Good day all,
I have an old, long ago expired Aura 1808. Destroyed by the previous owner, I bought it with the intention of one day bringing it back to life.
To that end I am in search of soft parts for this driver. Aura makes a "re-basket" kit, which replaces everything but the removable Neo-Radial magnet structure. This is the 'baby out with the bath-water' approach. Aura would not sell me soft parts individually. I don't blame them for this - they're not in the business of spare parts.
I tried Seismic Subs. They owned the rights to the Aura 1808 for a while (as I understand it) and sold it as the Seismic 8196. I believe there were some changes to the Mms to drop Fs down a little from the realm of pro-drivers to living-room monsters. This was promising for a while, and Seismic told me they could sell me cones and surrounds, but then the trail went cold. I haven't heard back from them in months, so perhaps they've decided it would be too much trouble.
At this point, I thought it might be fun to experiment. If anyone knows of a place that sells individual soft parts, for either the Aura 1808 or just a large displacement 18" of any kind please let me know. I might try a Frankenstein build for fun.
Thanks for your help,
Jim
I have an old, long ago expired Aura 1808. Destroyed by the previous owner, I bought it with the intention of one day bringing it back to life.
To that end I am in search of soft parts for this driver. Aura makes a "re-basket" kit, which replaces everything but the removable Neo-Radial magnet structure. This is the 'baby out with the bath-water' approach. Aura would not sell me soft parts individually. I don't blame them for this - they're not in the business of spare parts.
I tried Seismic Subs. They owned the rights to the Aura 1808 for a while (as I understand it) and sold it as the Seismic 8196. I believe there were some changes to the Mms to drop Fs down a little from the realm of pro-drivers to living-room monsters. This was promising for a while, and Seismic told me they could sell me cones and surrounds, but then the trail went cold. I haven't heard back from them in months, so perhaps they've decided it would be too much trouble.
At this point, I thought it might be fun to experiment. If anyone knows of a place that sells individual soft parts, for either the Aura 1808 or just a large displacement 18" of any kind please let me know. I might try a Frankenstein build for fun.
Thanks for your help,
Jim
Try Fi Car Audio. They do recones on a lot of different brands.
http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/index.php?showforum=51
http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/index.php?showforum=51
J.R.Freeman said:
You won't have an easy time, the Aura 1808 (and Seismic 8196 which I've got one of) use dual 10" spiders and an underhung 1" coil which is a *long* way back from the cone (very tall voice coil former), I doubt if the soft parts from any other driver will fit, nothing else is anything like as deep.
This place used to sell recone kits for the McCauley 6174 (I've got a dead one of those in the garage somewhere) which has similar throw but a completely different structure (and I'm sure won't fit the Aura frame), but they don't seem to be listed anymore -- you could always give them a call:
http://reconekits.com/
Ian
P.S. It was always difficult getting any information out of Seismic even when they were still going -- I bet Barry's got a pile of parts he wouldn't mind getting rid of if only you can get him to talk to you
Hi Ian,
Thanks for the thoughts! Unfortunately enough the coil I have is measuring as an open circuit, so I would need to track something similar down. The length of the former does pose a problem, however I *might* be able to work around that. However, do you suppose an edge-wound flat conductor coil is something easy to find? I would like to stay true to the original design in that respect.
Neat, you have a 8196? How are you using it? These drivers are awesome looking, though I've yet to hear mine play! I must admit, when I found one on EBay having read all the surrounding lore, I jumped for it. I love the look of the driver from behind - it looks like something from a mad scientist's lab from a 50's sci-fi movie!
As for Seismic, Mr. Bozeman seems like a really nice guy. I think we just lost contact because he sounds rather busy, but I'll try him once more. If I can't track down the real parts, this is what I'm thinking:
For the surround I'll try and find something in a large half roll for another 18, maybe something from the autosound world. The spiders might be a hard piece to track down as well, but hopefully I can find something. For the coil, as long as the diameter is correct, and the winding length is similar, I may be able to extend the former. As the original cone has a straight profile, I might try something crazy like make up a jig and form my own out of fiberglass or possibly carbon fiber. Hehe, I know, but at least it will be fun to try.
