[gadgeteer123]

I have a realisitic cd-3300 boombox, this thing is from 1987 and rocks for its age. it seriously sounds like there is a tiny subwoofer hiding inside it somewhere. It has new capacitors, it is very well built for a boombox, it pumps out a clean 10rms per channel, I powered a 8" jbl sub with it once lol. Its original speakers can cleanly hit down to 50-60hz range, and 30hz is audible off of its 4" woofers. But now to get to the point, it needs a new left woofer, its started to rattle, and I'd like either a way to fix this rattle, or I want a replacement set of woofers that are as good as these woofers if not better. the max depth any new woofers can be is 2" the cutout hole is 4". So can anyone help me???

 

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

If it rattles the voice coil has unglued from the cone, and it isn't really fixable. For replacement woofers you should look at Parts Express and go for the lowest Fs (resonance freq) with the highest sensitivity. For decent output with 10W RMS you'll want at least 88dB sensitivity.

 

[gadgeteer123]

well i tried some boston acoustics woofers, with a sensitivity of 96db 1w/1m and a resonance of 57hz and it has decent bass but the old woofers are a ton louder. The old 23yr old woofers are not a tiny bit louder but a very noticeable amount, and they sound clearer for some reason. They also thump better too off of 10 watts. Ive already checked out parts express, and none of there woofers compare to these old original ones. These are accordion surround, so with the way they sound and thump there sensitivity must be really high.

 

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Yes, the old boomboxes (at least the brand name ones not chinese knockoffs) had custom made speakers that squeezed the most out of the tiny amp. For example i've seen speakers with 3.2 ohm impedance in an old JVC boombox, and they were VERY loud on just 6 watts input.


As for "sounding clearer", it's very likely that your old woofers are better at treble. If the boombox does not have tweeters, that's most definitely the reason. To get good treble reproduction you need thin voice coil wire and light cone. 100dB sensitivity wasn't that uncommon. The downside of it was that they would break if played too loud for an extended period of time. Though many are still alive today.

 

[gadgeteer123]

Mine does have tweeters but they are those cheap flat ones, that barely do anything. And ya mine did break, with my horrible left woofer rattle. Its been rattling for over a year now, sometimes it kind of goes away and then come back, its always there but it changes in intensity.