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Bowers and Wilkins tweeter replacements

Geeknow

Geeknow

New Member
I bought a pair of Bowers and Wilkins Matrix 803's without the tweeters. I had planned to replace the tweeters until I saw the price. It will not be a purchase that I make soon, but I'd like to use the speakers. Is there, or what would be a much less expensive alternative? Thanks
 
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At $1500ish per new tweeter & housing I get it, and if you had audio measuring gear, you'd be asking a different question.

But you definitely can do some redneck engineering while waiting for a perfect solution. Pick out a 25mm 8 ohm tweeter, get a half dozen resistors, build housing stands for the tweeters, and wire it up. If it sounds dead and awful, reverse the wiring to the tweeter. Too much treble, add a 1 ohm resistor. Still too much add more. Get 2 each of 1 ohm, 2 ohm and 4 ohm resistors.

Example tweeter
https://www.parts-express.com/peerl...08-08-1-aluminum-dome-tweeter-8-ohm--264-1462
 
I think you were looking at the 803 D tweeter, I did the same thing at first until I scrolled further.

The regular 803 tweeter plus housing/plinth is just under 400 each. Still pricey but if your going to keep the speakers for a long time it's still cheaper than a different pair of speakers. You will be looking long and hard to find a pair of speakers for 800 bucks that will be their equal.

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Perhaps the plinths are still there, just need the housing, tweeter and grill. ISTR the grilles are NLA.

The housing and tweets show upon the auction site from time to time but are spendy.

I believe the 803, 804, and 805 Matrix all share the same housing/tweeter.
 
It's already in a pod. I know it's not original and will in no way compete with the B&W tweeter. But, HiVi does build decent drivers, and the housing might help them at least look the part. And hopefully, maybe good enough for now?

HiVi TN28-B
 
Thanks for the feedback.
Mikeybc is correct, they are $362 ea. I paid $300 for the speakers, so it would put me at $1,000 to get them complete. I've mostly had 70's gear and was running AR 2ax 's with a Sansui 7070. I hooked these up with a pair of AR TSW tweeters that I had laying around and the sound is pretty impressive already. It's a pretty dramatic change in sound from the AR 2ax 's and definitely hitting a new level for my limited experience.
Thanks
 

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Your Matrix 803’s are the series 2 with the 2 Black woofers below the kevlar driver. they're still worth about 1000 bucks on the used market if they're in very good shape. It you’re going to keep them for a long time then i still think they're worth fixing properly.
 
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