vintage no name (janzen) electrostat/ ar-2 HYBRID help!!! pictures!

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ok, so i bought a pair of electrostats at a thrift store for like 20 bucks, and the woofers were bad, so i stuck in an ar-2 woofer and now the janszens sound great, but is lacking mids..... i basically want to modify the janszen casing to fit the ar-2 dual midrange setup, but don't know where to start when dealing with the crossover stuff. i took some photos for you guys to look at..... man this is gonna sound so killer when it's done! i'm planning on using these for studio monitors, i've heard electrostats are great for getting separation, and so far from what i hear people are right!
here are my q's;
1. can i use the ar-2 crossovers (they have better inputs and the bass/ high switches on the back) with the electrostatic tweeter?
2. if not, how do i wire in the midrange speakers into the janszen crossovers.... is there anyway i can split the signal from the sub?
3. should i use the ar-2 enclosure or the janszen?
4. can i keep the ar-2 midrange speakers external and use an external crossover? ie a mixer/preamp? i think that would look killer, and i could adjust the amount of signal to the mids through the mixer. the pictures show the ar-2 mids ar already encased in thick plastic.

thanks in advance for any advice. I included a .zip file of pictures of the crossovers/drivers.
 

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Hi Tyler

Sorry to say this, but I recon that the owner of the thrift shop got the better deal.

Anyway, here goes

Slow down, take a step back and think about what you are doing.

1. You have gone and installed a random driver into an enclosure. You need to verify that this driver is suited to this patricular enclosure. Look up Thiele / Small paramaters, and you will see what I mean.

2. Probably the most difficult speaker systems to manufacture are those employing a conventional cone driver with an electrostatic panel. One of the most difficult issues is the speed of the cone driver vs the speed of the electroststic panell.
They require very carefull analysis an matching. The fact that you have installed a "random driver", will certainly not help.

3. The electroststic panel, most likley is not opperating correctly. Judging by its age, the diaphram coating has probably broken down, lost tension etc.

4. The caps in the crossovers as pictured are probably well past their use by date, and could do with a rebuild.

5. Unless I have mis-interpreted your questions, you are trying to make a 2 way speaker into a 3 way speaker. Pictures of crossovers will not help, as it tells zip regarding its opperation.

Provided that you can satisfy point 1,2 and 3, you will need to redesign the crossover, or better still design a new one to suit
the new frequency allocations.

Furthermore, in order to do this, you will need to know the paramaters of all of the drivers.

If this was my project, the first thing that I would do is verify that the electroststic panels are opperating correctly, and then try to find a driver that suits the enclosure.

Use the original crossover that came with the speakers as a starting point, and see what you think.

Try to get it up and running as it was originally designed.

Best of luck

Regards

George.
 
1. i actually did some research on the old janszen speakers and have read of others using the ar-2 drivers with great success. I feel i have a good ear and when i tested the config it seemed like the panel was working perfectly well. :eek:
2. i figured that people on this forum would know about ar-2 speakers and be familiar with the crossovers in them as they are widely known and respected. the woofers are not "random drivers":rolleyes:
3. the enclosures are both relatively the same size and same thickness of wood. both were filled with padding in the same respect and like i said my EARS told me they sounded good. i guess i could mic the electrostatic panels and upload a wav file here to see if you think the panels are in good shape, but as far as my ears are concerned they were clear as day. If a speaker is stored properly there is no reason it would be "past the expiration date" for all i or you know they havent been used in 30 years.
4. basically i need help from somebody that knows the ar-2 speaker well.
and hopefully knows about the janszen panels as well.

ar-2;
<img src="http://www.mbzponton.org/n2awa/speaker_AR-2a_09.jpg">
 
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