NEAR Speakers Indentification

@mikekeiper11  some pictures might help? 

Apologies for not including a picture initially, Audiogon is not very streamlined for uploading images.  
 

here is a picture from the original listing- the back is just a set of single banana jacks with no other information. 
 

https://imgpile.com/i/h3esTa

They are NEAR Soundmast speakers. They originally had a sock for a grill like the Definitive Tech speakers or Vandersteens. They are worth about a hundred bucks and honestly were never that great. Every pair we ever sold a zillion years ago had issues with the surrounds coming detached from the metal cones. They have a really laid back sound…almost have you questioning if the tweeter is even functioning on some music. They used to make really funky looking green outdoor speakers with aluminum drivers that mysteriously functioned without spiders on the woofer cones. They sounded pretty nice if I recall, despite the odd looks and unconventional design. Looks like they might be owned by Bogen now from a quick Google search.

Looks like they still make those funky drivers. If you Google “NEAR spiderless driver with magnetic liquid suspension” there’s an interesting video about the design from the company.

https://youtu.be/a1OkbPwAeBU

Fingers crossed the drivers in those towers aren’t of the same Magnetic Liquid Suspension design.  There’s no way any of those still exist that don’t have all the ferrofluid evaporated out of them after 20 years.  I’m totally fine with being wrong but you may be embarking on an impossible mission.

@10229 Thank you for the insight!  It's actually interesting that you comment on the laid back sound, they sound very forward to my ears...though it could be recency bias as they're hooked up to the same system as my Thiel CS2, which have a much more refined sound and present fairly "laid back" to my ears.

As for the woofer itself, it doesn't appear to be the MLS variety.  NEAR still exists via Bogen's website, and they are producing a form of outdoor speaker with the MLS woofer inside. I read somewhere that NEAR bought Bozak (could be wrong on that) and that a lot of their engineering work was towards improving on the design of Bozak drivers.  I actually pulled one of the woofers out to inspect it - it's just a big, bulbous backed driver that weighs a ton in my hand.  I know very little of Bozak's driver design, but I have reason to believe that the driver could be Bozak (or based off of Bozak) as opposed to NEAR's MLS design.

Whatever the case, the damaged driver does still play at the moment.  I have no plans to sell them but would love to clean them up a bit, maybe craft a replacement sock, and then hold onto them as an oddity in my collection.  

Post a picture of that driver if you can, maybe we can help find a replacement.

Bozaks good woofers back in the day were 12” & required a few of them to have good bass.