Bozak B199a

The Bozak B199a woofer dates to the early 1960’s. The pair below came with the typical tweeter array mounted on a frame that extended across the big 12-inch driver, making this a coaxial speaker. It was likely loaded in a large infinite baffle enclosure, where it stayed for 4o+ years.

This 12 inch driver is an excellent speaker. Robust and extremely well made, with a super heavy hemp cone and an alnico magnet. The cone material here is a Rudy Bozak secret, and of great interest. It seems to have inspired (or been inspired by) some of the cone material you see in the superb quality 60’s Japanese drivers from Pioneer, etc. Smooth on one side but rough and sinewy on the rear. The tweeters this came with however were not so great. Liberated from those, this driver is capable of portraying a very realistic soundscape, with deep and rich bass and a wonderful full tonality. While not terribly efficient, it does play fine with the larger single ended amp, say 5-6 or more watts per channel, making it a good match for 300B amps. Paired with an appropriate tweeter, it can make a very good open baffle speaker system, and I have read positive comments online about these in direct comparison to some very rare 50’s Western Electric/Altec drivers. These are definitely worth a look.