Where to get very thin speakers?

[mitaux8030]

Got a radio that has terrible audio. I'm looking at replacing it with a different & hopefully better sounding speaker.

I'm looking for suppliers of a very thin speaker, needs to be 2 inches or 50mm in diameter, and absolutely no more than 0.276 inch or 6mm thick.

I've looked at the offerings from DigiKey, Mouser, Maplin & Farnell. None in their 2 inch/50mm range are thin enough. Any suggestions?

 

[rexgame]

Parts Express. Call or e-mail them with your use, and what the current speaker looks like. They'll make sure it's the right size and ohm rating.

 

[mancow]

Sounds like a speaker from a bendix/king might work. I will measure one when I get time and let you know.

 

[mancow]

It looks like the king speaker is about 1 3/4 and about a 1/4 thick.

 

[digproc]

I agree another speaker is worth a try if you can find one, especially if you can replace a non-neodymium-magnet speaker with a neodymium-magnet speaker. Other considerations are that some radios (no idea how many) do have an output equalization circuit tailored to the production speaker to help alleviate its non-flat response--and there certainly might be a mistake in the equalizer's design or even a mismatch caused by production when they swapped to a cheaper speaker, not realizing the matching issue. And then there's the issue of peak driver power (which is apparent if it sounds bad only with high volume).

Its OK to use a speaker with higher impedance if you don't mind a proportional drop in volume. But its usually not a good idea to use a lower-impedance speaker than the original--you could even damage your output ckt if you run it too loud for too long. Also some speakers are strictly for headphones because they have a low peak power limitation for mechanical reasons. Finally, watch out for long ship times from china.

These are 8 ohms, 1" dia. X 6.35mm thick. (Seller says they are headphone speakers, but then says they handle several watts!):

New 1" 8 Ohm Headphone Neodymium Speaker Element #188 - eBay (item 350225853191 end time Sep-06-10 11:08:04 PDT)

4 of them: http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-4-New-1-8-O...kers-189-/350369576235?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers

Since they're 1" wide, you might even fit 2 or 3 in there and series or parallel them for better impedance match.