are reconed drivers as good or better than the original ones? I assume that they should be better as the cones would be stiffer and more tolerant.
Nothing can beat the original cone/diaphragm if you can find one in pristine condition. You should be able to find one on ebay maybe if you are willing to deplete your savings by an alarming percentage or if you are super lucky
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Typically in India, if you get a driver with original paper/diaphragm
- 99% of the time its from a movie theatre and the speaker room has probably been opened once in 20/30 years. Even that wouldn't have been to clean out the room and drivers
- 90% (of the 99%) of the time you are most probably being taken for a ride and its not original
- If its true
-- then there will definitely be a problem with the surrounds they would have worn out and become brittle, there will be pinholes and insect eggs which would have thinned the paper. HF diaphragms would have cracks which you can't even make out and will worsen with play.
-- It would not have been in use for a long time, it will be dirty as hell and the surrounds would have dried up or picked up loads of dirt, cleaning is going to be a bitch!
- If false
-- its a LF
--- You can always use it as a subwoofer, it will definitely be kick ass!
-- its a HF
--- You don't have much of a choice, the local diaphragms sound like junk
- 1%, There are always exceptions to the rule, many old wealthy families did buy altec, tannoys, bozaks and the likes for their personal home use and these may be in superb condition.
For altec, Recone kits/Diaphragms made by Great Plains Audio is the closest you can get to the original. Bill of GPA was an Altec Employee working on their production lines making these items. When Altec shutdown he bought the original tooling and makes these spares as close to altec spec as possible.
GPAs own drivers are very highly regarded and are supposed to be as good as their original Altec counterparts.
Also do they have to be sent abroad for reconing or can these be done locally with precision?
No you dont have to send the drivers there. Almost all vendors ship their recone kits/replacement diaphragms across the globe. If you are ordering the recone kit remember that no vendor will ship the glue and surround dampening goop (not allowed by courier companies for air freight). There are rare exceptions to this rule and you will have to scourge the internet for a vendor who will oblige.
Its super easy to replace the diaphragm on a compression driver. I did mine on my own. Cleaning the VC gap is the most time consuming part.
Almost every large town has its "speaker guy" who can recone your speaker with the kit you import. You will need him for the LF and he will do a good job. You can get your compression driver fixed by him as well.
hyeah:
Very nicely made..
