Nautilus Bass drivers in a 703: is this a good idea?

[worldys]

I have a pair of 703 speakers. I bought 4 intact bass drivers for the Nautilus 804 off ebay some time ago. The size is right, so what do you guys think about switching out the 703 drivers for the better N804 drivers. Do you think this would make a good tweak? One could argue the 703 crossovers are tuned for those specific drivers, but is that really true? Wouldn't the better drivers just do a better job at reproducing the frequency range sent to them?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[hifiguymi]

I wouldn't do it. Not only are the crossovers tuned for the drivers in a speaker so are the enclosures. What you would end up with would be a worse sounding speaker

Eric

[akhter]

I might sound worse, but if you have the drivers, and unless its irreversible, it might make an interesting project.

[joetama]

I would say that it would not sound as good, because of the tuning...

However, you might luck out. Swapping them really shouldn't hurt anything, I would give it a try and see which ones sounded better...

[Luke Skywalker]

I find that the investment does not compensate.

[worldys]

thanks for the input

as an update, i decided to go ahead and do some experimentation but when it came down to installing the drivers, the screw holes do not line up so even though the divers are the same size, they won't sit flush

project aborted

[Briz vegas]

Thats what power tools are for.

Can you at least take the existing drivers out and see how similar they are or blue tack the 800 series in place just to see how they sound (in the moments before they vibrate loose and dangle by their connecting wires). I would think you would need to change the crossovers as well if they are different.

I would be tempted to make your own speakers with those drivers. Maybe some open baffle style thing - I've heard some amaxing results with little more than a good driver and 3 large pieces of MDF - although these would need other drivers for the mids and highs.

Have fun, experiment !

[Iggurk]

Instead of changing the drivers I've updated the internal cable, the binding post and the filters.

The result is purely amazing, the bass are much better, the medium is more open and much more detailed.

I've modified all my speakers with always a very good result, the most impressive is perhaps the HTM7 & 705, that sound amazing. After the mods they sound better than the 703, took me lot of time and mods to have the 703 at the same level of quality.

It's not too expensive mods, but require lot of time and effort, around 8h of work on one 703, and 2h on a 705.

You can find pictures, schema of the filters and more here (french): http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/v...php?t=29794475