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AR-2a to 2ax conversion

J

jbpollock

Well-Known Member
I found a potential mate for my orphan AR-2a today. It is an AR-2ax. Layne audio advertises a 2a to 2ax conversion kit in the form of a new midrange and something to fill in the larger hole required for the 2a's dual cone midrange.

Any opinions on if a conversion like this would be necessary to make the 2 speakers sound ok together? Also, the 2a has the cloth surrounded woofer and the 2ax has foam (and also needs reconing).
 
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AR had a modification kit that converted the cross firing midrange to the fiberglass covered midrange/tweeter. Just a panel with the driver on it. I had a pair of them, and they were fine (though not cheap even back in 74, and I suspect that you could buy a whole nother 2ax or pair for what they probably go for now). Don't know if Laynes is the same thing. But here's the fly in the ointment (other than price): I believe AR lowered the crossover point in the 2ax, perhaps when they went to the foam surround woofer, and so even if you get the mid, you might have a slightly different sounding speaker than your other one. Not neccessarily a problem, but I'd hesitate before spending a lot to come up with miss matched pair.
 
Thanks to the generosity of OMI, I ended up having 3 speakers to work with as follows:

AR-2a previously converted to 2ax (from OMI): Nice Cabinet and 3 working drivers as follows:
- 1.375" Dome Tweet, 3.5" cone mid, 10" cloth surround woofer
AR-2a: Ugly cabinet, 3 working drivers
- 1.375" Dome Tweet, Dual 5" Cone Mid, 10" cloth surround woofer
AR-2ax: Nice cabinet,
- Bad 0.75" Tweet, working 3.5" cone mid, 10" foam surround woofer that
needed reconing

So, I left the converted 2ax as is and put the tweeter and woofer from the 2a into the 2ax. The woofer took a bit of work as the basket is bigger on the cloth surrounds than it is on the foam, so I had to make the hole in the speaker cabinet bigger.

My question now is this:

Is there anyway to tell by looking at it (they all look the same to me) if the crossovers in the converted 2ax are the original 2a crossovers or if it was upgraded to the 2ax crossover as a part of the kit?

If it was changed then I am set. If it was not changed, I could pull the crossover from the 2a and put it in the 2ax to make sure they match.

Sorry for the long and painful detail!
 
They sound pretty good to me so far by the way, so I guess option 3 is that if I can't hear the difference that I shouldn't worry about it :o)
 
Hey,

I have one each an AR-2a and an AR-2ax. I also have an original AR document that tells step by step you how to convert an AR-2 to an AR-2a and an AR-2a to an AR-2ax. It does require the "conversion kit" but also has a lot of other helpful information. Got a fax machine?
 
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