as the column and thread in a compression driver from Selenium or JBL with a crossover between the column and horn and amp . Way better dispersion than those super tweeters and better suited to the application.
Check Parts Express or MCM for selection of horns and compression drivers . Just don't get an inexpensive plastic horn and expect it to support a 4 or 5 pund compression driver , those are okay for lightweight piezo's but that's it . You'll need a substantial horn with metal thread inserts

[byacey]

You could make some nice window boxes, fill them with dirt and plant flowers.
Seriously, the Traynor stuff never had much research or planning put into the designs, they made sound, but nothing of any real quality. Only in later years did they started using the Yorkville label, pulled up their socks and start attempting some actual design / engineered product.

[theAnonymous1]

My friend decided he wants to go with my original idea. He didn't seem to thrilled about external horns or their cost.

Just to see what they would sound like, I hooked a 2-way crossover up and just set a junk tweeter I had on top of the collum. They definitely sounded better but for 4x 12's they sure do lack any punch; had to turn the bass all the way up on the PA amp.

Anyway, does anyone have a clue on how to get the covers off these things? I've seen pics of them off but can't figure it out.

[sreten]

Hi,

I'd guess that the "lightweight" drivers are seriously limp and with the
march of time you are really wasting your time, under 100W, a 4x12
that can't do bass, that is far bigger than any modern equivalent.

The 12"ers are probably Alnico+paper and probably worth selling as
vintage low powered valve guitar drivers. After that its hard to say
should you bother to repurpose the cabinets, if they are well built.

rgds, sreten.

[kevinr]

Seriously, the Traynor stuff never had much research or planning put into the designs, they made sound, but nothing of any real quality

Actually Traynor made a couple of guitar amp models that are very effective and still sought after by musicians . Look through a Vintage Guitar magazine and articles on the more desirable models crop up .
A local musician in a trio here played one back in the nineties and got a tremendous sound out of it .