Thanks for your help. I'll let you know what I find. And should I try something ridiculous like making my own cone, I'll post up pictures of the ensuing catastrophe!
Jim
p.s.: I should mention one of my motivations for trying a home-made cone. A while back I saw a write-up by Deon Bearden, in which he describes the design of his subwoofer The Beast. His idea of adding mass to drop the Fs for added low end response really got me interested in this type of thing. I still have a lot to learn but I'd love to play around with this concept first hand.
One thing I might try, besides adjusting the moving mass, is adjusting the Vas. Through use of a soft half roll surround, and possibly running only 1 spider (the rear!), the Vas of my 1808 would go up. Mechanical Q would also go up, but as this is also tied to Mms, I could start by making a cone as light as possible, then add mass to drop the Fs where I would like.
At any rate it would be interesting to see what happens! A lot of the complex mechanical dynamics are beyond my knowledge level, so this could end up as a big mess (and likely will if chaos theory has anything to say about it).
Jim
Thanks for the thoughts! Unfortunately enough the coil I have is measuring as an open circuit, so I would need to track something similar down. The length of the former does pose a problem, however I *might* be able to work around that. However, do you suppose an edge-wound flat conductor coil is something easy to find? I would like to stay true to the original design in that respect.
Neat, you have a 8196? How are you using it? These drivers are awesome looking, though I've yet to hear mine play! I must admit, when I found one on EBay having read all the surrounding lore, I jumped for it. I love the look of the driver from behind - it looks like something from a mad scientist's lab from a 50's sci-fi movie!
As for Seismic, Mr. Bozeman seems like a really nice guy. I think we just lost contact because he sounds rather busy, but I'll try him once more. If I can't track down the real parts, this is what I'm thinking:
For the surround I'll try and find something in a large half roll for another 18, maybe something from the autosound world. The spiders might be a hard piece to track down as well, but hopefully I can find something. For the coil, as long as the diameter is correct, and the winding length is similar, I may be able to extend the former. As the original cone has a straight profile, I might try something crazy like make up a jig and form my own out of fiberglass or possibly carbon fiber. Hehe, I know, but at least it will be fun to try.
Thanks for your help. I'll let you know what I find. And should I try something ridiculous like making my own cone, I'll post up pictures of the ensuing catastrophe!
Jim
p.s.: I should mention one of my motivations for trying a home-made cone. A while back I saw a write-up by Deon Bearden, in which he describes the design of his subwoofer The Beast. His idea of adding mass to drop the Fs for added low end response really got me interested in this type of thing. I still have a lot to learn but I'd love to play around with this concept first hand.
One thing I might try, besides adjusting the moving mass, is adjusting the Vas. Through use of a soft half roll surround, and possibly running only 1 spider (the rear!), the Vas of my 1808 would go up. Mechanical Q would also go up, but as this is also tied to Mms, I could start by making a cone as light as possible, then add mass to drop the Fs where I would like.
At any rate it would be interesting to see what happens! A lot of the complex mechanical dynamics are beyond my knowledge level, so this could end up as a big mess (and likely will if chaos theory has anything to say about it).
Jim
J.R.Freeman said:
Hi Jim
If the coil's measuring o/c have you tried removing the magnet (this is very easy) and looking for damage? What's dead on the original driver anyway -- just the coil, or is the cone/surround damged?
There are other possibilities for soft parts since other people have built similar drivers -- CGN, Worx, Bassmaxx spring to mind, all were built by TC Sounds (who don't exist any more) but there must be spare parts available somewhere.
My 8196 is used for our band in a 16ft3 reflex box (which collapses down to 6ft3 for transport, think Russian dolls) tuned to 25Hz, this was originally designed for a McCauley 6174 but we burned out the coil on that hitting it with repetitive low G notes (25Hz) from our bass-players homemade 3-string bass :-(
Cheers
Ian
P.S. Maybe Bassmaxx used the Seismic 8196HK originally, then switched to a custom TC Sounds driver?
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