Realistic Minimus 20's

[mhardy6647]

Those do look neat. I wonder what type of tweeter is lurking under those fins. I’ve seen regular cone tweeters ‘dressed up’ like this on some speakers before.

Well, there's probably not an OEM version of a JBL 175 under there.
Pretty safe to assume it's a 2 inch (give or take) cone tweeter hiding behind a plastic 'diffuser'.

I have not found the "Minimus-20" in a catalog (yet), but I did see this; perhaps the same tweeter(?).



source: www.radioshackcatalogs.com (1987)

 

[mhardy6647]

Heh, heh, heh... good ol' google...



"New for '83" 2.5 inch (cone) tweeter with acoustic lens; not unlike the Minimus 11 which loaded a cone tweeter with a "horn"



both images from www.radioshackcatalogs.com (1983)

(borrowed image of a pair of Minimus 11)

 

[Gnesen]

Heh, heh, heh... good ol' google...

View attachment 1350529

"New for '83" 2.5 inch (cone) tweeter with acoustic lens; not unlike the Minimus 11 which loaded a cone tweeter with a "horn"

View attachment 1350531

both images from www.radioshackcatalogs.com (1983)

Good call. For what it’s worth, some cone tweeters can sound quite good, IMO.

 

[mhardy6647]

Good call. For what it’s worth, some cone tweeters can sound quite good, IMO.

That is absolutely true -- and, in fact, the very modest 'cone/dome' tweeters (note the dustcaps!) used by Radio Shack (and very similar ones used by Kloss at Cambridge Soundworks) are quite respectable sounding, inexpensive tweeters.

The sine qua non of cone tweeters was probably the 2" (2-1/4") AlNiCo Peerless cone -- these were sold for many many years both for DIY and as OEM tweeters in some very respectable loudspeaker systems.

source: http://www.roger-russell.com/driverst.htm

 

[janikphoto]

Wow! I thought I’d seen and/or owned most of the minibus line, but I have never seen this one before.

 

[71CNY]

That is absolutely true -- and, in fact, the very modest 'cone/dome' tweeters (note the dustcaps!) used by Radio Shack (and very similar ones used by Kloss at Cambridge Soundworks) are quite respectable sounding, inexpensive tweeters.

The sine qua non of cone tweeters was probably the 2" (2-1/4") AlNiCo Peerless cone -- these were sold for many many years both for DIY and as OEM tweeters in some very respectable loudspeaker systems.

source: http://www.roger-russell.com/driverst.htm

Do you know if this tweeter was produced by other manufacturers?

 

[Fleischer]

I notice that the wood used in the speakers differs strongly from one to the other. This can be seen in the photo I posted. Looking at other photos I see of these speakers on the Internet, I notice that these variations are commonplace. This leads me to wonder if this is a quality control problem for their Korean manufacturer, which may have led to Radio Shack discontinuing the Minimus 20 after only one year.