speakers

71 Javelin AMX O.O. wrote: George & Uncle John:   Your expertise in the speaker area is impressive.  However you did not answer my basic question....can an OEM, orignal AMC speaker, be re-built to today's standards to get better sound quality?  I understand the radio may not have the power to drive the newer speakers, but is there something that can be done to the orignal speakers to get them to sound better?  Maybe I'm just deaming here and you may not know if this is possible?  I appreciate all the discussion on this subject.   Steve

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71 Javelin AMX O.O. wrote: Matty:   Thanks for the recommendation.  Were the results better than what you started with?  Do you feel for the cost it was worth it?   Steve

Yes old speakers can be rebuilt and or repaired, it is not rocket science.  But in general for an old car that in and of itself does not have any increased value due to OEM style speakers being in it, why bother and incur the expense when you can buy functional replacements.
But it can be done here for one example and I am sure many others.
http://www.heavysoundco.com/oldcarradiospeakers.html

There are places that can "rebuild" regular car and older radio speakers. Typically this is a "recone" job where the speaker's paper cone and voice coil are replaced with new. Parts are available for most of the popular sized, american made speakers of that era.
In most cases the recone will restore the speaker to a close approximation of it's performance ( or lack thereof ) when new.

A rebuild of this nature would not really be considered an upgrade however. There may be rare cases where the recone materials may be better than the OEM materials used, but not usually that much better.
More modern "hi-Fi" speakers like the JBL/s and Kenwoods mentioned earlier typically are repaired by "re-foam" kits. This is where the speaker is otherwise OK but the rolled foam rubber outer cone suspension, called the "surround" had deteriorated and is replaced. The remaining critical parts like the speaker's original cone, voice coil and spider are left intact. This is a very common repair procedure for this type of high quality speaker.

The smaller sized car speakers, like the 5-1/4" pincushion round speakers that AMC used, can usually be reconed but it's typically not done because it's not cost effective. These speakers used simple, pressed paper cones and were of low quality even by sixties standards.
These speakers were nothing more than cheap, table radio grade speakers adapted for automotive use. Keep in mind that up through the mid 70's there still was a domestic table radio and home tv/stereo console manufacturing business that sourced their speakers from a handful of OEM domestic speaker maufactuer's that also supplied product to the auto industry. Jensen was probably the best known as they also succesfully manufactured and marketed upgraded aftermarket speakers in the popular 5-1/4 and 6 x 9 sizes. Everyone knew and wanted to upgrade to Jensen "Coaxials" at the time. Other well known domestic OEM speaker suppliers of the era were Rola, the OEM division of Jensen, CTS of Paduca Ky and Becker. I beleive that most of AMC's 5 1/4" speaker product came from Rola/Jensen. There's typically a 3 digit number stamped on the back of the speaker frames or magnet structures that designated the OEM manufacturer.

Currently available aftermarket replacements typically will cost no more and are usually far better in materials and sound performance and are very reasonably priced.

Steve, I purchased and aftermarket 4x10 for my AMX and covered it with grill cloth like the originals were done. You can't tell the difference from above yet the sound is "decent". This is from someone that competed in IASCA (car audio competitions) at a fairly high level (world finals twice - 7th and 9th). There are a few members here that work in the audio field or own shops, hopefully they can also provide some feedback.

The speaker I installed was a 4ohm model so the factory AM/FM will actually be working a little less to power it. Plenty of volume but I barely turn the stereo on, I prefer to hear the music the car makes :)

As you can see in this picture, I used the original wiring harness and installed foam etc. as per the factory and every bracket, screw etc was restored.



Edited by amxdreamer - Jan/03/2014 at 12:23pm