B&W 802D tweeter replacement

$2200 is a small price to pay for a pair of 802Ds (assuming you like the sound!), so my suggestion is to grin and bear the premium of the original part. B&W makes their own drivers, so anything you try to replace the original with will be a deviation from the design and would require changes to the crossover (definitely) and the cabinet (likely).

I don’t see a remotely acceptable option other than writing the check for $2200.

Good luck!

As is, you'll have a better chance selling them. As soon as you mod them the value will drop.

Alternatively of course is looking on EBay for speakers with the same tweeter.

Best,
E

See if you can get the non D version it should fit physically whether the crossover will be right is another story.  Good Luck sincerely but I do agree the $2,200 for those speakers is a great deal  perhaps you can sell them as is.

Thanks for the info--very helpful.  I totally agree that $2200 is a great deal for the speakers. And I got a bunch of other equipment to create a really good system. I'm grateful for that and don't want to sell it so don't really care about resale. But spending a couple of thousand bucks on audio equipment wasn't exactly in the family budget before all this gear rained down on me and it still isn't...so I just want to figure out my most sensible move is.   I really like the way it sounds just the way it is, actually, and am happy to own this equipment for the rest of my life.

And the diamond part of these tweeters is intact--it's just the mylar (or whatever it is) membrane that was poked out. It would be great if I could just find a way to fix them. And if not, maybe I'll try mechans very economical suggestion (thanks!).

Thanks...if you search by part number (ZZ14265) you can see the tweeter for the 802D.  But I'll check with B&W to see if a less expensive tweeter from an Nautilus 802 (more like $150-$350) would work with the 802D enclosure.

If you use anything but the original Diamond tweeters, you will change the sound dramatically, and not necessarily for the better. The Nautilus tweets are aluminum and not even close to the Diamond ones, not to mention different crossover parts and values. Yes, those Diamond tweets are in the $1100 range, each.

I own both 804 Nautilus and 803D speakers. Both have exactly the same FST midrange (kevlar) driver, but different tweeters. I can tell you the Nautilus tweeter is dimensionally quite different than the diamond tweeter, and I don't think the Nautilus tweeter will mount properly on the 803D. They also have different sensitivities so you would have to alter the resistor in series with the tweeter, and maybe the coupling cap. 

Sound wise, I liked the Nautilus tweeter quite a bit. I don't think they are as far apart as some would have you believe. But all that is mute if you cannot mount them on the top.

One thing you might look into is whether the separate driver parts are available instead of the whole tweeter. I think they might be, as the exploded view in the technical manual shows individual parts. No sense buying the outer casing if yours is fine. 

Sell them as-is to someone that wants to repair them correctly. Love them or hate them, B&W speakers have amazing value on the secondary market, and you’re about to make them (close to) worthless. 

That’s not very helpful and why I don’t like forums. I’ll get advice elsewhere.

You asked for advice. Some of us have owned the 802D, myself included. I believe people were trying to be truthful and help you understand what you were about to undertake. You simply didn't like the answer you got and felt offended. With situations like this, the reality of it can be painful. Yes, you can do whatever you want to this speaker but it won't be in your best interest, unless you bite the bullet and get original Diamond replacements. You said your friend gave you those speakers. A new pair of those had a retail price of $14,000 when they were discontinued for the newer D2 series. Yes, $2200 is expensive for new tweeters, but considering you got the speakers free, most of us would look at it as a bargain for those speakers just having to buy the new tweets. IMHO.

At the online B&W parts store, the tweeter for the 800D series is available as a separate part, SKU 14265:

http://www.bwgroupusa.com/bwgroup-parts/index.php/bw/speakers/800-series/800d-series/803d/800d-tweet...

It is priced at $1086. Not much cheaper, but full replacements are now $1300.

If you can’t afford OEM tweeters, buy the tweeters anyway, bring the speakers back to spec, sell the speakers at a discount to market rates (assuming the rest of the speakers are in minty condition) and take the proceeds (minus the cost of the tweeters) and buy yourself a speaker you can afford (and perform the way the designer intended). They’ll move quickly. You’ll be waiting a long time for “used” tweeters to hit the market, and anything other than OEM will take the speaker out of spec, and, unless you are dishonest, will never sell should you choose to move on. 

I totally agree with Nrenter - 
get em fixed right, sell em’ for 5 grand or so and take the $2800 net profit to get what ever fits your needs - hell you could probinly get 3k for the as is and let the next owner fix them- personally, I paid 2500 for a pair of less than mint N802’s and feel like I scored - 
I would be delighted to be into a pair of 892d’s for the cost of replacing the tweeters - 

That’s not very helpful and why I don’t like forums. I’ll get advice elsewhere

Bye...............................

often domes will get pushed in and have no audible effect on the sound. You said you liked the sound as is so, enjoy it.

just out of curiosity, is this the type of thing Millersound can fix, or does the diamond part or being a tweeter in general preclude it?

I might be a bit late in the game but I had the same problem. Though I would definitely prefer the original B&W Diamond tweeters I could not afford the replacement which is CAD$1600 for one. So I was researching and found a German Company selling tweeters close to the electrical specs of the original https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Ground-Zero-Gzut-25SQX/dp/B0194BSSAE. Don't get me wrong this is a silk dome tweeter and is not playing in any league with the original one. Anyway I got them landed into Canada for under CAD200 a pair. I had measured impedance of the original and they are slightly smaller than what's needed for fitting it into the tweeter tube. So 3d printing to the help I printed an adapter ring for the housing and a thread adapter to screw it back into the tube. Electrical connector are the same. All in all I m very pleased with the result and for consistency I changed both speakers over at the same time. Then I measured the speakers with the Dirac room correction software and they were really close to the original ones I had measured before whit an actually smoother transition at high pass cut off frequency. After applying room correction I think I can't tell the difference. Although emotionally I think I lost the sparkle of the original ones.