Replacing Old AIWA Woofer w / Klipsch or another?

[user32i4723847289]

I ran across some older AIWA SX-12 speakers (can't seem to find much information on them, they say 100W 8 ohm), but they definitely beat my old PM 2.1's in clarity. The only problem I seem to have is that... while cleaning them off (they haven't been used for a while now), I managed to poke my finger through one of the woofer rubber surrounds... and I was barely touching them ! I have never run across any driver with such brittle rubber surrounds before. I hooked them up to my Yamaha RX-550 and began to test them out (I think they sound fantastic, I can hear things I've never heard before in a lot of songs). As I played more bass heavy music, the rubber surrounds began to tear themselves apart . I assume age has gotten to them and they are just extremely brittle now? I have included an image of the better looking woofer in this post so people can get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Anyways, they are 8" 8 ohm woofers, and I now need to replace them. I don't know the frequency range on the driver either, since the back of it just says the model number, AIWA, and 8 ohm. I was thinking one of you Klipsch gurus would know of a driver that might work in its place (100W 8 ohm is what the back of the speaker says). Or perhaps someone could give me a link to a nice 8" 8 ohm driver? I have been searching myself, but I don't exactly know where to look for such things. Would an 8" 4 ohm driver work in its place, or is that bad for the receiver / speaker? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[BusaDude]

Sorry I can't help you out with what may or may not be a good replacement for that particular Aiwa cabinet/speaker. But if you use the link below, it will take you to the section of the parts express website where they sell their 8" drivers. Hope that helps...

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?webpage_id=3&SO=2&&DID=7&CATID=49&ObjectGroup_ID=489

[Shock-Late]

It looks like the foam surrounds are rotten; it is "normal" and always happens with old foam surrounds. Chances are you have to change BOTH woofers because next time you're gonna play music loudly, the second woofer is gonna fall apart too.

That said, woofers may generally have their surrounds replaced; it's never cheap, but it might be the only way as you're not likely to find a pair of woofers that's going to have the exact same datas as those.

good luck!

[CaptnBob]

Yeah, they do that. The foam surrounds were popular on speakers in the 70s and 80s, but the material was unstable and now there is a cottage industry repairing drivers out of old JBLs, Electro-Voices, Advents, Altecs, Dahlquists, Genesis, ... the list goes on and on, and evidently includes Aiwas. You should be able to get them "re-foamed" for about $15-$20 a speaker. This will be a lot cheaper than new drivers, and you'll be sure they'll fit in the cabinets and blend with the other speakers. Do both and get it over with, and get the job done by someone reputable - you don't want to be messing with this again in five years.

[user32i4723847289]

Refoaming eh... sounds like the ticket. Thanks for all the help so far. I'll start my search for audio retailers / repairshops in the area who might do such work. In the meantime, does anyone know of any places off the top of their head that do refoaming? Thanks.

[Rdmarsiii]

Theres an 8" woofer out of a KG-3.2 on ebay right now. You may want to check into that.

[DrWho]

Well if you're feeling up to it, you can easily purchase a surround repair kit for about $20/pair. It took me 3-4 hours to replace two 12" drivers on a pair of speakers I "pulled out of the trash" and I had never attempted it before. I can't find my link, but I can find a kit for you if you're interested (it'd only take a few minutes to do a search online).

[Marvel]

Depending on where you are in Wisconsin, get in touch with Madisound (on the west side of Madison in Middleton. They might recommend a driver for you that you could replace those with. Or repair them for you.

http://www.madisound.com

Marvel

[user32i4723847289]

I actually go to school at UW Madison, but I'm home for the summer.

I ended up finding a local place called Audio Ventures, and they advised I replace the drivers. I brought one speaker in, they snatched it up, brought it back, took out the old driver, popped in a new one, ran some tests (with a microphone and some clicking noises... I dunno what they did exactly). Apparently it was a very good match according to the tests, so I took two of them at 60 bucks a pop (more than I wanted to spend, but the cheapest they had) and they didn't charge for labor. These guys were even surprised that Aiwa put crossovers and large magnets into the speakers since apparently Aiwa isn't that great usually. (They were saying I might have the only good set of Aiwa speakers out there... hah).

I even tried to get them to repair my SW-12 II subwoofer amp, but they said that the best bet was to contact Klipsch or get an external amplifier. Guess I'll have to fork over that $240 to Klipsch if I want some deeper bass in my music.

Overall I'm very happy with the results. The speakers sound much better on the low end, and overall they are the best sounding set of speakers I've had.

Audio Ventures

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

[Marvel]

Cool! Glad it worked out. I lived in Waterloo for a number of years, and commuted to Madison for work. Drove to Brookfield to church every week. Then I moved to Georgia where it isn't so cold in the winter.

Marvel