Wake Design speaker replacement

[jchamlin]

I have a 2000 Air with the Wake Designs speaker cans - two speakers facing forward and two back. They are 6.5" Bazooka speakers and aren't made anymore. I recently had most of my stereo replaced. I wasn't planning on doing anything with the tower speakers until later but discovered the surrounds are completely shot, along with my budget.

I have a local guy who can refurbish them, but he's not very comfortable with the rubberized section that covers the stem holding the tweeter. He says an Alpine M600 is an exact drop in replacement, but I'm calling BS. I took one of my speakers out of the can and compared it with another 6.5 I had sitting around and the current speaker seems pretty specific to those cans.

Does anyone have experience with replacing those speakers? I was planning on replacing them anyway with some REV8/10's somewhere down the road so I'm looking for a cheap fix.

[MLA]

Jon,

If you have one out, whats the speaker basket OD and cutout ID? Compare the cost to refurb 4 driver to 4 new 6.5" drivers. Also, email me a pic of the pod with the speaker out.

On a side note, Alpine got out of the Marine audio biz last year.

At the end of the day, ive never been a fan of those dual pods. 2 speakers occupying the same pod, which is on the small side to begin with, really kills the mid-bass and overall sound quality. If a forward facing speaker is needed, a swivel clamp pod is best. You can focus 100% of the volume either forward or backward.

[jchamlin]

Mike, thanks for your input as always. After looking inside the pod (nothing except for wires), it does seem strange to have two speakers opposing each other, but they had always sounded pretty good. Not great in bass response, but otherwise OK. I actually like the two speakers facing forward because I don't have any bow speakers.

Its just killing me that I can't crank those things up along with the rest of the system. My speaker repair guy charges $15 / speaker, although there's that center rubber part that he's not sure about. He's got everything right now but I'll shoot you an email with pics if he can't or won't fix them.