Hi everyone.
John "Lemosteam" LeMerise made two 3D-print enclosures available for upgrading the speaker in an IM SD40-2. One of the enclosures is for a 9x16mm speaker; the other is for an 8x12mm. I tried out both of them in my "test bed" SD40, and made a video of the results:
To my ears, the 9x16mm speaker sounds best. I used one of my old stash of Knowles Fox speakers, but the CUI 9x16 (available from Digikey) has almost identical specs to the no-longer-available Fox - it has a bit more lower midrange, which makes the sound a bit more "full" than the 8x12 (a Soberton, also available from Digikey). Both, however, are a substantial improvement over the stock speaker (just a note that the stock speaker is at a small disadvantage here since I recorded it without the shell on, which would help the sound with a bit more reverb; I no longer have the stock speaker, and couldn't use it anyway given my surgery to replace it, but I can verify that the two replacements DO in fact sound substantially better than the stock one).
Here is a photo of the two enclosures, with speakers in them (the 9x16 is on the left; the 8x12 is on the right):
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Both enclosures fit perfectly in the cutout in the fuel tank of the SD40-2.
For those of you interested in how to do this speaker transplant, here is my original thread on how to do it:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=41025.msg509857#msg509857The enclosures are available here:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/N8M7HBL6Y/2pk-8x12-soberton-offset-speaker-enclosure?optionId=62934409 (8x12)
https://www.shapeways.com/product/W64FT84NN/16x9-spkr-enclos-2pk?optionId=62916866 (9x16)
9x16 CUI and 8x12 Soberton speakers are available from Digikey.
John C.
