Help identifying a replacement driver for 4" bookshelf

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Help identifying a replacement driver for 5 1/4" bookshelf

Hello ladies and gents! I've had a pair of JVC sp-d2t's (2-way bookshelf) that I got for $5 at a garage sale about 10 years ago and were surprisingly good (with eq and a sub underneath of course), so I kept them. Last night, I took them to an outdoor social party and it seems I've finally overcooked one of them. It smelled fantastic and my amp kept going into protection mode. I've gone ahead and ordered a pair of Infinity Primus 6 1/2" to replace them, but I'm curious about reviving my JVC's on the cheap and perhaps dropping them in my theater setup.

Here is the specs that I know so far:
- total internal box size (not including port space) .265 cubic feet
- port is 1 3/8" ID by 4.5" long
- the crossover is a single 100v10uF capacitor....that's it. lol
- it's got a 4" driver with an enclosure opening of 4 3/4"
- The total speaker impedance is 6 ohms, yet the 4" drive also says 6 ohms. Not sure how that works with a tweeter yet to be accounted for.....?
- The driver says "VGS1201-013" 6 (ohm) 6G
- The tweeter is just a small 1 3/4" driver although I don't know its sensitivity or ohm rating.

I just found a pretty good sized daddy long legs in the enclosure just a few minutes ago. Apparently he liked those smooth vibrations and climbed right in the port! :eek:

I haven't been able to find anything terribly useful online about this speaker. I poked around PE for a 6 ohm 4" driver and they only had 2, so I didn't even get around to modeling them out. I figured I'd post on here to see if anyone might have some good ideas. I can provide pics if that helps. Thanks in advance! :D

Edit: The driver is actually a 5 1/4". I measured it wrong the first time. :D
 
Last edited:
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
- it's got a 4" driver with an enclosure opening of 4 3/4"

An opening of 4 3/4" is more indicative of a 5 1/4" driver. When you say 4" driver are you just measuring the cone?

I don't do many multiways, and when i do they usually have a low XO so i don't know how its higher frequency performance, but the Silver Flute W14 should work fine in that volume (we use a pr in 10L XOed at about 350 Hz).

dave
 
So it is a 5 1/4". The Silver Flute fits and will work in that volume, it is cheap, you'll have fun working on making the XO better. Good learning experience. You'll alsoneed to workout appropriate reflex tuning.

dave

Ha. Yeah, you're right. Fixed it.

I had also thought to take another 5 1/4" driver that works well in a sealed box, and chop off the port (and seal it up of course). Honestly, I think I have to figure out more about my tweeter before I can make a solid decision on a driver though.

Update just since I wrote that last paragraph:
The tweeter is a 4 ohm and now has a hole in it strangely shaped the exact size of my screwdriver. :cuss::p

Looks like I may be in the business of rewiring the whole thing now, which almost makes it easier, but if the price tag starts to run up too much, I may end up chucking them after all. From what I gather, a sealed box will give you a bit better clarity and definition in the mid range than a ported box. Is this correct, or not so much? I'll be running a sub underneath with an adjustable active XO, so I'm not worried about lacking lows so much.
 
This is entertaining. :D

planet10 is like myself being in the "Have a Bash" brigade! How hard can it be?

This https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-5-woofers/silver-flute-w14rc25-08-ohm-5-1/2-wool-cone/ looks like it works almost exactly the same except for the bump at 8kHz. Isn't ODougbo the silver flute expert on crossovers?

I've put a screwdriver through a tweeter cone often enough. You need to measure the tweeter cutout hole here, and I'm sure there is something that will fit! And there are some really cheap ones.
 
The silver flute driver is good from the point of view that it is inexpensive and would fit in the box. It is not a driver however that suits bargain basement crossovers which typically means a low order, high frequency xover point. If you drop it in as a replacement and that horrible breakup is allowed through then the speakers will sound bad. Give them a good xover and they will sound great, but that might not be at all what the original poster wants.

This is all conjecture as we don't know what kind of xover the original loudspeakers had but my guess would be something relatively simple.

Not that I have any specific driver recommendation, but really what you'd be after is something with a nice flat and controlled frequency response without any kind of difficult breakup to manage.

For cheap and whilst its on offer

Dayton Audio DS135-8 5" Designer Series Woofer Speaker

might not be too bad as its breakup is pretty smooth.

Something like

Peerless 830860 5-1/4" PPB Cone HDS Woofer

or

Peerless 830991 5-1/4" GFC Cone HDS Woofer

would be ideal, but they are expensive.

As sreten says looking for a pair of cheap speakers would perhaps be a better bet. Some decent second hand something from ebay or craigslist.

