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Boston Acoustics A-200 Woofer Replacement Saga

truevis

truevis

Well-Known Member
Got a pair of A-200s for free. Had to choose between buying a foam kit for $20+, an $80 repair job from a guy down the street from me who has a vintage stereo shop, or replacing the woofers. I went the easy route and bought a pair of the 10" Dayton Classics after some hours of Googling these kinds of forums. Hence, my cost was ~$70 with the shipping.

It was an easy swap, the wire leads are the same and so are the screw holes. Now the speakers sound fine. Of course, I cannot easily compare to how the original, repaired, woofers would sound.

Question for you AK experts: Should I hold on to the original worn-out woofers for repair someday? Do they have any value? Or, should I be happy and move on with my new vintage audio hobby?
 
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I would DEFINITELY keep the originals, refoam them, and get the wrong Dayton's out of there as soon as possible. The t/s parameters are what make a woofer in a system function correctly. I'm sure the Dayton's are not exact replacements.

Refoaming is pretty easy so long as you can pay attention to detail and take your time. Go with Rick Cobb surrounds when you get some. They are the correct Boston surrounds, not generic ones that others sell.
 
Refoaming is very easy to do. Replacing woofers with ones that were not designed for a speaker will not sound even close to the same as one ith the originals.
 
Effectively, you no longer have BA A-200's. Whether they sound better (unlikely) or worse, they are not the same. Also, you have destroyed any resale value they might have. Definitely keep them, and as soon as possible, refoam and restore them. They are really great speakers.
 
That's it.
Though I recommend getting them from him without the kit, you can save a bit of money. The glue he uses is too runny for my tastes, I use Aleene's tacky glue.
Boston woofers are probably the easiest woofers to do, you'll do fine.
 
So you took the original woofers from very rare A-200 (the only pair on eBay right now is $700 + $200 shipping). Wow! You successfully took about $500 out of them. You are kidding, right?
 
ymarko said:
So you took the original woofers from very rare A-200 (the only pair on eBay right now is $700 + $200 shipping). Wow! You successfully took about $500 out of them. You are kidding, right?
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Wow, also! I see the ad, now. I thought they were only worth around $200 in normal condition.

Bigerik said:
Effectively, you no longer have BA A-200s...
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That raises the question: Is it possible to have something equal to an A-200 when they were new? The electronics, motors, and materials surely deteriorate over 30 years, don't they? Can a re-foam really be let a speaker be restored perfectly?
 
truevis said:
Wow, also! I see the ad, now. I thought they were only worth around $200 in normal condition.


That raises the question: Is it possible to have something equal to an A-200 when they were new? The electronics, motors, and materials surely deteriorate over 30 years, don't they? Can a re-foam really be let a speaker be restored perfectly?
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Basically, you need to refoam, and reinstall the original woofers.
 
refoam and after the 20-30 years they've aged, it's a good idea to replace any electrolytic capacitors in the crossover with capacitors of the the same (within +/- 5-10% or so) uF value to restore original performance. use polypropylene film caps if you want "lifetime" caps that wont wear out/dry up in the smaller (say, under 20-25uf) sizes.
 
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I've read here that recapping '80s BA speakers doesn't have as much effect on the sound as with other speakers. Just throwing that out there. Most crucial is a reform done on those original woofers and reinstalling them.
 
Here is a picture of the old, original woofers. The goop is silicone adhesive -- the result of a heavy-handed hack repair attempt.104_7006_cr.jpg

The accordion paper under the cones is a little folded on one of them. Hence I was thinking them not worth fixing.
 
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Man that looks 'bad'. Can you even get the silicone off the woofer without completely trashing it for a refoam?

I don't know those Daytons, but I do know a guy who researched replacing the woofers in his A100s with a Dayton equivalent, and this guy knows his stuff. He 'did' find a Dayton replacement that worked quite well--spec wise it was as close to a perfect copy as you could ask for. But that was years ago. So I'm not sure about 'current' models.

cnh2
 
Sir.Byrd said:
That's it.
Though I recommend getting them from him without the kit, you can save a bit of money. The glue he uses is too runny for my tastes, I use Aleene's tacky glue.
Boston woofers are probably the easiest woofers to do, you'll do fine.
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Sir.Byrd, if you got them from him without the full kit you had better luck that I did. Sometime within the last year I emailed requesting surrounds only saying I said I already had several of his tone CDs (I'd ordered from him previously) and plenty of left over glue so didn't need anything but the surrounds. No go for me.
 
cubby01 said:
Sir.Byrd, if you got them from him without the full kit you had better luck that I did. Sometime within the last year I emailed requesting surrounds only saying I said I already had several of his tone CDs (I'd ordered from him previously) and plenty of left over glue so didn't need anything but the surrounds. No go for me.
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Same here. I was told that he only sells in kit form.
 
cnh2 said:
Man that looks 'bad'. Can you even get the silicone off the woofer without completely trashing it for a refoam?

I don't know those Daytons, but I do know a guy who researched replacing the woofers in his A100s with a Dayton equivalent, and this guy knows his stuff. He 'did' find a Dayton replacement that worked quite well--spec wise it was as close to a perfect copy as you could want. But that was years ago. So I'm not sure about 'current' models.
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I can get most of the silicone off, but a little paper is going with it. Considering the advice given so far, it's likely worth the $23 for Mr. Cobbs' kit to give it a try. I'm more concerned with making sure the motors don't rub against anything when they go in and out.

Some of the references I found about using the Daytons are:
BTW, the originals have stickers reading "MAR 15 1982".

As I wrote, The Daytons in there now sound fine. I'm guessing that the bass actually reaches lower frequencies than the original. Stock A-200s went to 36Hz, and the Daytons by themselves are supposed to go to 25Hz. These are the A-200 specs:post-15-1137005500_cr.png

I'm wondering, if one were to use a modern amplifier that has an automatic calibration system, would that compensate for funkiness that must be inherent in old speakers, and flatten out their reproduction of the original sound source?
 
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Looks like that Dayton is pretty good if Gordon recommends it. I've heard about Gordon's reputation from another member here who had work done on some speakers I purchased from him, by Godon W. And not only did he 'rave' about the work. I could see just how stellar it was when I picked up a couple of pairs of speakers from him!

Don't know the answer to the ACS systems...though I have used them?

cnh2
 
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