finding a replacement woofer for tower vega

[cheapskete OCer]

Im trying to find a woofer for my friends old 38 series floorstanders. he needs a new 15" woofer for one of them, The speakers are 4ohm when i hooked up a meter to see what ohm the woofer itself was it said 3.2-3.5 kinda bounced back and forth. so is it 3 ohm then? I have contacted vega and they didnt even know what speaker i was talking about , they lost all there old records i looked on the back of the woofer and there was no info,

 

[zumbo]

Do you mean Cerwin Vega?

 

[cheapskete OCer]

yes i was just shortening the thread title

 

[TLS Guy]

Im trying to find a woofer for my friends old 38 series floorstanders. he needs a new 15" woofer for one of them, The speakers are 4ohm when i hooked up a meter to see what ohm the woofer itself was it said 3.2-3.5 kinda bounced back and forth. so is it 3 ohm then? I have contacted vega and they didnt even know what speaker i was talking about , they lost all there old records i looked on the back of the woofer and there was no info,

What is the matter with the woofer? You really can not replace a woofer with a different one. Almost all Cerwin Vega woofers are repairable. That is by far the best solution. Orange County speakers can repair almost ALL Cerwin Vega speakers.

 

[cheapskete OCer]

unfortunately he threw out the woofer...I dont know why but he did

 

[Adam]

Just to get everyone up to speed, this was originally brought up in September in the thread here.

Looks like cheapskete took all of the advice from there. I'm just linking to it so that people know what was recommended before they spend time thinking of solutions.

 

[cheapskete OCer]

good eye adam, I just figured that thread was long lost. Does no one know what ohm woofer it is when my meter says 3.2-3.5 do i round up or down?

 

[Adam]

After about 30 minutes, I haven't been able to find a replacement woofer. I did see three or four listings for RE-38s on craigslist in various towns, but I don't think any were still available. There is a 15" woofer on eBay, but it doesn't say which speaker it's for (it says to e-mail them to find out) and it's already at $35 + $16 shipping.

 

[TLS Guy]

After about 30 minutes, I haven't been able to find a replacement woofer. I did see three or four listings for RE-38s on craigslist in various towns, but I don't think any were still available. There is a 15" woofer on eBay, but it doesn't say which speaker it's for (it says to e-mail them to find out) and it's already at $35 + $16 shipping.

This project is a dead loss, unless you can find a used woofer in any shape. You won't find an OEM driver anything like the Cerwin Vegas, mainly because of sensitivity. If you are patient you will probably find what you are looking for. Post on eBay want it now, and put in your searches. If nothing comes up after a few months, then part out the remaining drivers and crossovers on eBay and put the money towards new speakers.

 

[Alex2507]

good eye adam, I just figured that thread was long lost. Does no one know what ohm woofer it is when my meter says 3.2-3.5 do i round up or down?

If I understand this correctly you have measured the resistance of the voice coil, not the impedance of the speaker. The impedance of the speaker is calculated by measuring the ohms at differing frequencies and averaging them out. That's why the term nominal is used. The impedance can easily range from 4ohms - 14ohms as it gets checked from 50Hz up to 20,000Hz. If you saw it on a graph, it would be a wavy line as well.

There is no way to determine the impedance of a speaker by measuring the resistance the way you described. You can google impedance vs resistance to get a better understanding of it.

 

[TLS Guy]

If I understand this correctly you have measured the resistance of the voice coil, not the impedance of the speaker. The impedance of the speaker is calculated by measuring the ohms at differing frequencies and averaging them out. That's why the term nominal is used. The impedance can easily range from 4ohms - 14ohms as it gets checked from 50Hz up to 20,000Hz. If you saw it on a graph, it would be a wavy line as well.

There is no way to determine the impedance of a speaker by measuring the resistance the way you described. You can google impedance vs resistance to get a better understanding of it.

You have advised him correctly. However matching impedance is only one of the worries. Sensitivity is vital. A mismatch of as little as 2 db will change the whole balance of the speaker. The frequency response also has to match, or the speaker balance will also be upset. And then we have not yet got to T/S parameters, that will determine whether the speaker will have any bass or not, or just boom.

Barring getting th exact driver, the OP needs to give up on this one.

 

[Adam]

Just taking a step back...aren't these college party speakers? My brother had a similar model. With that perspective, how important is all of this sonic and electrical matching for the woofer?

The OP can say how vital all of this is, but if his friend threw the woofer away, I'm guessing that he's not the kind of person sitting in front of a two-channel rig, dedicated disc platter spinning and feeding his outboard DAC. He probably just wants some reasonable sound coming from his old speakers. That's my guess.

 

[zumbo]

I Googled Cerwin Vega 15 replacement.
$95

http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=CVW-15&Category_Code=ACC_CV-Vega

 

[Adam]

Nice one, Zumbo!

Where did you find which woofer model went with the RE-38s?

EDIT: I just saw your edit above. So, I'll ask this - do you know if this is for the RE-38s? There was another 15" model on eBay (I think it was different, anyway...I saw it late last night). Thanks.

 

[zumbo]

Nice one, Zumbo!

Where did you find which woofer model went with the RE-38s?

I edited my last post. Pretty sure most CV's with the pink surround are the same, or similar enough.

 

[cheapskete OCer]

Sweet .. That is the woofer, or as close as im going to get, I just pulled the woofer that he has out of the cabinet yesterday and the basket, magnet look just like that even the screws in the magnet are the same. Thanks for finding that , I have been to that site before when googeling but they did not have one then. thanks to everyone else for helping out

 

[cheapskete OCer]

If I understand this correctly you have measured the resistance of the voice coil, not the impedance of the speaker. The impedance of the speaker is calculated by measuring the ohms at differing frequencies and averaging them out. That's why the term nominal is used. The impedance can easily range from 4ohms - 14ohms as it gets checked from 50Hz up to 20,000Hz. If you saw it on a graph, it would be a wavy line as well.

There is no way to determine the impedance of a speaker by measuring the resistance the way you described. You can google impedance vs resistance to get a better understanding of it.

So is it merely coincidence that when i use my digital meter on the cabinet itslef which is clearly labeled 4 ohm that my meter says 4 ohm?

 

[zumbo]

EDIT: I just saw your edit above. So, I'll ask this - do you know if this is for the RE-38s? There was another 15" model on eBay (I think it was different, anyway...I saw it late last night). Thanks.

The one's on ebay have different surrounds. I don't know the technical term, but I would call it spider surround.

W vs U

 

[TLS Guy]

So is it merely coincidence that when i use my digital meter on the cabinet itslef which is clearly labeled 4 ohm that my meter says 4 ohm?

The answer is yes to an extent. Although the average impedance is generally an ohm or so above the DC resistance. But I have seen drivers with a DC resistance in that range that were 16 ohm drivers.

I would snap one of those drivers up fast. They look like good quality drivers.

 

[cheapskete OCer]

ok so i ordered that woofer from orange county last week and got it today. It is slightly different then the woofer he still has in his other cabinet, for starters it has red foam around the woofer instead of orange, and it has a recessed cone instead of your typical dome cone, other than that the basket and magnet look the same but the stamp on the back of the woofer says 66 4020 his other one says Y 4020 ? We will find out soon enough.