Dynaco A35-XL?

[rusomon]

Replacing drivers is more complicated than simply pulling out the one and sticking in the other. I mean the Seas mid might work with the existing crossover, then again it might not. Honestly, I think you'd be better off leaving them as they are, especially since you've already said they sound great to you.

If you're wondering about who made the tweeters in your speakers it was Seas. The model is H107.

To sort out who made your woofers you'll need to check the numbers printed on the back of them. Some of those numbers usually indicate--in some way or other-- a production date. Others will be what's called an EIA code, which is just a specific set of numbers assigned to any given manufacturer. Find the EIA code, find the maker. (I think I remember these woofers as being made by Becker (24 on the EIA table), but I definitely could be wrong about that.)

Good luck.

 

[sax6]

I had those.. for a month.. sold them the same amount I bought them.. not much.
Real veneered, beautiful and heavy cab, acoustic suspension, Seas tweeter, but......... nothing else.
Sounded ? Not bad but, again, they do not offer much.
Nowhere the same as, let's say, an ( real ) A25.

 

[jlh3rd]

I'm sorry, but I believe your speakers are/were not A30xl's...at least not similar to mine that I bought in 1978..I believe you had the later 250's. It does look like your tag says New Jersey though.... People are getting them mixed up.
Your tweeter is not the same as mine. The mid appears the same .the bass driver on yours uses 8 screws, mine uses four .
Yep, I'd like to hear some A25's......they should be better than my B.I.C. Venturi's.....the A30's are...

 

[jlh3rd]

Rusomon....thanks, you been right on so far, Becker probably made the driver, I wonder how good they were as I never heard of them....
Eh, ....great may not be the right word. In no way have I heard enough speakers to make that call, I do think they sound good.
Thanks for the info, I'll leave the mids alone....

 

[jlh3rd]

Here is a pic of my speaker, A30xl....tag on the back is Blackwood, nj.....but another smaller sticker says xl 568.

 

[rusomon]

OK, I think I've got this sorted out.

First of all, your tweeters are not Seas. I identified them as such based on the photo posted by RedbowTies88 of his speakers, which I understood you to say were the same as yours.
Now that I've actually seen your speakers I can tell you the tweeters in them are in fact made by Polydax. The model is HD100D25. (This is a very good tweeter that was used by many manufacturers back in the day, Spica among them.)

Based on all of the above posts it looks to be the case that the A30XL and the A250 are quite similar, though not identical speakers. The enclosures, the Blackwood, NJ terminal plates, and the midrange drivers all appear to be the same. The woofer also appears to be the same, but here there is a difference: the bolt pattern, one using four bolts, the other eight. (I would venture to say that whoever made these woofers, irrespective of bolt pattern, the intent was to mimic the outward appearance of the Seas woofer used in most of the classic Dynacos.) A final and telling difference is the tweeter: one is made by Polydax, the other by Seas.

So, since jlh3rd knows his speakers are A30XL, having bought them new, I think we can now say for posterity that a four bolt woofer+ Polydax tweeter=A30XL. We can also probably say that at an eight bolt woofer+ Seas tweeter=A250.

None of this detective work would be necessary, of course, if Dynaco had just marked the damn things with a model designation. But they didn't, that's the point. And since there also is very little supporting documentation out there from this murky period of Dynaco history the process of identifying these things has been mostly guesswork based on an internet photo or two which may or may not have been correctly identified in the first place. Jlh3rd is quite right, there does seem to be a lot of confusion out there as to which is which.

Not sure how much any of this matters. Better to know than not to know, I suppose. Oh, there's also this: those A250s I briefly owned and have posted about here and elsewhere? Nope, not A250s. A30XLs.

 

[jlh3rd]

Yes rusomon....I didn't look at red bow pics close enough initially....sorry for the confusion....so....
Dynaco A30xl's ...3way,..made in Blackwood ,Nj...around the late 70's for sure, possibly into the 80's
Polydax tweeter,
mid-range stamped "JAPAN", no other markings.
Woofer, possibly Becker.....and here's a pic of that...and attached with 4 screws...but you can
see it has 8 bolt holes.....

 

[jlh3rd]

And in closing for what it's worth, they are dynaco, not panor,or ess. Ed Laurent was still there, hafler left in 74...
But, yeah....no seas drivers......

 

[rusomon]

And just when you think you've got everything figured out...

I've just done a Google search on the A250 and run across a scan of a 1980 advertisement posted here on AK by madtech back in 2013. And I'll be damned if it doesn't look as if the ad shows an A250 with what could be the Polydax tweeter in it. Unfortunately, the picture in the ad isn't sharp enough to say with 100% certainty that this is the case. But if it is the Polydax-- and it well might be-- there goes my nifty theory straight out the window. Yikes.

So, who knows? Maybe at this late stage of the company's existence what driver went into which speaker was as much a matter of which suppliers had been paid, i.e., the drivers that were currently on hand, as anything else. (I've just about reached the point where I'm as comfortable with this theory as the other.)

As to who left the company when I'm not sure it really matters all that much. Safe to say when most people think of Dynaco speakers, these ain't them.

 

[jlh3rd]

Yep......I was curious if you saw my pic upload of the bass driver and what you made of the numbers......unless you're just tired of this thread.......

 

[rusomon]

I'm not much good at reading these things, but as a guess I'd say the smaller numbers would be the production date code. So if we take those numbers out we are left with 509124 1056.

I can't remember where I picked up the notion that these woofers were made by Becker but I can see where it might've come from: the 24 at the end of the first series of numbers. But is this Becker's EIA code or is it just part of a larger number indicating something else? I don't know, but my guess right now would be it's part of a larger number indicating something else. This leaves us with the freestanding 1056. 1056 is Fisher's EIA code. So if Fisher manufactured drivers for other companies I'd say Fisher looks like a more promising candidate than Becker. I don't know if they did or not, but maybe somebody else will know more and chime in here.

Probably your best bet to get to the bottom of this mystery would be to start a separate Need help identifying woofer thread in which you include as many pictures of your woofer as possible, including, of course, the one above. There are plenty of smart people around here who might be able to help you.

Good luck.