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A elderly friend of mine has given me a set of Heathkit AS-104 Speakers. They are solid walnut and sound good for 30 year old speakers. They have a 10" butyl woofer, 4" midrange and 2" tweeter drivers. There are 2 level controls, mid and high, in the back of the cabinet. They are about the size of an AR3a and they weigh about 30 lbs. each. I can't hear anything coming out from the tweeter from either one. Could the level controls be corroded? Do I clean with DeOxit?Do any of you have any knowledge of their specs? A manual, etc. Do you know where I can get replacement drivers?
Any and all information is much appreciated.
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Looks like you have a variation on the AR-2 speaker. AS stands for Acoustic Suspension in their # scheme.I would first clean the pots or bypass them. I suspect the tweeters will work fine after that.
Best,
IIRC, those are AR speakers (maybe AR-3A). Heath's speaker kits were OEM drivers in a cosmetically different enclosure (such as different grill cloth) and the purchaser assembled the crossover. I've got some Heath/Electro-voice speakers. Usually a perceived *dead* tweeter is actually corroded level control contacts, so a cleaning is warrented. Radio Shack sells Tuner Control Cleaner in a spray can which will be ideal for this. Spray into the round case opening where terminals are on control and rotate control several times. Invert to allow excess fluid and gunk to drain. Another common cause for a *dead* tweeter is failed crossover capacitors. Radio Shack also sells bi-polar electrolitic capacitors for speaker crossovers, you could get some close to the original uF value stated on cap and replace to check as older electrolitics tend to dry out over time. Usually the tweeters are fine, just the parts connected to them are no longer passing signal. I've done both repairs above to resurrect old speakers, sometimes leaving the RS caps in place and othertimes up-grading to modern film types. Paralleling more than one capacitor sums their values, and the RS *blue biscuts* metal-film caps offer a way to improve on the electrolitic cap if you decide to leave in.
Or go to Radio shack and buy a $2.00 tweeter and wire it in to the X-over to isolate the problem. If the new speaker works then its the original tweeter, if it doesnt, then most likely a dried out cap. I never like to wire a vintage directly to an amp even at low volume for fear or frying it.
Hi Joe,It appears you have been given a nice old set of speakers,what I would do is clean all the level controls with DeOxit and if you still have no output from the tweeters check the capacitors in the crossover to make sure they have not gone South. Also you could always wire the tweeters direct to your amp(for a secound or two only at low volume)to confirm they're operation.I hope this helps you out.Happy Holidays! Al
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