Replacing speakers in Lat-1's


Can I put better speakers in cabinet to get better sound?
radrog
Just thought I would ask since the Lat-1's have one of the best crossovers money can buy in them. Thought if i get same impedance etc. I could get a better speaker to put in the Lat-1's.

There is a heck of a lot more to matching specifications than driver impedance! If you take just the impedance, you'll find this varies with frequency. First, there is the DC electrical resistance. Then you have the AC impedance which will vary with frequency. The curve for 8 ohm driver "A" may be completely different than the plot for 8 ohm driver "B".

If these don't match exactly, your "best crossover money can buy" might as well be a generic unit from Parts Express.

From there you have "free air resonance", the "Q" (both electrical and mechanical), dispersion patterns, excursion potentials, equivalent air compliance and on and on.

I guess my question for you would be: what's wrong with the current drivers?

For my system, the LAST thing I'd want would be drivers that were not specifically selected for my speakers.
Ok I just learned something. Nothing is wrong with them. Just thought I could upgrade the speakers. I guess I was wrong.
There are a few manufacturers that allow upgrades in consumer audio - although it is not al that common in speakers. Merlin speakers comes to mind. ATC also, if you bought an ATC 100 in the early 90's, it would have an older design woofer and an older type tweeter - it would also have a first generation amplifier pack. ATC sells kits to upgrade front baffle to fit a newer tweeter, while the woofer is a simple replacement (with the old one sent back for refurb) and the amp pack is also a replacement pack that just pops in. They also sell recone kits because the drivers are simply too expensive to toss in the garbage if they get blown up from abuse. The reason they can do this is that ATC make almost all the parts in house (just outsource the cabinet work) and they haven't substantially changed the major aspects of the design so improvements can be retrofitted in much the same way you still see Boeing 737 aircraft flying around after all these years (after all acoustic and aeronautical physics doesn't change all that fast so the designs progress but do not change that often.). The only way this works is if you have a design that continues to sell after many years. It also means your target market are customers who tend to keep gear longer and expect it to be reliable and easy to maintain.
What is your system by the way????
Nothing fancy, but I like it. I've got a pair of Spendor SP1/2Es driven by an Image 65i tube amp. Source is a Squeezebox through a Lavry DA-10 DAC.

Spendor makes their own mid/bass units in house and use a fairly high crossover point to the tweeter. There would be no practical substitute for the mid-woofer and they are already using Scanspeak for the tweeters. Use any other drivers in that speaker and you've completely defeated the purpose of buying a Spendor. You're in the same boat with any high quality design.