new speakers

Get the drivers repaired or if neccessary reconed.

To substitute another driver, you're going to need to see if something current production will work well in a cab of that size.

 

If you are talking about the cabs I think you are, they are a direct rip on Peavey 215 of the time anyway. So a BW load with ties back to that time, 1502 or 1505, will work fine. Or at least as fine as it did back when people just stuffed drivers into cabs ; }

If it's the SHALLOW VERSION though, and not the deep one, it's really to little space to make decent use out of most drivers, regardless - for bass guitar anyway.

On the other hand, some people think the tiny BagEnd fifteen cabs sound right, so it's definitely a matter of taste.

 

Pull one of the speakers and see what brand and model it is. Then contact a place like this http://www.simplyspeakers.com/16reconing.htm to see if they can fix your speakers. Having them repaired will cost less than new ones and will probably work better. If, however they can't be repaired they can probably recommend a suitable replacement.

good luck

 

+1 on getting your current drivers repaired/reconed; that will probably end up being by far the easiest and least expensive solution. However, if you do want to explore your options for putting some new drivers in there, you are not alone. I was in a similar situation recently and I sent an e-mail to Eminence speakers (using their generic "[email protected]" address). I got fantastic service from a real human being and found out which drivers would work in my cab, which ones wouldn't, and some fairly specific discussion of why these things were true. They will need you to send in quite a few measurements of your cabinet, but if you have a tape measure you are 100% equipped to take this job on.

For a 2-speaker set-up, you may find getting your desired impedance to be an issue. I was looking for new drivers for a 2x10 cabinet and I wanted to end up with 8 ohm cabinet. I found practically nothing available in the aftermarket in any impedance OTHER than 8 ohm. In the end I resigned myself to the fact that if I went to aftermarket drivers, I was going to end up with an 4-ohm cabinet and I would have to figure out how to integrate that into my existing rig. This could end up being the deciding factor in the decision of whether to replace or repair/recone.

 

Hate to say it, but it's not that hard to come up with better drivers than what were in a lot of old cabs originally. Though it helps to measure the internal volume of the cab and its ports/vent to determine tuning and whether it would be easy to retune, a lot of the drivers put into cabs "back in the day" where not fine-tuned to the boxes - they were simply what was available.

Also note that the 1502 and often the 1505 BW are available in both 4 and 8 ohm versions/baskets.

 

Or not. Recones run around $60 on average. Add $15 to ship the driver to a reconing service and $15 to ship it back and you could have bought a new driver that's probably better anyway.

 

"Back in the day" reconing was usually more cost effective and what better drivers were around then, anyway, then the ones people tended to favor for their bass cabs. But lots of water has passed under the bridge, and for power handling alone it's often worth paying a little more for a driver anyway, than a recone+shipping would cost.

I mean, I doubt these are going to be highly sought after JBLs ; }

 

You're getting confused by the terminology, drivers are what you think of as a speaker, the drivers mounted in a box would be called a speaker. Anyway, you need to measure your cab volume internally, inside wall to inside wall, do not include the size of the tuning ports in this measurement. Then measure the tuning ports separately. If the ports are just tubes stuck in the box it should be fairly easy to cut some off or put in longer tubes if need be to retune to box. If your box is a copy of the old peavey 215 as greenboy says, a pair of BW's would be the easiest fit although your options are many nowdays. www.bltsound.com has good prices on eminence drivers.