Good luck! It's been a long time since I've seen one 'in the wild' and even then in the $$ 5 digits, so assume now only moved between collectors.
Pretty much since most were made by University? Lansing? Altec/Lansing? at least to '59 when Ling bought it and began 'strip mining' it to death, though obviously the lower the serial # the more likely it's still pure W.E. with a different label and of course there's always the scammers. I imagine Joe Roberts has the whole history.
If there is I'm not aware of it regardless of cost. Nick McKinney, ex Lambda Acoustics queried the folks that currently had the tooling for the diaphragm and while I can't recall him giving us a price it was a no-go since it had to be 10 k? pcs. min..
Driver size is something else guys. I bought a set of 8" Mark Audio 12P drivers just to find that yes, they are about 7 3/4" , and cone size itself is more like 4 1/2" . The sound is incredible I will admit, but I have made a brass ring adapter just for the purpose of trying out 8 inch drivers in my rear loaded bass cabinets. Currently, I have a set of Audio Nirvana 8" driver with Neo magnets. Pretty impressive as well. I will end with this. Even though the next driver is not full range, I have never heard anything like it. It is the ScanSpeak 18Wu/8741T00. Ok, so it is about 7" and I didn't know what they sounded like. I made a cabinet for a customer that used these drivers. Partial payment for my work was a new set of them. In the cabinets that I sold to him, the sound was rich and deep. Of course, expense would normally keep me away with something like these at $500 ea.
Here is a shot of the cabinets with the Audio Nirvana drivers in it presently. It is a shot in the dark that the Scan Speak will work with these cabinets, but it is worth a try. Then to find tweeters, 'cuz like I said these really aren't full range, but they do extend up to.
4khz.
Here is a shot of the cabinets with the Audio Nirvana drivers in it presently. It is a shot in the dark that the Scan Speak will work with these cabinets, but it is worth a try. Then to find tweeters, 'cuz like I said these really aren't full range, but they do extend up to.
4khz.
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The one piece tri-ax diaphragm with mechanical XOs that make for a seamless on/off axis response, the rest of the driver is as basic as it gets with a ceramic motor and I guess its somewhat baffled basket preload/tunes it a bit in the basic 2 ft^3 sealed box it was designed for; otherwise built for long life, maintenance free durability.
Unfortunately NLA due presumably to increasing material costs, so began a 'campaign' to step up to neo.