Rockola 425 upper speaker replacement

The speakers in the upper box of my 425 were sounding good and looked fine. Stupidly, I lightly touched the foam on one and it disintegrated instantly.

What are my best replacement options? I have a feeling the newer 8 ohm speakers that are readily available will sound better than some 45 year old 16 ohms that I can scavenge off ebay. I'm not so good with the science of speakers. I've read I should add a resistor if I use 8 ohm speakers, is that something I can find at radio shack? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

thanks

Depending on the size and shape of the speakers, there are refoaming kits available. A Google search will reveal a number of vendors that supply the glue, the foam surrounds, and complete instructions. I've done many sets and it's not a bad job. Then you get to keep your original speakers as long as the voice coils are good.

Good luck!

-Jim

Dewey,
IMHO, you are ALWAYS better off keeping "original" speakers--especially in a jukebox--
If you do not want to DIY, most speaker re-conners will do it for a small price--
Ron Rich

Dewey,

How familiar are you with the history of your machine? I'm thinking those might not be the original speakers. I'm not sure when foam speaker surrounds were first used, but I've never seen them in something that old.
You might want to verify the correct part numbers on those speakers.

As far as replacements go, I agree that newer speakers probably do sound better, but maybe not in that jukebox. I side with Ron's advice - best to stay as original as possible. Everything was designed to work as a system - you can't alter one piece of that system without affecting it as a whole. I'm much more concerned with my jukes sounding authentic and original than "better".

Nelson

Dewey: I concur with Bigdog. the speakers in that model should be the same as the next year model 426 that is what we have. They are all paper. they are rather odd in that I believe they are 5x7 16ohm speakers that have 2 attachments only at the top and bottom, the long axis of the speakers. When we started working on the 426 it had the wrong speakers and took several tries to get good ones. Mark

I misspoke previously, they were not foam around the edges, just extremely brittle paper.

Being impatient and having nothing to loose, I opted for trying to repair them myself.
Used a few light coats of rubber cement with some thin tissue paper and it seems to have done the trick. Not perfect, but sound is very good and I am happy with the results. Thanks to everyone for the input.