JPW AP 2 advice

marb67

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Jul 30, 2015
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Hello,

I have had these black ash JPW AP2 speakers for 21 years and they have always sounded fine. However, the rubber around the woofers has persished so bad that you only have to touch it and it just crumbles leaving a hole.

Idealy I would like to have smaller bookshelf speakers in natural wood that are as good quality, if not better but I am also wondering if the AP2's are worth repairing and keeping or at least selling as I know vintage hifi gear is quite sought after these days.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
 

james_LR90

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Aug 17, 2010
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If I was you I would repair them and I think replacement surrounds are available. Another option if you want to take the speakers a step further is to modify them with replacement doped drivers and no crossover. Have a look at the hifi subjectivist forum as someone on there had modded their AP2s.

They have too much potential to not be sorted out!
 

marb67

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james_LR90 said:
If I was you I would repair them and I think replacement surrounds are available. Another option if you want to take the speakers a step further is to modify them with replacement doped drivers and no crossover. Have a look at the hifi subjectivist forum as someone on there had modded their AP2s.

They have too much potential to not be sorted out!

Thanks James. That is very good to hear as they do sound excellent. I am not sure what doped drivers means but will read up. I know the foam rubber surrounds can be replaced at Ebay. If anything I would love to change the black ash to natural wood.
 

james_LR90

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They are the perfect project speaker and I think you will be shocked by what they are capable of if you put some time and effort into them. I bet if you modded them then they would see off a lot of expensive five star speakers. Like I said check out the forum I mentioned as there is loads of info in there for modding JPW speakers.
 

marb67

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Just to update that I eventually purchased some nice foam surrounds from a reputable seller on Ebay to replace the sticky, crumbling rubber and they work really well. It was a horrible, horrible long and teidious job removing the black stuff that had welded itself to the metal. In fact, get any on your carpet etc and there is no way of removing the evil stuff.

They sound great. Glad you advised I hang on to them.

Cheers.
 

Edbo2

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Wilmslow have the Vifa drive units so replacement is possible. I owned a pair of AP2 but as they were sealed enclosures I found my Cyrus One made them sound rather lean and bright. If you have a meaty amp replace the drivers. 8" drivers are a rarity these days. In today's money you need to spend more than £800 for equivalent units
 

Edbo2

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Edbo2 said:
Wilmslow have the Vifa drive units so replacement is possible. I owned a pair of AP2 but as they were sealed enclosures I found my Cyrus One made them sound rather lean and bright. If you have a meaty amp replace the drivers. 8" drivers are a rarity these days. In today's money you need to spend more than £800 for equivalent units
Scan speak now make the paper cone driver. M21 WG-09-08
 

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