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$4 Optimus 2 speakers

Wolverine

Wolverine

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
I don't need anymore speakers but for $4 I could not walk away from them. Cabinets are a little beat but the grills are good and match my Optimus 5's. Drivers seem very unusual and I am not sure they are original. Both woofer and tweeter have treated cloth surrounds and are in excellent condition. The woofer dust cap seems to made of felt and the tweeter has some sort of 3-4" cap attached to the back of it. Does anyone recognize drivers like these?? Not much on the web about these speakers other than the RS catalog says they are from 1973. will post some pics after a little more clean up.
 
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been trying to get as many of those mid/tweeters as i can.


listen to them for a while, then swap electrolytic capacitors for plastics.

much better ...
 
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markshan said:
I would disagree. The drivers look ill fitting on the baffles. The tweeter in particular seems to be out of round to the routed slot that it sits in.
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the tweeters in these are a 'funky fit'.

that is the way they are, new ...







47
 
Sir.Byrd said:
A tweeter that covers midrange frequencies as well.
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Thanks!

Looking at the photo do you think that is what this tweeter is?
If so I am not sure this is an original driver because I would think that RS would mention that in the write in the catalog. In only mentions that it has a "high-compliance woofer and tweeter" it also fails to mention the treated cloth surrounds. if any other owner of a pair of these can confirm a similar woofer/tweeter set-up I would appreciate it.

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1973_small/

Also while searching found this old ad for these speakers.....

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers...NY Daily Times Feb 1974 Grayscale - 0008.pdf
 
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I have 2 pairs of these speakers. Those drivers are original. Nice sounding speaks too!
 
Aldo said:
I have 2 pairs of these speakers. Those drivers are original. Nice sounding speaks too!
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Thanks!
I read on the net that apparently the "cup" behind some of the early RS Optimus tweeters was filled with poly-fil to improve SQ. Not sure if this has merit or was just a gimmick as I have not seen it on other speakers. I have only listened to them briefly (1-2hrs) and they do sound good. might put together an Optimus "stack" for the garage by setting these on top of my Optimus 5's..... :D
 
The mid/tweet cups of my Optimus-21s contain some polyfil. Have you checked inside your Optimus-2 cups? The driver itself is open-backed (thus requiring the cup for acoustic isolation from the woofer) and surprisingly wide-ranged:

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A versatile mid/tweet driver, as evidenced by Radio Shack's use of it in several models of loudspeaker.
 

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The mids and tweets on your 5s should be in cups as well and the construction of the woofers, both front and back look like the woofers on my 1s and 5s.
 
stereofanboy said:
The mids and tweets on your 5s should be in cups as well and the construction of the woofers, both front and back look like the woofers on my 1s and 5s.
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Thanks! I have never pulled the drivers out of my 5's since they are in such good shape.
 
I had a pair of Optimus 1-B speakers (great sounding speaker - if you ever see a pair get 'em) and they had 2 of those mid-tweets in each cabinet. The mid-tweets in the 1-B were 16 ohms each, but I've seen 8 ohm versions of them for single driver setups and multi-driver setups that sent different frequencies to each of the mid-tweets too. They also made the same mid-tweet in a square frame but put it in a round cutout (like KLH did). Those are definitely original drivers.
 
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