Something like

Tannoy Mercury M1 B/Eye Main / Stereo Speakers in Black 5035866806744 | eBay

but from the US. They sound excellent and for £65...DIYing something better for less or even the same? Yeah right!
 
But he learns nothing.

dave

The original post simply says that a replacement is wanted with what is assumed to be no hassle of having to redesign a crossover. There is a time and place for someone wanting to learn something and sometimes they don't. I've been there myself not wanting to learn, but just wanting something to work. Not because I don't want to learn but currently don't have the time for it.
 
Interesting comments by 5th element there.

I've owned 7L or 1/4 cu foot 5" bass reflex speakers in the past. If you can forego any worthwhile bass, they can have great sing-along midrange. The top end is pretty much down to the tweeter. Don't you always cross them over around 3.5kHz?

I certainly like the look of the polycone peerless 830860, here with my approved Vifa XT25 type ring radiator: Peerless HDS PPB 830860

TBH, a prebuilt box is just a convenient way of mounting a quality couple of drivers. I think we have gone wrong here with the paperish 5" silver flute, though it could probably be made to work.

The commercial guys usually do a 5" 4 ohm polycone, with a simple crossover as in the Epos ELS-3. I like these sort of phase-plug polycone woofers. In fact I have a couple lying about as in the last Mordaunt Short centre speaker image. Really must do something with them. :eek:
 

Attachments

  • Epos_ELS-3_Loudspeaker.JPG
    Epos_ELS-3_Loudspeaker.JPG
    23.6 KB · Views: 1,781
  • Epos ELS-3 Crossover.JPG
    Epos ELS-3 Crossover.JPG
    15.8 KB · Views: 923
  • Mordaunt_Short_MS821C.jpg
    Mordaunt_Short_MS821C.jpg
    91.4 KB · Views: 65
I'm totally down with learning more speaker stuff, and yes, I do suck at crossover design. I prefer active for simplicity at this point, but those cost more money. I'm reasonably dangerous with a soldering iron and took some electrical engineering classes in college, but I don't really know how to design a proper crossover although I do know it is very much based on the impedance curve of the particular drivers you chose to get it set up right.

I know it's probably cheaper to can them and find another set on CL, but it's a balance between learning stuff without breaking the bank and everyone's threshold is in a different spot. Originally, I was hoping for more or less just a drop-in replacement, but now that I've jacked the tweeter, I'll need to replace that along with redesigning the XO (which was just a 100v10uF cap before). If I'm redesigning the whole driver and XO anyways, I may as well just can them and pick a set of drivers I like, then build a box around them.

I've been learning stuff about proper speaker design over the past year or so and I just finished my first build. It's a dual TangBand 5.25" computer sub tuned to 31Hz that I'm pretty pleased with. It hits all the way down to 27Hz before it starts rolling off (to my ear anyways). My complaint is that it seems more expensive to build anything yourself these days.
 
I'd still use the boxes for now, since you have the woofers already. Easier and faster that way. Perfection can come later! I was off-topic with polycones really. Since you've bought the flutes.

I was looking at 8 ohm 5" paper cones, and the simple bass filter is 2mH and 6uF for 3kHz crossover.
Vifa PL14WJ-

The simple tweeter filter can be done lots of ways, but will probably be around 6R resistor in front and 4uF cap and 0.2mH coil. But I'd model it first to see how it looks.
 
Well, I amaze myself sometimes! :D

That crossover is about EXACTLY right for a typical pair of drivers. :cool:

The optimiser in Boxsim came up with the same thing!

You could use nearest preferred values like 6.2R, 5.6uF, 3.9uF and 0.22mH too. They are usually easier to find.
 

Attachments

  • Silver Flute 5 inch sim.PNG
    Silver Flute 5 inch sim.PNG
    13.6 KB · Views: 58
  • Silver Flute 5 inch circuit.PNG
    Silver Flute 5 inch circuit.PNG
    6 KB · Views: 58
Last edited:
Well, I fried the 5 1/4" driver and jabbed a hole in my tweeter with a screwdriver, so both drivers are shot. lol I haven't bought components to replace anything in these speakers although I have ordered a pair of Infinity Primus P163's as their replacement. They're a 2-way 6.5" setup and I'll drop my computer sub underneath. I just wanted to explore the possibility of dropping in a replacement driver and use these as a surround or workshop speaker at some point....until I jabbed the tweeter.

Well, that's not bad for a basic XO starting point! I may just have to build a set of cheapy speakers and drop that in just for fun! Perhaps a set of surrounds or workshop mains...
 
Last edited:
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.