Hi everyone,

I haven't been around here for a while because I found that talking about hi-fi all the time resulted in buying hi-fi all the time and I ran out of money :-)

I've just moved my beloved JPW AP2s to their new home and on arival discovered that there's no bass! They were not bumped at all in transit but the foam surrounds for the bass drivers have disintegrated which I have since discovered is a common problem with these drivers.

I've had the AP2s from new in about 1990 and it's the one part of my system I have never upgraded - as everything else got more expensive the AP2s kept up and revealed all the nice detail so obviously replacement drivers is one option. That would cost me about £130 the pair so before I put my hand in my pocket for those drivers I have 2 questions:

- If I shell out for the drivers (which I see come with non-rotting foam surrounds these days), is there anything else which is likely to fail on JPW speakers of this age?

- The AP2s only cost me £150 so before I spend £130 on bass drivers I thought it worth asking whether there are other speakers in that price bracket that I ought to audition as possible replacements?

Thanks as always,

Simon.